Are You Scared Yet? Read this!

The problem with current economic policy is that it ignores the fact that either the Irish or German constitutional courts are going to blow up the EU bailouts within three months if they don't get blown up sooner. The degrees of freedom available to US policy makers are almost zero.
 
either the Irish or German constitutional courts are going to blow up the EU bailouts within three months

Why? How do you know this?
It's been in the news since the Greek crisis Germany's constitution restricts its direct funding of foreign nations. I would suspect that it is one of those clauses inserted by the allies after WWII into the German constitution to prevent the funding of fifth columns but I do not know German law. I do know that existing lawsuits are scheduled to have published decisions and that bookies in the UK are posting odds that greatly favor German participation being declared unconstitutional.

With the Irish court the problem is the huge target selection: raiding retirement accounts, postponing general election, bailing out the UK and no doubt other provisions of the bailout; are purportedly open and shut violations of the Irish constitution. How quickly the cases will be heard I have no idea but it is likely to be quick if the government is not thrown out and perhaps banned first.
 
National debt increase by president:
> Ronald Reagan’s First Term – $656 billion increase

> Ronald Reagan’s Second Term – $1.036 trillion increase

> George H.W. Bush’s Term – $1.587 trillion increase

> Bill Clinton’s First Term – $1.122 trillion increase

> Bill Clinton’s Second Term – $418 billion increase

> George W. Bush’s First Term – $1.885 trillion increase

> George W. Bush’s Second Term – $3.014 trillion increase

> Barack Obama’s First “Year” – $1.573 trillion increase

The National Debt by President The National Debt Crisis

What's your point?

You don't like Reagan?

You don't realize what he did for the world?

Both?

White House 2002

‘You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due.’
VP Dick Cheney to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill

George W. Bush: ‘Haven't we already given money to rich people? This second tax cut's gonna do it again’

His advisers: ‘Well Mr. President, the upper class, they're the entrepreneurs. That's the standard response.’

George W. Bush: ‘Well, shouldn't we be giving money to the middle, won't people be able to say, ‘You did it once, and then you did it twice, and what was it good for?’

Karl Rove: ‘Stick to principle. Stick to principle.’ He says it over and over again, 'Don’t waver.'

In the end, the president didn't. And nine days after that meeting in which O'Neill made it clear he could not publicly support another tax cut, the vice president called and asked him to resign.

Bush Sought ‘Way’ To Invade Iraq - 60 Minutes - CBS News



When Ronald Reagan took office, the gross national debt sat at 33.4 percent of the annual GDP. The public debt stood at 26.1 percent. That was the total accumulated national debt — the New Deal, World War II, Vietnam, all of it.

During the cheery Decade of the Gipper, gross debt skyrocketed to 55.9 percent and public debt increased to 42 percent.

Enter Bill Clinton. When he left office in 2000, that 55.9 percent had risen only slightly to 58 percent, and, amazingly, the public debt had actually dropped to 35.1 percent. An increase in the gross debt of only 2.1 percent (in eight years!) combined with a public debt decrease of 6.9 percent.

In comes George W. Bush, and whoosh — so much for the trend line. Eight years later, 55.9 percent had risen to a whopping 86.1 percent, the public debt had risen to 54.6 percent … and then came the meltdown of the summer and fall of 2008.

The spin at the Republican National Committee, when you bring all this up, is “OK, we learned our lesson and won’t make the same mistakes again. This time we mean business.”

You conservatives are calling for smaller government and apparently the idea is winning you votes. So, OK, here’s an idea: How about a statute that limits the amount of federal money going to states to the amount of taxes paid out by residents of those same states? That would have the effect not only of saving money, but making government smaller.

Before you answer, consider: America has its “productive states,” and, well, all the rest. States that aren’t so, er … productive. The bad news for you conservatives is that almost every one of the states on the public dole is a red state — your states, the “Real America” states.

As a result, “Real Americans” are relying for their survival on the godless, socialist, perversion-on-every-block blue states, such as — egads! — California (which receives only 78 cents back for every dollar its residents pay in) and New York (only 79 cents back on the every tax dollar sent to Washington). And all the while, these liberal citizens have to put up with nonstop rants directed at them by your cadre of mindless pundits.

As you might imagine, this arrangement isn’t going down well in Blueland.

You see, the 18 bluest-of-the-godless-blue states receive on average only 87 cents in federal tax dollars for every tax dollar paid. On the other hand, the 18 reddest states average a tidy $1.37 for every dollar mailed off to the IRS. Such a deal!

Let’s get specific: California, which we know is broke, subsidizes that sanctimonious buckeroo state, Alaska ($1.84 on the dollar), and doesn’t get so much as a howdy-doo for their trouble.

My guess? Even should you “conservatives” win back temporary control of the Congress and finally face the reality of governing, when push comes to shove you will resist any cuts to most of the so-called social safety net (and related sources of federal largess). You pretty much have to because if you don’t, what’s going to happen back home?

Indeed, if past is prologue, your new red state members of Congress will use those same arcane Senate rules to keep the “good times” coming, while voting against all social and economic policy proposals that smack of “secular humanism” — you know, godless things, like energy legislation, health care reform, Wall Street reform, regulation of Big Oil, Big Tobacco and Big Agriculture, etc.
Subsidizing the red states
 
Finally a guy who is will to tell the truth, but of course no one on the right is going to believe it because it doesn't come right out of the mouth of GLEN BECK.

Isn't it funny how so many or the right who live in Red states believe that everyone else is getting from them when in all reality it is them who is living on govt welfare as a state.

And the answer is cut everyone Else's benefits and cut taxes mainly for the rich and somehow this is going to make it better. I say lets say that no state can get over 80% of what they pay into the fed gov back from the fed govt. The red states need to pay their fair share.
 
National debt increase by president:
> Ronald Reagan’s First Term – $656 billion increase

> Ronald Reagan’s Second Term – $1.036 trillion increase

> George H.W. Bush’s Term – $1.587 trillion increase

> Bill Clinton’s First Term – $1.122 trillion increase

> Bill Clinton’s Second Term – $418 billion increase

> George W. Bush’s First Term – $1.885 trillion increase

> George W. Bush’s Second Term – $3.014 trillion increase

> Barack Obama’s First “Year” – $1.573 trillion increase

The National Debt by President The National Debt Crisis

What's your point?

You don't like Reagan?

You don't realize what he did for the world?

Both?

