Do you even know the differnece between a deficit and Debt?

[KittenKoder]

He got closest of most the presidents, accounting for inflation and the fact that it was better than previous presidencies in 2000, but after that he screwed up. Still, at least it was a lot better than others.

 

[editec]

You guys know, of course, that all this talk about not being able to pay off the national debt is ludicrous.

If the Federal Government would stop giving away our natural resources to big oil and gas companies and to lumber companies and so on, we could sell our natural resources and pay off the National Debt twenty times over.

It does rather boggle the mind to consider that the USA is bankrupt, doesn't it?

I'll just keep asking this question

Where did the people who lend us all these trillions of dollars get them to lend to us?

I content that while the accounting is okay on one side of the balance sheet, it is entirely bullshit on the other.

Much like it is bullshit that our banks can lend us money they don't have, if you get my drift.

How the hell can the most productive people on earth find their government bankrupted?

Something here doesn't make sense...and that something starts waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back around 1913, I think.

 

[KittenKoder]

You guys know, of course, that all this talk about not being able to pay off the national debt is ludicrous.

If the Federal Government would stop giving away our natural resources to big oil and gas companies and to lumber companies and so on, we could sell our natural resources and pay off the National Debt twenty times over.

It does rather boggle the mind to consider that the USA is bankrupt, doesn't it?

I'll just keep asking this question

Where did the people who lend us all these trillions of dollars get them to lend to us?

I content that while the accounting is okay on one side of the balance sheet, it is entirely bullshit on the other.

Much like it is bullshit that our banks can lend us money they don't have, if you get my drift.

How the hell can the most productive people on earth find their government bankrupted?

Something here doesn't make sense...and that something starts waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back around 1913, I think.

Simple, we aren't even close to the most productive.

Also, they all use to owe us money, once, until some moron dissolved their debt then started this borrowing from others snowball.

 

[Yukon]

Reagan = NATIONAL DEBT, CLINTON = SURPLUS, BUSH = NATIONAL DEBT, The DARK MESSIAH = Salvation

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Debt is what you owe. A Deficit is spending more money then you have usually in a budget of some kind.

Clinton managed to cut the deficit spending, he did nothing about the debt. And it was not Clinton at all that created the "surplus" it was the republican Congress.

 

[Care4all]

You guys know, of course, that all this talk about not being able to pay off the national debt is ludicrous.

If the Federal Government would stop giving away our natural resources to big oil and gas companies and to lumber companies and so on, we could sell our natural resources and pay off the National Debt twenty times over.

It does rather boggle the mind to consider that the USA is bankrupt, doesn't it?

I'll just keep asking this question

Where did the people who lend us all these trillions of dollars get them to lend to us?

I content that while the accounting is okay on one side of the balance sheet, it is entirely bullshit on the other.

Much like it is bullshit that our banks can lend us money they don't have, if you get my drift.

How the hell can the most productive people on earth find their government bankrupted?

Something here doesn't make sense...and that something starts waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back around 1913, I think.

Simple, we aren't even close to the most productive.

Also, they all use to owe us money, once, until some moron dissolved their debt then started this borrowing from others snowball.

Yes Kitten, we are the most productive people on earth or in the top 5 in the least. We produce more in dollar per head working than near any other country....which means we ARE among the most productive workers on earth. For certain, we have been the most productive people in the westernized world or a close second.

Alot of this is because we take less vacation time off than other westernized countries, we take less sick time than those countries and we work longer hours each week or day than those other countries....Factories in Europe close for a full month fo vacation...in Italy it was the whole month of August, their factories closed. We just don't have that here....

