Does Anyone feel like Bailing

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Ok, I see your point now. But I don't believe that each and every president will have to spend more and more. Spending is done by Congress mostly. Congress is the one to blame. Congress can control spending. And deep cuts will have to be made. The continual deficit spending is out of control.

This prediction has no real base to it but generational political divides might become very large in the upcoming decades. Unless there is some effective reform, the US might face the choice of cutting large amounts of social security, medicare, etc or face extremely large deficits.

Though of course, congress isn't going to do shit about it until the political pressures are too high. Republicans and Democrats are fighting over the captain's chair in a sinking ship.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

This prediction has no real base to it but generational political divides might become very large in the upcoming decades. Unless there is some effective reform, the US might face the choice of cutting large amounts of social security, medicare, etc or face extremely large deficits.

Though of course, congress isn't going to do shit about it until the political pressures are too high. Republicans and Democrats are fighting over the captain's chair in a sinking ship.

I think you are right on target. I can't agree more.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I think you are right on target. I can't agree more.

You might also stop blaming the recovery program for the growing deficits.

[TheMercenary]

This is pretty good. Pretty funny video too.

http://politicalmath.wordpress.com/2...ebt-road-trip/

In this video, I wanted to take a close look at the historical nature of the US debt. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say all I wanted to say or it would have been three times as long and I would have bored myself to death trying to make it.

First of all, I would like to state that I am not trying to defend President Bush’s spending. I personally think Bush was spending far too much. My preference would be to reduce the debt… or at least stay put and let inflation take it’s toll on the debt. My point in this video is that it is the most absurd hypocrisy for someone to complain about how much Bush spent and then yawn when Obama is spending so much more.

A close look at the numbers reveals that this isn’t even a “We’re in a recession, we have to spend that money” issue. Obama’s high deficit plans continue long after the recession is projected to end.

Next, I want to give some pointers to the data I used and then I want to clear up some of the muddier issues in the video.

This video uses the US Treasury’s data on the national debt for the debt numbers and adjusts each year for inflation using the inflation numbers on this site.

In order to understand where the debt would be in 2016, I used the the President’s estimate in his latest budget proposal. These numbers are generally accepted to be optimistic (the Congressional Budget Office has them pegged at much higher), but I didn’t want to put the president at an unfair advantage.

Actually (and I would do this over again if I could) I calculated the future debt with regards to inflation (I assumed about 1.0% inflation per year) so that President Obama is going slower than if I just used his own numbers. I tried to bend the numbers to Obama’s advantage, not because I agree with him, but so that there is no room for the accusation of number fudging.

In retrospect, I think it would have been more fair to assume that the President’s team had already assumed the inflation calculation and that their 2016 debt data was calculated in 2016 money and not 2008 money.

So that’s all about the calculations… now I’d like to make a note about some other decisions I made. I thought it was important to keep in mind which party held Congress. The reason is because it is actually more accurate to say

“Under President So-and-so, the debt increased by X amount”

due to the fact that the president only proposes the budget and must work with Congress in order to get a budget passed.

In 1994, we voted in a Congress that was remarkably fiscally conservative… so much so that they fought a protracted battle with President Clinton in 1995 trying desperately to get him to agree to a lower budget. The press ripped the Republican Congress (particularly Newt Gingrich) to shreds over it and they (the Republicans) ended up conceeding the matter.

On the other side of things, Reagan tried to pass smaller budgets, but the House of Representitives was heavily Democratic and added to his proposed budget until he refused to sign, leading to another government shutdown.

Long story short, the budget is a combined effort of what the president proposes and what the Congress decides, so I thought it was only fair to mention both sides of the equation once the debt really started increasing drastically. This, of course, is only more damning to Bush and Obama, since both of them have (or had) a situation in which their party is in complete control of the government.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

This is pretty good. Pretty funny video too.

http://politicalmath.wordpress.com/2...ebt-road-trip/

So do you still blame the Recovery Act for the growing deficits?