White House 2002

Subsidizing the red states

"Enter Bill Clinton. When he left office in 2000, that 55.9 percent had risen only slightly to 58 percent, and, amazingly, the public debt had actually dropped to 35.1 percent. An increase in the gross debt of only 2.1 percent (in eight years!) combined with a public debt decrease of 6.9 percent."

My, oh, my....poor BoringFriendlessGuy....

Your politics has stunted your education. But I love it, because it gives me a chance to enlighten any who read this and give you your usual spanking....

Once I show what horsefeathers your quote above is, I suggest that any readers apply the same punishment to both your sources, and, what passes for knowledge from you.

1. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Bill Clinton ran surpluses from 1998 through 2001, the first surpluses in twenty-eight years.

a. The national debt rose every single year that Clinton was in office. fayfreethinkers.com • View topic - Did the national debt go down under Clinton?

2. There are many ways to report data in more or less favorable ways: if there is a real cash surplus, the national debt would, of necessity, be reduced.

a. “It's as if you still have household payments of a credit card, a car payment, a mortgage payment, utility payments, etc., but you curb spending enough so that, after all your regular payments during the month, you have money left over. You still have debt, but you've managed it with regard to your budget spending on the payments.” fayfreethinkers.com • View topic - Did the national debt go down under Clinton?

3. In 2000, President Clinton stated that the recent surplus “represented the largest one-year debt reduction in the history of the United States…the $5.7 trillion national debt has been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years -- $223 billion this year alone.” President Clinton announces another record budget surplus - September 27, 2000

a. CNN stated “The federal budget surplus for fiscal year 1999 was $122.7 billion, and $69.2 billion for fiscal year 1998. Those back-to-back surpluses, the first since 1957, allowed the Treasury to pay down $138 billion in national debt.” Ibid.

b. So, it seems, not only did President Clinton run a surplus, but he reduced the national debt!

4. Would you like to see the actual national debt figures?
1993 4,351,044
1994 4,643,307
1995 4,920,586
1996 5,181,465
1997 5,369,206
1998 5,478,189
1999 5,605,523
2000 5,628,700

Historical Tables | The White House (table 7.1)

The table 7.1 will also show that he inherited a $4 trillion debt.
* That is a 41% increase!!!

5. There are, actually, two kinds of government debt, public debt, which we owe to bondholders and other investors, and intragovernmental debt, which is debt the government owes to itself. National debt is actually the total of the two. President Clinton was speaking of the public debt alone, ignoring the intragovernmental portion. This is because the intragovernmental debt goes up every year.

6. The White House OMB reports a total deficit of $320.4 billion over the eight year period, ’93-2000. Historical Tables | The White House (table 1.1)

And they also report a national debt increase of $1.6 trillion over the eight years. So, how to explain Clinton’s ‘historic surplus’?


Hint: President Reagan saved his bacon, and provided him with 'revenue.'

Now, if you are a good boy, and sit up and beg, I might be persuaded to start a thread on economics and accounting principles....

although, I admit, it may be difficult to explain it to one as 'swift' as you, Einstein.
 
Finally a guy who is will to tell the truth, but of course no one on the right is going to believe it because it doesn't come right out of the mouth of GLEN BECK.

Isn't it funny how so many or the right who live in Red states believe that everyone else is getting from them when in all reality it is them who is living on govt welfare as a state.

And the answer is cut everyone Else's benefits and cut taxes mainly for the rich and somehow this is going to make it better. I say lets say that no state can get over 80% of what they pay into the fed gov back from the fed govt. The red states need to pay their fair share.

Check out the post just above, and see how dumb it makes you look, Einstein#2.
 
Who makes up the political parties that select candidates for us to vote for?
Who votes for those candidates?
Who keeps reelecting those "leaders" time after time?

People.
Most of who is in control of the world's economies aren't elected.
completely true. Central banks are the main culprit. They blow bubbles that eventually bust and then ask, "Did I do that?"
 
Who makes up the political parties that select candidates for us to vote for?
Who votes for those candidates?
Who keeps reelecting those "leaders" time after time?

People.
Most of who is in control of the world's economies aren't elected.

I'd like to add to that equation something that I said in another thread...while we appear to elect folks that we choose, there is a school of thought that suggests otherwise, that the ruling class today is cut, basically from the same cookie-cutter...

because there is reason to believe that we labor under the illusion that we, the people, select our leaders...

1. The latest variation of totalitarianism is neither religious, nor even political: it is cultural. “Totalitarian democracy” is a term made famous by J. L. Talmon to refer to a system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of the government.

In this thought, we are given bogus choices...and they are largely identical.

This, from Angelo Codevilla:
2. Today's ruling class was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints.

3. When pollsters ask the American people whether they are likely to vote Republican or Democrat in the next presidential election, Republicans win growing pluralities. But whenever pollsters add the preferences "undecided," "none of the above," or "tea party," these win handily, the Democrats come in second, and the Republicans trail far behind.

a. Democratic politicians are the ruling class's prime legitimate representatives and that because Republican politicians are supported by only a fourth of their voters while the rest vote for them reluctantly, most are aspirants for a junior role in the ruling class. In short, the ruling class has a party, the Democrats. But some two-thirds of Americans -- a few Democratic voters, most Republican voters, and all independents -- lack a vehicle in electoral politics.
The American Spectator : America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution
 
What's your point?

You don't like Reagan?

You don't realize what he did for the world?

Both?

White House 2002

Subsidizing the red states

"Enter Bill Clinton. When he left office in 2000, that 55.9 percent had risen only slightly to 58 percent, and, amazingly, the public debt had actually dropped to 35.1 percent. An increase in the gross debt of only 2.1 percent (in eight years!) combined with a public debt decrease of 6.9 percent."

My, oh, my....poor BoringFriendlessGuy....

Your politics has stunted your education. But I love it, because it gives me a chance to enlighten any who read this and give you your usual spanking....

Once I show what horsefeathers your quote above is, I suggest that any readers apply the same punishment to both your sources, and, what passes for knowledge from you.

1. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Bill Clinton ran surpluses from 1998 through 2001, the first surpluses in twenty-eight years.

a. The national debt rose every single year that Clinton was in office. fayfreethinkers.com • View topic - Did the national debt go down under Clinton?

2. There are many ways to report data in more or less favorable ways: if there is a real cash surplus, the national debt would, of necessity, be reduced.

a. “It's as if you still have household payments of a credit card, a car payment, a mortgage payment, utility payments, etc., but you curb spending enough so that, after all your regular payments during the month, you have money left over. You still have debt, but you've managed it with regard to your budget spending on the payments.” fayfreethinkers.com • View topic - Did the national debt go down under Clinton?