And in china, they are just not that productive, per person than us because they are less automated and use more unskilled sometimes....humans in manual labor (verses the labor needed here running an automated line), which they have plenty of people, to produce at a cheap labor price to compensate for their own factory inefficiencies....plus the chinese factories close for a month in january/feb for Chinese new year.

care

 

[Care4all]

Clinton did balance the BUDGET

Then how do you account for this:

From the article:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, the budget was almost balanced in FY2000 (ending in September 2000 with a deficit of "only" $17.9 billion), but it never reached zero — let alone a positive number. And Clinton's last budget proposal for FY2001, which ended in September 2001, generated a $133.29 billion deficit.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article was POSTED several months ago.

i am not certain on what you are asking indago, but you are saying that in 2000 there ended up being a deficit of 18 billion or 18 billion added to the national debt?

This could be the case because no one can ever predict the precise amount of taxes we will collect to pay for things, we only estimate what revenues are forseen to come in and until the books close and all things that may not have been put in the budget get accounted for, or all of the taxes roll in from both SS and income and corporate and excise taxes, which fluctuates on how much people make and how many people are actually working....so it may not come out with figures a few months after year nd close to get it accurate?

BTW, that 18 billion is less than 1% off from his esitmate of the 2 trillion BUDGET....that's a pretty good guesstimate on their part....even in business terms.

On the 2001 Budget, when President Bush and his republican majority congress came in to power, they passed president bush's tax cuts and sent everyone a $600 check percouple in beginning in august of that year, and also septembe 11th happend and $15 billion went to the airlines asap and $15 billion went out to the City asap and all kinds of things that were controled by president Bush happened....he also had a VERY QUICK START and basically invaded Clinton's budget with his own tax cut proposals....and the republican majority jammed them through....if memory serves me....

exactly what it looks like is happening now with the obama team due to this emergency with our economy.

so, i find it hard to put something like that on to Clinton, IF it is true.

He along with his congress, was one of the most fiscally responsible presidencies in our history....no matter what critiquing of the "small things" now....

And on the other hand, president bush more than DOUBLED our national debt, the national debt accumilated in our entire history as a country, in just 8 years with his congress...and president Bush BEGAN with nearly the same congress that was there in Clinton's later years, yet clinton kept them in check it seems, because under president Bush, this republican majority went and spent money like there was not going to be a tomorrow....worse than drunken sailors....and i realize 9/11 was in there but this is not where all the money got spent, it was added long term programs like the Medicare pill bill, and also giving tax cuts during wartime in 2003...that has never been done by any president in our history, so the war costs added up too....but this was mismanagement of these events not necessarily these events alone that gave some excuse for it....imho.

which for me the spending spree, was very surprising, considering how well they seemed to do when under Clinton's rule. The only difference, was with who was president....and what that president's priorities were....again, imo.

i hope i answered your questions, at least from my point of view....but i will reread the linked article to see if i understood what you were asking correctly indago.

Care

 

[indago]

Clinton did balance the BUDGET

Then how do you account for this:

From the article:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, the budget was almost balanced in FY2000 (ending in September 2000 with a deficit of "only" $17.9 billion), but it never reached zero — let alone a positive number. And Clinton's last budget proposal for FY2001, which ended in September 2001, generated a $133.29 billion deficit.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article was POSTED several months ago.

i am not certain on what you are asking indago, but you are saying that in 2000 there ended up being a deficit of 18 billion or 18 billion added to the national debt?

They aren't my words; they're the words from the article.

 

[Charles_Main]

I'd like to see a link from Charles on Clinton stating he paid down the National Debt.....did he state he paid down the foreign debt?

I Never said Clinton said any such thing pal. I said some in here have said as much about him.

Charlie,



but if they simply say he paid down the National Debt, that would not be correct....


Care

That is exactly what they did say, the exact words were. "Clinton concentrated on paying down our debt."

Besides giving Bush or the Republicans in congress credit for the temporary surpluses is misleading. Most economist agree it was a massive spike in Tax revenues sparked by the Tech bubble, which gave us those so called surpluses. Mainly funded by massive increases in Capitol Gains taxes, and a record breaking surging stock market.

Plus there is the question of the missing 2 Trillion dollars from the SS slush fund. The fact that it was missing was discovered right around that same time, so it leads one to question. Were there really surpluses, or was it just creative accounting, taking money from the SS slush fund to make it appear the budget was balanced?