[Shawnee123]

I don't know. I saw the "long story short" heading the last paragraph, and didn't bother reading any of it.

Experience tells me when anyone says "long story short" it's always wayyyyy too late.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

So do you still blame the Recovery Act for the growing deficits?

Are you still trying to defend the spending of the last 13 months by this Congress as not having an astronomical increase in our deficit?

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Are you still trying to defend the spending of the last 13 months by this Congress as not having an astronomical increase in our deficit?

I am just asking you how to explain your claim that the Recovery Act was responsible for the deficit....when in fact, it represents a small percentage of the budget, depending on whether you include the social safety net programs or just the grant programs.

Feel free to review my night class and dispute it if you believe it is incorrect.

The overwhelming contributions to the deficit increase are entitlements, the inclusion of Iraq/Afghanistan funding for the first time, and other mandatory programs.

[TheMercenary]

The CBO reported in October 2009 reasons for the difference between the 2008 and 2009 deficits, which were approximately $460 billion and $1,410 billion, respectively. Key categories of changes included: tax receipt declines of $320 billion due to the effects of the recession and another $100 billion due to tax cuts in the stimulus bill (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or ARRA); $245 billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and other bailout efforts; $100 billion in additional spending for ARRA; and another $185 billion due to increases in primary budget categories such as Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, Social Security, and Defense. This was the highest budget deficit relative to GDP (9.9%) since 1945. The national debt increased by $1.9 trillion during FY2009, versus the $1.0 trillion increase during 2008.

2/3rds of the increase was due to spending by this Congress, pretty commonly known.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...federal_budget

Pretty much what I said... it is not primarily attributable to the Recovery Act ($100 b in lost revenue from tax cuts and $100 b spending)....but to entitlements (SS/Medicare), other mandatory programs (medicaid, UI, etc), Defense (includes Iraq/Afghanistan funding for the first time) and TARP.

SO you really havent explained your claim that it was due to Recovery act funding.
'
Do you even understand that the biggest single piece of the Recovery pie is not spending...but tax cuts -- $288 out of $787... And yes, tax cuts impact the deficit as lost revenue. But both the tax cuts and the spending are spread out over 3 fiscal years.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

Pretty much what I said... it is not primarily attributable to the Recovery Act ($100 b in lost revenue from tax cuts and $100 b spending)....but to entitlements (SS/Medicare), other mandatory programs (medicaid, UI, etc), Defense (includes Iraq/Afghanistan funding for the first time) and TARP.

SO you really havent explained your claim that it was due to Recovery act funding.

So what are you trying to say? That this Congress and Administration is not responsible the deficit? Or just that The Recovery Act is such a small part that it has nothing to do with the Trillion dollar deficit?

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

So what are you trying to say? That this Congress and Administration is not responsible the deficit? Or just that The Recovery Act is such a small part that it has nothing to do with the Trillion dollar deficit?

Just saying that you FAILED when you claimed the increasing deficit was due primarily to the Recovery Act.

The biggest increases in the budget: Defense (up 13% due in large part to including Iraq/Afghanistan funding)....Social Security (up 5% - entitlement - Congress cant cut), Medicare (up 7% - entitlement - Congress cant cut).....Medicaid (up 12% due to 2+ years of increasing unemployment...you want to cut?)....oh, TARP funding (phased out)

[TheMercenary]

You can't ignore the TARP, Bail out of Fanny and Freddie, and the Recovery Reinvestment Act. Those three things pushed the deficit over the edge.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

You can't ignore the TARP, Bail out of Fanny and Freddie, and the Recovery Reinvestment Act. Those three things pushed the deficit over the edge.

TARP spending was phased out in FY 10.

I never said you can ignore ARRA ...but that you were incorrect to suggest it was the primary cause of the increase in deficits.

And again....the biggest single piece of ARRA contributing to the deficit are the tax cuts.

[TheMercenary]

According the very link that I posted it made up a minor part of the overall deficit.

Maximum Amount: $66.13 billion
Deficit Impact: $17.76 billion