3. In 2000, President Clinton stated that the recent surplus “represented the largest one-year debt reduction in the history of the United States…the $5.7 trillion national debt has been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years -- $223 billion this year alone.” President Clinton announces another record budget surplus - September 27, 2000

a. CNN stated “The federal budget surplus for fiscal year 1999 was $122.7 billion, and $69.2 billion for fiscal year 1998. Those back-to-back surpluses, the first since 1957, allowed the Treasury to pay down $138 billion in national debt.” Ibid.

b. So, it seems, not only did President Clinton run a surplus, but he reduced the national debt!

4. Would you like to see the actual national debt figures?
1993 4,351,044
1994 4,643,307
1995 4,920,586
1996 5,181,465
1997 5,369,206
1998 5,478,189
1999 5,605,523
2000 5,628,700

Historical Tables | The White House (table 7.1)

The table 7.1 will also show that he inherited a $4 trillion debt.
* That is a 41% increase!!!

5. There are, actually, two kinds of government debt, public debt, which we owe to bondholders and other investors, and intragovernmental debt, which is debt the government owes to itself. National debt is actually the total of the two. President Clinton was speaking of the public debt alone, ignoring the intragovernmental portion. This is because the intragovernmental debt goes up every year.

6. The White House OMB reports a total deficit of $320.4 billion over the eight year period, ’93-2000. Historical Tables | The White House (table 1.1)

And they also report a national debt increase of $1.6 trillion over the eight years. So, how to explain Clinton’s ‘historic surplus’?


Hint: President Reagan saved his bacon, and provided him with 'revenue.'

Now, if you are a good boy, and sit up and beg, I might be persuaded to start a thread on economics and accounting principles....

although, I admit, it may be difficult to explain it to one as 'swift' as you, Einstein.

Here's your phrase for the day: percent of GDP.

This simple 2nd grade math. If revenues are rising ahead of spending, the percent of debt decreases.

Yr/% of GDP
1993 66.1
1994 66.6
1995 67.0
1996 67.1
1997 65.4
1998 63.2
1999 60.9
2000 57.3
 

"Enter Bill Clinton. When he left office in 2000, that 55.9 percent had risen only slightly to 58 percent, and, amazingly, the public debt had actually dropped to 35.1 percent. An increase in the gross debt of only 2.1 percent (in eight years!) combined with a public debt decrease of 6.9 percent."

My, oh, my....poor BoringFriendlessGuy....

Your politics has stunted your education. But I love it, because it gives me a chance to enlighten any who read this and give you your usual spanking....

Once I show what horsefeathers your quote above is, I suggest that any readers apply the same punishment to both your sources, and, what passes for knowledge from you.

1. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Bill Clinton ran surpluses from 1998 through 2001, the first surpluses in twenty-eight years.

a. The national debt rose every single year that Clinton was in office. fayfreethinkers.com • View topic - Did the national debt go down under Clinton?

2. There are many ways to report data in more or less favorable ways: if there is a real cash surplus, the national debt would, of necessity, be reduced.

a. “It's as if you still have household payments of a credit card, a car payment, a mortgage payment, utility payments, etc., but you curb spending enough so that, after all your regular payments during the month, you have money left over. You still have debt, but you've managed it with regard to your budget spending on the payments.” fayfreethinkers.com • View topic - Did the national debt go down under Clinton?

3. In 2000, President Clinton stated that the recent surplus “represented the largest one-year debt reduction in the history of the United States…the $5.7 trillion national debt has been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years -- $223 billion this year alone.” President Clinton announces another record budget surplus - September 27, 2000

a. CNN stated “The federal budget surplus for fiscal year 1999 was $122.7 billion, and $69.2 billion for fiscal year 1998. Those back-to-back surpluses, the first since 1957, allowed the Treasury to pay down $138 billion in national debt.” Ibid.

b. So, it seems, not only did President Clinton run a surplus, but he reduced the national debt!

4. Would you like to see the actual national debt figures?
1993 4,351,044
1994 4,643,307
1995 4,920,586
1996 5,181,465
1997 5,369,206
1998 5,478,189
1999 5,605,523
2000 5,628,700

Historical Tables | The White House (table 7.1)

The table 7.1 will also show that he inherited a $4 trillion debt.
* That is a 41% increase!!!

5. There are, actually, two kinds of government debt, public debt, which we owe to bondholders and other investors, and intragovernmental debt, which is debt the government owes to itself. National debt is actually the total of the two. President Clinton was speaking of the public debt alone, ignoring the intragovernmental portion. This is because the intragovernmental debt goes up every year.

6. The White House OMB reports a total deficit of $320.4 billion over the eight year period, ’93-2000. Historical Tables | The White House (table 1.1)

And they also report a national debt increase of $1.6 trillion over the eight years. So, how to explain Clinton’s ‘historic surplus’?


Hint: President Reagan saved his bacon, and provided him with 'revenue.'

Now, if you are a good boy, and sit up and beg, I might be persuaded to start a thread on economics and accounting principles....

although, I admit, it may be difficult to explain it to one as 'swift' as you, Einstein.

Here's your phrase for the day: percent of GDP.

This simple 2nd grade math. If revenues are rising ahead of spending, the percent of debt decreases.

Yr/% of GDP
1993 66.1
1994 66.6
1995 67.0
1996 67.1
1997 65.4
1998 63.2
1999 60.9
2000 57.3

See...who said you weren't capable of learning!

First, you forgot to thank me for explaining why your Clinton quote was bogus,and an outright lie!

Such manners...no wonder you'r Friendless!

Don't you want to comment on the enlightenment that I provided, i.e. that the debt grew in every single year of the Clinton administration???

Booooooo!

Now just ask for an explaination of the expansion of the economy that Clinton benefitted from? (Oops...sorry to end the sentence with a preposition!)

Well, since you're either too shy, or too frightened that I might reveal further ignorance on your part, I'll take the initiative...

Three benefits of the Reagan presidency that helped Clinton convince dolts (insert your name here) that he reduced debt....get that, while his administration had a 41% increase in the national debt...but you claim he decreased same.

Now, get your pencil, and jot this down:

1) The 1983 Greenspan Commission initiated changes in Social Security that generated large surpluses. “As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs.” How Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan Pulled off the Greatest Fraud Ever Perpetrated against the American People | Dissident Voice

a. In 1985, the Social Security Trust Fund surplus was only $7.5 billion, a decade later it was $60.4 billion.

b. In 2000, the surplus was $152 billion. Clinton took the $152 billion, and counted it as income, instead of the debt it actually repesented.