Besides what we are talking about today, is Deficits like we have never seen. the CBO estimates this new Stimulus, with interest and other hidden costs, will put our single year deficit at 3 trillion dollars this year, or a 30% increase in over all debt.

In other words the National Debt will increase by a figure which is = to 60% of the total Debt added under Bush in 8 years in a single year, and this year just started. There are other Stimulus plans in the works. More increases to this years Deficit are on the way.

I know most of you just think I am a partisan hack. That I think Republicans have the answer. This is not the case. We can afford to be that way anymore. I am simply troubled by Democrats, who for years have been telling us Bushes spending was going to ruin us. Because they are now spending at a rate 3 to 6 times faster than Bush ever did.

Does not anyone see why this makes little sense?

 

[Peejay]

Applying the debt / GDP to political terms just doesn't reflect the common perceptions of the two parties. They in fact, are counter to the model of Dems = unchecked spending / greater debt, Rep = fiscal responsibility / less debt. I don't understand where these perceptions come from. The numbers indicate the opposite. While no one presents good numbers, the Republicans, in the past 40 years, have racked up an incredible amount of debt compared to Democrats.

I don't know or care really what it means, it just is.

 

[Richard-H]

Bill Clinton was a fiscal conservative. That was understood by alll students of history.

We need more men like him. That is a reality.

Well, we sure as hell aren't going to be getting anymore like him if we make it a national crisis everytime he gets a BJ!

I still can't believe that whole fiasco actually happened - it was like something out of a Goldie Hawne movie.

 

[Chris]

Reagan and Bush are responsible for most of the National Debt....

http://joejolly.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/national-debt-gdp.gif

 

[Care4all]

That is exactly what they did say, the exact words were. "Clinton concentrated on paying down our debt."

He concentrated on paying down our yearly deficit and eventually the Public Debt (not the National debt), which added to the intragovernmental debt....but paying down the public debt owed to others was still a good cause of Clintons, this opened up the tight credit market for businesses to boom, as they did.

Besides giving (clinton) or the Republicans in congress credit for the temporary surpluses is misleading. Most economist agree it was a massive spike in Tax revenues sparked by the Tech bubble, which gave us those so called surpluses. Mainly funded by massive increases in Capitol Gains taxes, and a record breaking surging stock market.

Interest rates were high previous to Clinton because our govt borrowed so much money to pay for their over spending under Reagan and Bush 1, when Clinton came in to office he proposed a plan to reduce the country's deficit and then to start paying down the Public debt....no republicans voted for this plan of Clintons, similar to no republicans voting for this stimulus, and said that the usa would absolutely fall apart if they followed what clinton wanted to do with taxes and other things....the republicans were wrong.

This approach from our new president sat very, very well with all businessmen out there and the whole country as well....it gave the country "confidence" and businesses felt good about the future and could see "easy money" coming down the road for them, to borrow and build up their businesses....because our government was actually taking a focus of fiscal responsibility....this increased jobs, 27 million of them, and THIS is what brought in alot of the tax revenues to help balance the budget.

Plus there is the question of the missing 2 Trillion dollars from the SS slush fund. The fact that it was missing was discovered right around that same time, so it leads one to question. Were there really surpluses, or was it just creative accounting, taking money from the SS slush fund to make it appear the budget was balanced?

There is no social security slush fund and there never was 2 trillion missing from social security. Here is what is happening....

Social security taxes collected and taxes paid out is part of the Federal budget....

along with income taxes collected, corporate taxes collected and gas taxes collected and excise taxes collected which are suppose to be used towards and pay for our yearly appropriations/spending in the Budget.

Social security, since Reagan raised our SS taxes by 100%, SS has been over collecting social security taxes....my generation not only is paying for their parents SS but have been over taxed to help pay for our own boomer retirement....i am at the very tail end of the boomers...