Sweatin' yet?

2.The tax cuts of the Economic Recovery Act of 1981 stimulated economic growth. “As a 1982 JEC study pointed out,[1] similar across-the-board tax cuts had been implemented in the 1920s as the Mellon tax cuts, and in the 1960s as the Kennedy tax cuts. In both cases the reduction of high marginal tax rates actually increased tax payments by "the rich," also increasing their share of total individual income taxes paid.” The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform

“As inflation came down and as more and more of the tax cuts from the 1981 Act went into effect, the economy began a strong and sustained pattern of growthU.S. Treasury - Fact Sheet on the History of the U.S. Tax System

The rusult of said decrease in inflation and sustained growth of the economy dropped the government's costs of borrowing: net interest costs on the national debt dropped by 1% of GDP.

Are you having second thoughts…oops! That implies that you had first thoughts.


3. And, of course, the greatest benefit to the American people, the people of the world, and the 'bottom-line-propaganda' of Bill Clinton, the result of the defense/military build-up that resulted in the end of the Cold War, and Soviet's change from a red flag to a white flag...

Clinton's defense spending fell by 2.2% of GDP! The 'Peace Dividend!

Hey, let's put Ron on the Rock!


What’s that you’re muttering? “Must-defend-self…”

Now, where's that big THANK YOU????
 
"Enter Bill Clinton. When he left office in 2000, that 55.9 percent had risen only slightly to 58 percent, and, amazingly, the public debt had actually dropped to 35.1 percent. An increase in the gross debt of only 2.1 percent (in eight years!) combined with a public debt decrease of 6.9 percent."

My, oh, my....poor BoringFriendlessGuy....

Your politics has stunted your education. But I love it, because it gives me a chance to enlighten any who read this and give you your usual spanking....

Once I show what horsefeathers your quote above is, I suggest that any readers apply the same punishment to both your sources, and, what passes for knowledge from you.

1. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Bill Clinton ran surpluses from 1998 through 2001, the first surpluses in twenty-eight years.

a. The national debt rose every single year that Clinton was in office. fayfreethinkers.com • View topic - Did the national debt go down under Clinton?

2. There are many ways to report data in more or less favorable ways: if there is a real cash surplus, the national debt would, of necessity, be reduced.

a. “It's as if you still have household payments of a credit card, a car payment, a mortgage payment, utility payments, etc., but you curb spending enough so that, after all your regular payments during the month, you have money left over. You still have debt, but you've managed it with regard to your budget spending on the payments.” fayfreethinkers.com • View topic - Did the national debt go down under Clinton?

3. In 2000, President Clinton stated that the recent surplus “represented the largest one-year debt reduction in the history of the United States…the $5.7 trillion national debt has been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years -- $223 billion this year alone.” President Clinton announces another record budget surplus - September 27, 2000

a. CNN stated “The federal budget surplus for fiscal year 1999 was $122.7 billion, and $69.2 billion for fiscal year 1998. Those back-to-back surpluses, the first since 1957, allowed the Treasury to pay down $138 billion in national debt.” Ibid.

b. So, it seems, not only did President Clinton run a surplus, but he reduced the national debt!

4. Would you like to see the actual national debt figures?
1993 4,351,044
1994 4,643,307
1995 4,920,586
1996 5,181,465
1997 5,369,206
1998 5,478,189
1999 5,605,523
2000 5,628,700

Historical Tables | The White House (table 7.1)

The table 7.1 will also show that he inherited a $4 trillion debt.
* That is a 41% increase!!!

5. There are, actually, two kinds of government debt, public debt, which we owe to bondholders and other investors, and intragovernmental debt, which is debt the government owes to itself. National debt is actually the total of the two. President Clinton was speaking of the public debt alone, ignoring the intragovernmental portion. This is because the intragovernmental debt goes up every year.

6. The White House OMB reports a total deficit of $320.4 billion over the eight year period, ’93-2000. Historical Tables | The White House (table 1.1)

And they also report a national debt increase of $1.6 trillion over the eight years. So, how to explain Clinton’s ‘historic surplus’?


Hint: President Reagan saved his bacon, and provided him with 'revenue.'

Now, if you are a good boy, and sit up and beg, I might be persuaded to start a thread on economics and accounting principles....

although, I admit, it may be difficult to explain it to one as 'swift' as you, Einstein.

Here's your phrase for the day: percent of GDP.

This simple 2nd grade math. If revenues are rising ahead of spending, the percent of debt decreases.

Yr/% of GDP
1993 66.1
1994 66.6
1995 67.0
1996 67.1
1997 65.4
1998 63.2
1999 60.9
2000 57.3

See...who said you weren't capable of learning!

First, you forgot to thank me for explaining why your Clinton quote was bogus,and an outright lie!

Such manners...no wonder you'r Friendless!

Don't you want to comment on the enlightenment that I provided, i.e. that the debt grew in every single year of the Clinton administration???

Booooooo!

Now just ask for an explaination of the expansion of the economy that Clinton benefitted from? (Oops...sorry to end the sentence with a preposition!)

Well, since you're either too shy, or too frightened that I might reveal further ignorance on your part, I'll take the initiative...

Three benefits of the Reagan presidency that helped Clinton convince dolts (insert your name here) that he reduced debt....get that, while his administration had a 41% increase in the national debt...but you claim he decreased same.

Now, get your pencil, and jot this down:

1) The 1983 Greenspan Commission initiated changes in Social Security that generated large surpluses. “As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs.” How Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan Pulled off the Greatest Fraud Ever Perpetrated against the American People | Dissident Voice

a. In 1985, the Social Security Trust Fund surplus was only $7.5 billion, a decade later it was $60.4 billion.

b. In 2000, the surplus was $152 billion. Clinton took the $152 billion, and counted it as income, instead of the debt it actually repesented.

Sweatin' yet?

2.The tax cuts of the Economic Recovery Act of 1981 stimulated economic growth. “As a 1982 JEC study pointed out,[1] similar across-the-board tax cuts had been implemented in the 1920s as the Mellon tax cuts, and in the 1960s as the Kennedy tax cuts. In both cases the reduction of high marginal tax rates actually increased tax payments by "the rich," also increasing their share of total individual income taxes paid.” The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform

“As inflation came down and as more and more of the tax cuts from the 1981 Act went into effect, the economy began a strong and sustained pattern of growthU.S. Treasury - Fact Sheet on the History of the U.S. Tax System

The rusult of said decrease in inflation and sustained growth of the economy dropped the government's costs of borrowing: net interest costs on the national debt dropped by 1% of GDP.

Are you having second thoughts…oops! That implies that you had first thoughts.


3. And, of course, the greatest benefit to the American people, the people of the world, and the 'bottom-line-propaganda' of Bill Clinton, the result of the defense/military build-up that resulted in the end of the Cold War, and Soviet's change from a red flag to a white flag...

Clinton's defense spending fell by 2.2% of GDP! The 'Peace Dividend!

Hey, let's put Ron on the Rock!


What’s that you’re muttering? “Must-defend-self…”

Now, where's that big THANK YOU????

Thank you for posting an article that backs up everything I said about Reagan, the pied piper on the road to serfdom.

When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he abandoned the traditional economic policies, under which the United States had operated for the previous 40 years, and launched the nation in a dangerous new direction. As Newsweek magazine put it in its March 2, 1981 issue, “Reagan thus gambled the future — his own, his party’s, and in some measure the nation’s—on a perilous and largely untested new course called supply-side economics.”

Essentially, Reagan switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy, where the government continued its heavy spending, but used borrowed money instead of tax revenue to pay the bills. The results were catastrophic. Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!

Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan pulled off one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against the American people in the history of this great nation, and the underlying scam is still alive and well, more than a quarter century later. It represents the very foundation upon which the economic malpractice that led the nation to the great economic collapse of 2008 was built. Ronald Reagan was a cunning politician, but he didn’t know much about economics. Alan Greenspan was an economist, who had no reluctance to work with a politician on a plan that would further the cause of the right-wing goals that both he and President Reagan shared.

Both Reagan and Greenspan saw big government as an evil, and they saw big business as a virtue. They both had despised the progressive policies of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson, and they wanted to turn back the pages of time. They came up with the perfect strategy for the redistribution of income and wealth from the working class to the rich. Since we don’t know the nature of the private conversations that took place between Reagan and Greenspan, as well as between their aides, we cannot be sure whether the events that would follow over the next three decades were specifically planned by Reagan and Greenspan, or whether they were just the natural result of the actions the two men played such a big role in. Either way, both Reagan and Greenspan are revered by most conservatives and hated by most liberals.

If Reagan had campaigned for the presidency by promising big tax cuts for the rich and pledging to make up for the lost revenue by imposing substantial tax increases on the working class, he would probably not have been elected. But that is exactly what Reagan did, with the help of Alan Greenspan. Consider the following sequence of events:

1) President Reagan appointed Greenspan as chairman of the 1982 National Commission on Social Security Reform (aka The Greenspan Commission)

2) The Greenspan Commission recommended a major payroll tax hike to generate Social Security surpluses for the next 30 years, in order to build up a large reserve in the trust fund that could be drawn down during the years after Social Security began running deficits.

3) The 1983 Social Security amendments enacted hefty increases in the payroll tax in order to generate large future surpluses.

4) As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs. None of the surplus was saved or invested in anything. The surplus Social Security revenue, that was paid by working Americans, was used to replace the lost revenue from Reagan’s big income tax cuts that went primarily to the rich.

5) In 1987, President Reagan nominated Greenspan as the successor to Paul Volker as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Greenspan continued as Fed Chairman until January 31, 2006. (One can only speculate on whether the coveted Fed Chairmanship represented, at least in part, a payback for Greenspan’s role in initiating the Social Security surplus revenue.)

6) In 1990, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a member of the Greenspan Commission, and one of the strongest advocates the the 1983 legislation, became outraged when he learned that first Reagan, and then President George H.W. Bush used the surplus Social Security revenue to pay for other government programs instead of saving and investing it for the baby boomers. Moynihan locked horns with President Bush and proposed repealing the 1983 payroll tax hike. Moynihan’s view was that if the government could not keep its hands out of the Social Security cookie jar, the cookie jar should be emptied, so there would be no surplus Social Security revenue for the government to loot. President Bush would have no part of repealing the payroll tax hike. The “read-my-lips-no-new-taxes” president was not about to give up his huge slush fund.

The practice of using every dollar of the surplus Social Security revenue for general government spending continues to this day. The 1983 payroll tax hike has generated approximately $2.5 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue which is supposed to be in the trust fund for use in paying for the retirement benefits of the baby boomers. But the trust fund is empty! It contains no real assets. As a result, the government will soon be unable to pay full benefits without a tax increase. Money can be spent or it can be saved. But you can’t do both. Absolutely none of the $2.5 trillion was saved or invested in anything. I have been laboring for more than a decade to expose the great Social Security scam.

"We're going to crush labor as a political entity"
Grover Norquist - Republican economic guru and co-author of the GOP's 'Contract with America'
 
Here's your phrase for the day: percent of GDP.

This simple 2nd grade math. If revenues are rising ahead of spending, the percent of debt decreases.

Yr/% of GDP
1993 66.1
1994 66.6
1995 67.0
1996 67.1
1997 65.4
1998 63.2
1999 60.9
2000 57.3

See...who said you weren't capable of learning!

First, you forgot to thank me for explaining why your Clinton quote was bogus,and an outright lie!

Such manners...no wonder you'r Friendless!

Don't you want to comment on the enlightenment that I provided, i.e. that the debt grew in every single year of the Clinton administration???

Booooooo!

Now just ask for an explaination of the expansion of the economy that Clinton benefitted from? (Oops...sorry to end the sentence with a preposition!)

Well, since you're either too shy, or too frightened that I might reveal further ignorance on your part, I'll take the initiative...

Three benefits of the Reagan presidency that helped Clinton convince dolts (insert your name here) that he reduced debt....get that, while his administration had a 41% increase in the national debt...but you claim he decreased same.

Now, get your pencil, and jot this down:

1) The 1983 Greenspan Commission initiated changes in Social Security that generated large surpluses. “As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs.” How Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan Pulled off the Greatest Fraud Ever Perpetrated against the American People | Dissident Voice

a. In 1985, the Social Security Trust Fund surplus was only $7.5 billion, a decade later it was $60.4 billion.

b. In 2000, the surplus was $152 billion. Clinton took the $152 billion, and counted it as income, instead of the debt it actually repesented.

Sweatin' yet?

2.The tax cuts of the Economic Recovery Act of 1981 stimulated economic growth. “As a 1982 JEC study pointed out,[1] similar across-the-board tax cuts had been implemented in the 1920s as the Mellon tax cuts, and in the 1960s as the Kennedy tax cuts. In both cases the reduction of high marginal tax rates actually increased tax payments by "the rich," also increasing their share of total individual income taxes paid.” The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform

“As inflation came down and as more and more of the tax cuts from the 1981 Act went into effect, the economy began a strong and sustained pattern of growthU.S. Treasury - Fact Sheet on the History of the U.S. Tax System

The rusult of said decrease in inflation and sustained growth of the economy dropped the government's costs of borrowing: net interest costs on the national debt dropped by 1% of GDP.