When the SS tax increase began, initially it was covering the shortfall we were having and then slowly was raised form 3.2% to 6.5% with the businesses having to pay their match...this 100% tax increase was done in gradual increments....so not to disturb the market so much....the employer part that had to be paid in match could have slowed down businesses so they were careful to not raise it all at once....

so initially we were not collecting much in surplusses for social security to help pay for the boomers and it peaked under president Bush with the most social security surplusses collected in a year and it will go down each year on out till 2012 to 2018 i think i had read, and then to the point of not collecting Social security surplusses at all, and reaching the point of needing to cash in on the surplus collected from us in previous years.

By 2006 we had over collected in Social security taxes $4 TRILLION dollars....

now let's get back to the budget....according to law or regulations....social security has to be included in on the budget, what is paid out and what is collected in taxes....

these EXCESS or SURPLUS SS taxes have been used since Reagan in our budget to help pay for what income taxes and the other taxes should have been paying...but basically an iou was given to SS for it....we had to sell treasuries i think? to cover the ss funds spent to pay for our regular gvt spending....this is what goes in to the "intragovernmental debt' column of Debt that was in the link that indago provided.

Anyway, these funds have been used by every president since reagan and clinton used them as all presidents used them including president Bush, to help balance the budget and an iou from the general spending of our govt to the Social Security agency, in the simplest of terms, was given and eventually will be paid back to the SSA agency.

towards the end of Clinton's presidency we were actually collecting more in income taxes etc and social security surplus taxes than what we were spending in the budget so the SS surplus taxes collected were not even needed to balance his budget....

so he took these taxes and used them to pay down the debt that we owed to foreign countries....the Public debt....BUT still owes SS that amount of money...intragovernmental debt, which together, make up the National debt....at least that is what i have gathered through ALL of the reading on this I have done the past few days....basically, since you started this thread, sooo i am glad you started it!

Besides what we are talking about today, is Deficits like we have never seen. the CBO estimates this new Stimulus, with interest and other hidden costs, will put our single year deficit at 3 trillion dollars this year, or a 30% increase in over all debt.

In other words the National Debt will increase by a figure which is = to 60% of the total Debt added under Bush in 8 years in a single year, and this year just started. There are other Stimulus plans in the works. More increases to this years Deficit are on the way.

I know most of you just think I am a partisan hack. That I think Republicans have the answer. This is not the case. We can afford to be that way anymore. I am simply troubled by Democrats, who for years have been telling us Bushes spending was going to ruin us. Because they are now spending at a rate 3 to 6 times faster than Bush ever did.

we are talking about a crisis that we are in that is bigger or the biggest since the Great Depression just heard Greenspan say on cnbc...we are in a 10 year down turn....at least, from the way things are looking, unless a portion of this stimulus works, Banks are going to come back for even more money as well....

so much money is being borrowed and printed my head is spinning and it still has alot farther down to go before bottom.

I don't know what the right thing or the wrong thing is anymore....or really ever....there is so much more than what is being told to us on how bad it really is world wide...

i feel sorry for this President at this point....greenspan said that this is a ONCE in a Century event....he just said it, this is a live event where he is being questioned.

we need to have alot of babies to tax later in life to pay this off....or increase our legal immigration limits to cover the boomers and this mess.....?

Or hope that the second coming is what this is all setting us up for....?

Care

 

[Zoomie1980]

I only ask because I have heard a few people lately say that Clinton focused on paying down the Debt.

For the record for those of you who clearly do not know, A Deficit is the short fall in a year between what we spend and what we take in. The Debt is the total of all those deficits that keep adding up. Clinton did not "focus on paying down the Debt" He did not pay off one penny of it.

Of course any of us that were around and not still on the boob back then know the truth.

The truth is we had some so called surpluses (I think the missing SS money had something to do with them) but not one damn thing was done with them. They did not use them to pay one penny of the Debt. There was lip service paid to using them to sure up SS, but in the end they were just spent. So how was that a surplus again?

Well, while I am not qualified to pierce that tissue of lies that we think of as Federal Government accounting (hell I can't keep my checkbook balanced!) I am reasonably certain that the Federali's checkbook balanced a LOT better when Clinton was in Office than it has of late.