Are you having second thoughts…oops! That implies that you had first thoughts.


3. And, of course, the greatest benefit to the American people, the people of the world, and the 'bottom-line-propaganda' of Bill Clinton, the result of the defense/military build-up that resulted in the end of the Cold War, and Soviet's change from a red flag to a white flag...

Clinton's defense spending fell by 2.2% of GDP! The 'Peace Dividend!

Hey, let's put Ron on the Rock!


What’s that you’re muttering? “Must-defend-self…”

Now, where's that big THANK YOU????

Thank you for posting an article that backs up everything I said about Reagan, the pied piper on the road to serfdom.

When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he abandoned the traditional economic policies, under which the United States had operated for the previous 40 years, and launched the nation in a dangerous new direction. As Newsweek magazine put it in its March 2, 1981 issue, “Reagan thus gambled the future — his own, his party’s, and in some measure the nation’s—on a perilous and largely untested new course called supply-side economics.”

Essentially, Reagan switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy, where the government continued its heavy spending, but used borrowed money instead of tax revenue to pay the bills. The results were catastrophic. Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!

Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan pulled off one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against the American people in the history of this great nation, and the underlying scam is still alive and well, more than a quarter century later. It represents the very foundation upon which the economic malpractice that led the nation to the great economic collapse of 2008 was built. Ronald Reagan was a cunning politician, but he didn’t know much about economics. Alan Greenspan was an economist, who had no reluctance to work with a politician on a plan that would further the cause of the right-wing goals that both he and President Reagan shared.

Both Reagan and Greenspan saw big government as an evil, and they saw big business as a virtue. They both had despised the progressive policies of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson, and they wanted to turn back the pages of time. They came up with the perfect strategy for the redistribution of income and wealth from the working class to the rich. Since we don’t know the nature of the private conversations that took place between Reagan and Greenspan, as well as between their aides, we cannot be sure whether the events that would follow over the next three decades were specifically planned by Reagan and Greenspan, or whether they were just the natural result of the actions the two men played such a big role in. Either way, both Reagan and Greenspan are revered by most conservatives and hated by most liberals.

If Reagan had campaigned for the presidency by promising big tax cuts for the rich and pledging to make up for the lost revenue by imposing substantial tax increases on the working class, he would probably not have been elected. But that is exactly what Reagan did, with the help of Alan Greenspan. Consider the following sequence of events:

1) President Reagan appointed Greenspan as chairman of the 1982 National Commission on Social Security Reform (aka The Greenspan Commission)

2) The Greenspan Commission recommended a major payroll tax hike to generate Social Security surpluses for the next 30 years, in order to build up a large reserve in the trust fund that could be drawn down during the years after Social Security began running deficits.

3) The 1983 Social Security amendments enacted hefty increases in the payroll tax in order to generate large future surpluses.

4) As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs. None of the surplus was saved or invested in anything. The surplus Social Security revenue, that was paid by working Americans, was used to replace the lost revenue from Reagan’s big income tax cuts that went primarily to the rich.

5) In 1987, President Reagan nominated Greenspan as the successor to Paul Volker as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Greenspan continued as Fed Chairman until January 31, 2006. (One can only speculate on whether the coveted Fed Chairmanship represented, at least in part, a payback for Greenspan’s role in initiating the Social Security surplus revenue.)

6) In 1990, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a member of the Greenspan Commission, and one of the strongest advocates the the 1983 legislation, became outraged when he learned that first Reagan, and then President George H.W. Bush used the surplus Social Security revenue to pay for other government programs instead of saving and investing it for the baby boomers. Moynihan locked horns with President Bush and proposed repealing the 1983 payroll tax hike. Moynihan’s view was that if the government could not keep its hands out of the Social Security cookie jar, the cookie jar should be emptied, so there would be no surplus Social Security revenue for the government to loot. President Bush would have no part of repealing the payroll tax hike. The “read-my-lips-no-new-taxes” president was not about to give up his huge slush fund.

The practice of using every dollar of the surplus Social Security revenue for general government spending continues to this day. The 1983 payroll tax hike has generated approximately $2.5 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue which is supposed to be in the trust fund for use in paying for the retirement benefits of the baby boomers. But the trust fund is empty! It contains no real assets. As a result, the government will soon be unable to pay full benefits without a tax increase. Money can be spent or it can be saved. But you can’t do both. Absolutely none of the $2.5 trillion was saved or invested in anything. I have been laboring for more than a decade to expose the great Social Security scam.

"We're going to crush labor as a political entity"
Grover Norquist - Republican economic guru and co-author of the GOP's 'Contract with America'

1. From your post #64…
“Enter Bill Clinton. When he left office in 2000, that 55.9 percent had risen only slightly to 58 percent, and, amazingly, the public debt had actually dropped to 35.1 percent. An increase in the gross debt of only 2.1 percent (in eight years!) combined with a public debt decrease of 6.9 percent.”

2. I scoured this post, above, and can find naught in defense of your 'Clinton' post...

3. Since you decided to change the subject, I guess that means that I beat the pants off you, huh?

Yechhhhh.....what a disgusting visual that is!

Get back in there and put something on!
 
See...who said you weren't capable of learning!

First, you forgot to thank me for explaining why your Clinton quote was bogus,and an outright lie!

Such manners...no wonder you'r Friendless!

Don't you want to comment on the enlightenment that I provided, i.e. that the debt grew in every single year of the Clinton administration???

Booooooo!

Now just ask for an explaination of the expansion of the economy that Clinton benefitted from? (Oops...sorry to end the sentence with a preposition!)

Well, since you're either too shy, or too frightened that I might reveal further ignorance on your part, I'll take the initiative...

Three benefits of the Reagan presidency that helped Clinton convince dolts (insert your name here) that he reduced debt....get that, while his administration had a 41% increase in the national debt...but you claim he decreased same.

Now, get your pencil, and jot this down:

1) The 1983 Greenspan Commission initiated changes in Social Security that generated large surpluses. “As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs.” How Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan Pulled off the Greatest Fraud Ever Perpetrated against the American People | Dissident Voice

a. In 1985, the Social Security Trust Fund surplus was only $7.5 billion, a decade later it was $60.4 billion.

b. In 2000, the surplus was $152 billion. Clinton took the $152 billion, and counted it as income, instead of the debt it actually repesented.

Sweatin' yet?

2.The tax cuts of the Economic Recovery Act of 1981 stimulated economic growth. “As a 1982 JEC study pointed out,[1] similar across-the-board tax cuts had been implemented in the 1920s as the Mellon tax cuts, and in the 1960s as the Kennedy tax cuts. In both cases the reduction of high marginal tax rates actually increased tax payments by "the rich," also increasing their share of total individual income taxes paid.” The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform

“As inflation came down and as more and more of the tax cuts from the 1981 Act went into effect, the economy began a strong and sustained pattern of growthU.S. Treasury - Fact Sheet on the History of the U.S. Tax System

The rusult of said decrease in inflation and sustained growth of the economy dropped the government's costs of borrowing: net interest costs on the national debt dropped by 1% of GDP.

Are you having second thoughts…oops! That implies that you had first thoughts.


3. And, of course, the greatest benefit to the American people, the people of the world, and the 'bottom-line-propaganda' of Bill Clinton, the result of the defense/military build-up that resulted in the end of the Cold War, and Soviet's change from a red flag to a white flag...

Clinton's defense spending fell by 2.2% of GDP! The 'Peace Dividend!

Hey, let's put Ron on the Rock!


What’s that you’re muttering? “Must-defend-self…”

Now, where's that big THANK YOU????

Thank you for posting an article that backs up everything I said about Reagan, the pied piper on the road to serfdom.

When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he abandoned the traditional economic policies, under which the United States had operated for the previous 40 years, and launched the nation in a dangerous new direction. As Newsweek magazine put it in its March 2, 1981 issue, “Reagan thus gambled the future — his own, his party’s, and in some measure the nation’s—on a perilous and largely untested new course called supply-side economics.”

Essentially, Reagan switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy, where the government continued its heavy spending, but used borrowed money instead of tax revenue to pay the bills. The results were catastrophic. Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!

Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan pulled off one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against the American people in the history of this great nation, and the underlying scam is still alive and well, more than a quarter century later. It represents the very foundation upon which the economic malpractice that led the nation to the great economic collapse of 2008 was built. Ronald Reagan was a cunning politician, but he didn’t know much about economics. Alan Greenspan was an economist, who had no reluctance to work with a politician on a plan that would further the cause of the right-wing goals that both he and President Reagan shared.

Both Reagan and Greenspan saw big government as an evil, and they saw big business as a virtue. They both had despised the progressive policies of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson, and they wanted to turn back the pages of time. They came up with the perfect strategy for the redistribution of income and wealth from the working class to the rich. Since we don’t know the nature of the private conversations that took place between Reagan and Greenspan, as well as between their aides, we cannot be sure whether the events that would follow over the next three decades were specifically planned by Reagan and Greenspan, or whether they were just the natural result of the actions the two men played such a big role in. Either way, both Reagan and Greenspan are revered by most conservatives and hated by most liberals.

If Reagan had campaigned for the presidency by promising big tax cuts for the rich and pledging to make up for the lost revenue by imposing substantial tax increases on the working class, he would probably not have been elected. But that is exactly what Reagan did, with the help of Alan Greenspan. Consider the following sequence of events:

1) President Reagan appointed Greenspan as chairman of the 1982 National Commission on Social Security Reform (aka The Greenspan Commission)

2) The Greenspan Commission recommended a major payroll tax hike to generate Social Security surpluses for the next 30 years, in order to build up a large reserve in the trust fund that could be drawn down during the years after Social Security began running deficits.

3) The 1983 Social Security amendments enacted hefty increases in the payroll tax in order to generate large future surpluses.

4) As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs. None of the surplus was saved or invested in anything. The surplus Social Security revenue, that was paid by working Americans, was used to replace the lost revenue from Reagan’s big income tax cuts that went primarily to the rich.

5) In 1987, President Reagan nominated Greenspan as the successor to Paul Volker as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Greenspan continued as Fed Chairman until January 31, 2006. (One can only speculate on whether the coveted Fed Chairmanship represented, at least in part, a payback for Greenspan’s role in initiating the Social Security surplus revenue.)

6) In 1990, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a member of the Greenspan Commission, and one of the strongest advocates the the 1983 legislation, became outraged when he learned that first Reagan, and then President George H.W. Bush used the surplus Social Security revenue to pay for other government programs instead of saving and investing it for the baby boomers. Moynihan locked horns with President Bush and proposed repealing the 1983 payroll tax hike. Moynihan’s view was that if the government could not keep its hands out of the Social Security cookie jar, the cookie jar should be emptied, so there would be no surplus Social Security revenue for the government to loot. President Bush would have no part of repealing the payroll tax hike. The “read-my-lips-no-new-taxes” president was not about to give up his huge slush fund.

The practice of using every dollar of the surplus Social Security revenue for general government spending continues to this day. The 1983 payroll tax hike has generated approximately $2.5 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue which is supposed to be in the trust fund for use in paying for the retirement benefits of the baby boomers. But the trust fund is empty! It contains no real assets. As a result, the government will soon be unable to pay full benefits without a tax increase. Money can be spent or it can be saved. But you can’t do both. Absolutely none of the $2.5 trillion was saved or invested in anything. I have been laboring for more than a decade to expose the great Social Security scam.

"We're going to crush labor as a political entity"
Grover Norquist - Republican economic guru and co-author of the GOP's 'Contract with America'

1. From your post #64…
“Enter Bill Clinton. When he left office in 2000, that 55.9 percent had risen only slightly to 58 percent, and, amazingly, the public debt had actually dropped to 35.1 percent. An increase in the gross debt of only 2.1 percent (in eight years!) combined with a public debt decrease of 6.9 percent.”

2. I scoured this post, above, and can find naught in defense of your 'Clinton' post...

3. Since you decided to change the subject, I guess that means that I beat the pants off you, huh?

Yechhhhh.....what a disgusting visual that is!

Get back in there and put something on!

Here's your word for the day: context

Post #64:

When Ronald Reagan took office, the gross national debt sat at 33.4 percent of the annual GDP. The public debt stood at 26.1 percent. That was the total accumulated national debt — the New Deal, World War II, Vietnam, all of it.

During the cheery Decade of the Gipper, gross debt skyrocketed to 55.9 percent (of the annual GDP) and public debt increased to 42 percent.

Enter Bill Clinton. When he left office in 2000, that 55.9 percent (of the annual GDP) had risen only slightly to 58 percent, and, amazingly, the public debt had actually dropped to 35.1 percent. An increase in the gross debt of only 2.1 percent (in eight years!) combined with a public debt decrease of 6.9 percent.