Clinton's luck of the draw as it pertains to the economy was far better than Junior's was, that's for damned sure.

And let us ALSO agree, that the POTUS and CONGRESS at each time both shares SOME modicum of responsibility for what happened on their watch, too.

Every POTUS and every Congress does have to play the hands they've been dealt, right?

The President's ONLY real authority lies in foreign policy and court appointments. That's IT. NO President deserves ANY credit for good economies or blame for bad ones.

Congress own 100% of the credit or guilt, even though Congress has very limited control over the economy as well. The size of the overall size of the economy DWARFS even runaway gov't spending, including this, so the effects of any gov't action is mostly limited and meaningless

 

[Zoomie1980]

You guys know, of course, that all this talk about not being able to pay off the national debt is ludicrous.

If the Federal Government would stop giving away our natural resources to big oil and gas companies and to lumber companies and so on, we could sell our natural resources and pay off the National Debt twenty times over.

It does rather boggle the mind to consider that the USA is bankrupt, doesn't it?

I'll just keep asking this question

Where did the people who lend us all these trillions of dollars get them to lend to us?

I content that while the accounting is okay on one side of the balance sheet, it is entirely bullshit on the other.

Much like it is bullshit that our banks can lend us money they don't have, if you get my drift.

How the hell can the most productive people on earth find their government bankrupted?

Something here doesn't make sense...and that something starts waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back around 1913, I think.

China got the money to buy our debt by selling us stuff then using the proceeds to buy our treasuries, which gives China enormous leverage to ensure we keep free trade policies in effect with them. Same with Japan back in the 80's and increasingly so now.

The bulk of the rest comes from the Middle East oil countries. Doing the same as the Chinese, sell us and others oil, then buy our debt to maintain trade leverage with us.

If China and the Gulf states ever call us on the notes, we will default, and the global economy will retreat to the 1700's.....

 

[Charles_Main]

Applying the debt / GDP to political terms just doesn't reflect the common perceptions of the two parties. They in fact, are counter to the model of Dems = unchecked spending / greater debt, Rep = fiscal responsibility / less debt. I don't understand where these perceptions come from. The numbers indicate the opposite. While no one presents good numbers, the Republicans, in the past 40 years, have racked up an incredible amount of debt compared to Democrats.

I don't know or care really what it means, it just is.

Ask yourself what is happening right now.

Who is in charge of Both the White house and Both Houses of Congress, and spending at a rate 3 times what we have ever seen?

Fact is in the past it was both parties spending, but right now today, it is the Democrats. So right now today the Democrats are the ones who can STOP IT!!!

 

[Peejay]

Applying the debt / GDP to political terms just doesn't reflect the common perceptions of the two parties. They in fact, are counter to the model of Dems = unchecked spending / greater debt, Rep = fiscal responsibility / less debt. I don't understand where these perceptions come from. The numbers indicate the opposite. While no one presents good numbers, the Republicans, in the past 40 years, have racked up an incredible amount of debt compared to Democrats.

I don't know or care really what it means, it just is.

Ask yourself what is happening right now.

Who is in charge of Both the White house and Both Houses of Congress, and spending at a rate 3 times what we have ever seen?

Fact is in the past it was both parties spending, but right now today, it is the Democrats. So right now today the Democrats are the ones who can STOP IT!!!

Well yes. It could be stopped. But I have to tell you, honestly, at this point, I think looting the Federal Reserve and other countries for what we can get is OK. The ship is sinking. May as well eat what you want from the galley because there won't be any breakfast served tomorrow. No one intends to pay any of this back and I don't think our kids will either. It's going to come to defaulting on all this debt. Destroy the Fed and 40% of it is gone anyway. It has come to that and it's the time of reckoning with it. I think of it like an old beater of a car. Most people have faced the decision of continuing to repair the car or just driving it 'til the wheels fall off. It's time to drive this baby 'til the wheels fall off.