If you are still confused, refer to post #72
 
Thank you for posting an article that backs up everything I said about Reagan, the pied piper on the road to serfdom.

When Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, he abandoned the traditional economic policies, under which the United States had operated for the previous 40 years, and launched the nation in a dangerous new direction. As Newsweek magazine put it in its March 2, 1981 issue, “Reagan thus gambled the future — his own, his party’s, and in some measure the nation’s—on a perilous and largely untested new course called supply-side economics.”

Essentially, Reagan switched the federal government from what he critically called, a “tax and spend” policy, to a “borrow and spend” policy, where the government continued its heavy spending, but used borrowed money instead of tax revenue to pay the bills. The results were catastrophic. Although it had taken the United States more than 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion of national debt, it took only five years under Reagan to add the second one trillion dollars to the debt. By the end of the 12 years of the Reagan-Bush administrations, the national debt had quadrupled to $4 trillion!

Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan pulled off one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against the American people in the history of this great nation, and the underlying scam is still alive and well, more than a quarter century later. It represents the very foundation upon which the economic malpractice that led the nation to the great economic collapse of 2008 was built. Ronald Reagan was a cunning politician, but he didn’t know much about economics. Alan Greenspan was an economist, who had no reluctance to work with a politician on a plan that would further the cause of the right-wing goals that both he and President Reagan shared.

Both Reagan and Greenspan saw big government as an evil, and they saw big business as a virtue. They both had despised the progressive policies of Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson, and they wanted to turn back the pages of time. They came up with the perfect strategy for the redistribution of income and wealth from the working class to the rich. Since we don’t know the nature of the private conversations that took place between Reagan and Greenspan, as well as between their aides, we cannot be sure whether the events that would follow over the next three decades were specifically planned by Reagan and Greenspan, or whether they were just the natural result of the actions the two men played such a big role in. Either way, both Reagan and Greenspan are revered by most conservatives and hated by most liberals.

If Reagan had campaigned for the presidency by promising big tax cuts for the rich and pledging to make up for the lost revenue by imposing substantial tax increases on the working class, he would probably not have been elected. But that is exactly what Reagan did, with the help of Alan Greenspan. Consider the following sequence of events:

1) President Reagan appointed Greenspan as chairman of the 1982 National Commission on Social Security Reform (aka The Greenspan Commission)

2) The Greenspan Commission recommended a major payroll tax hike to generate Social Security surpluses for the next 30 years, in order to build up a large reserve in the trust fund that could be drawn down during the years after Social Security began running deficits.

3) The 1983 Social Security amendments enacted hefty increases in the payroll tax in order to generate large future surpluses.

4) As soon as the first surpluses began to role in, in 1985, the money was put into the general revenue fund and spent on other government programs. None of the surplus was saved or invested in anything. The surplus Social Security revenue, that was paid by working Americans, was used to replace the lost revenue from Reagan’s big income tax cuts that went primarily to the rich.

5) In 1987, President Reagan nominated Greenspan as the successor to Paul Volker as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Greenspan continued as Fed Chairman until January 31, 2006. (One can only speculate on whether the coveted Fed Chairmanship represented, at least in part, a payback for Greenspan’s role in initiating the Social Security surplus revenue.)

6) In 1990, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a member of the Greenspan Commission, and one of the strongest advocates the the 1983 legislation, became outraged when he learned that first Reagan, and then President George H.W. Bush used the surplus Social Security revenue to pay for other government programs instead of saving and investing it for the baby boomers. Moynihan locked horns with President Bush and proposed repealing the 1983 payroll tax hike. Moynihan’s view was that if the government could not keep its hands out of the Social Security cookie jar, the cookie jar should be emptied, so there would be no surplus Social Security revenue for the government to loot. President Bush would have no part of repealing the payroll tax hike. The “read-my-lips-no-new-taxes” president was not about to give up his huge slush fund.

The practice of using every dollar of the surplus Social Security revenue for general government spending continues to this day. The 1983 payroll tax hike has generated approximately $2.5 trillion in surplus Social Security revenue which is supposed to be in the trust fund for use in paying for the retirement benefits of the baby boomers. But the trust fund is empty! It contains no real assets. As a result, the government will soon be unable to pay full benefits without a tax increase. Money can be spent or it can be saved. But you can’t do both. Absolutely none of the $2.5 trillion was saved or invested in anything. I have been laboring for more than a decade to expose the great Social Security scam.

"We're going to crush labor as a political entity"
Grover Norquist - Republican economic guru and co-author of the GOP's 'Contract with America'

1. From your post #64…
“Enter Bill Clinton. When he left office in 2000, that 55.9 percent had risen only slightly to 58 percent, and, amazingly, the public debt had actually dropped to 35.1 percent. An increase in the gross debt of only 2.1 percent (in eight years!) combined with a public debt decrease of 6.9 percent.”

2. I scoured this post, above, and can find naught in defense of your 'Clinton' post...

3. Since you decided to change the subject, I guess that means that I beat the pants off you, huh?

Yechhhhh.....what a disgusting visual that is!

Get back in there and put something on!

Here's your word for the day: context

Post #64:

When Ronald Reagan took office, the gross national debt sat at 33.4 percent of the annual GDP. The public debt stood at 26.1 percent. That was the total accumulated national debt — the New Deal, World War II, Vietnam, all of it.

During the cheery Decade of the Gipper, gross debt skyrocketed to 55.9 percent (of the annual GDP) and public debt increased to 42 percent.

Enter Bill Clinton. When he left office in 2000, that 55.9 percent (of the annual GDP) had risen only slightly to 58 percent, and, amazingly, the public debt had actually dropped to 35.1 percent. An increase in the gross debt of only 2.1 percent (in eight years!) combined with a public debt decrease of 6.9 percent.

If you are still confused, refer to post #72

1. Reagan made the flourishing economy that you and Clinton are taking credit for....

2. Clinton presided over a 41% increase in national debt.

The End.
 
GDP is Grossly Distorted Propaganda

Why do we always hear about the GROSS with almost no mention of the NET?

Economists can't do algebra. To an economist a $30,000 car is just like a $3 hamburger.

They are both CONSUMER GOODS unless the car is purchased by Hertz. What happened to the depreciation of all of the cars since 1950? Oh, they forgot.

Why doesn't anyone suggest mandatory accounting in the schools in this country? Double-entry accounting is only SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS OLD.

Fifth graders can learn accounting as well as collegians

psik
 

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