Where The Heck Did All These Leftists Come From??

[PoliticalChic]

^ Still, nothing.

Of course you have to say that.


But, I am curious.....you have such an ornate, Baroque avi....

...it stands in juxtaposition to your empty, jejune posts.



Is that like bald guys growing big, thick sideburns?

Oh wow! Big words. Weird words. Scary! I am so impressed. It is said if you cannot move them with logic.......bury them in bullshit!

I'm going to guess that the only thing rarer than justice in this world is folks who live to impress you....


True?

 

[Uncensored2008]

Like I said, get someone to explain the term off-budget

So sparky, do you think off-budget items have no impact on the nation debt?

I take it that you sometimes write checks and don't record them in the register so that they don't lower your bank account, right?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Like I said, get someone to explain the term off-budget

So sparky, do you think off-budget items have no impact on the nation debt?

I take it that you sometimes write checks and don't record them in the register so that they don't lower your bank account, right?

Excellent analogy.

Even though he gets it....he won't be honest enough to admit same.

 

[bobcollum]

Of course you have to say that.


But, I am curious.....you have such an ornate, Baroque avi....

...it stands in juxtaposition to your empty, jejune posts.



Is that like bald guys growing big, thick sideburns?

Oh wow! Big words. Weird words. Scary! I am so impressed. It is said if you cannot move them with logic.......bury them in bullshit!

I'm going to guess that the only thing rarer than justice in this world is folks who live to impress you....


True?

^ Another content-laden submittal of wonderful, insightful points by politicalhick.

 

[there4eyeM]

My definition is more correct than yours.

Why?

Because I say so!

Do you know when you are joking, or are you just a joke?

 

[Toro]

Like I said, get someone to explain the term off-budget

So sparky, do you think off-budget items have no impact on the nation debt?

I take it that you sometimes write checks and don't record them in the register so that they don't lower your bank account, right?

Nobody's arguing that the national debt didn't go up. It did. What PC incorrectly claims is that we didn't run a surplus. That is wrong. We ran a surplus for four years.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Nobody's arguing that the national debt didn't go up. It did. What PC incorrectly claims is that we didn't run a surplus. That is wrong. We ran a surplus.

What PC correctly points out is the surplus was a fraud, a trick of smoke and mirrors. IF there actually were a surplus, the debt would have gone down, per federal law. BUT the debt went up, demonstrating that we spent more than we brought in, which rational people refer to as a "deficit."

 

[Toro]

Nobody's arguing that the national debt didn't go up. It did. What PC incorrectly claims is that we didn't run a surplus. That is wrong. We ran a surplus.

What PC correctly points out is the surplus was a fraud, a trick of smoke and mirrors. IF there actually were a surplus, the debt would have gone down, per federal law. BUT the debt went up, demonstrating that we spent more than we brought in, which rational people refer to as a "deficit."

We did not bring in less than we spent. That is factually incorrect. We brought more in than we spent. A surplus is the excess cash inflow over cash outflow. That's it. That's what happened for four years in a row.

And the debt can go up even if we run a surplus. This can happen a number of ways. It can go up if FICA tax receipts rise faster than income and other tax receipts. It can happen when the trusts are running at a surplus while the operating budget is in a deficit. The operating budget ran a deficit. The trusts ran surpluses. The surpluses in the trust exceeded the operating deficit. Ergo, because both are combined into the budget, we had a surplus. In fact, the CBO estimated that had the estimated economic growth and budgetary policies continued to today, all of the public debt would have been paid off by now. We still would have had the debt in the trusts, but there would have been no more publicly traded Treasury bonds.

 

[PoliticalChic]

My definition is more correct than yours.

Why?

Because I say so!

Do you know when you are joking, or are you just a joke?

"Because I say so!"

The signature of a child of the 60's.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Like I said, get someone to explain the term off-budget

So sparky, do you think off-budget items have no impact on the nation debt?

I take it that you sometimes write checks and don't record them in the register so that they don't lower your bank account, right?

Nobody's arguing that the national debt didn't go up. It did. What PC incorrectly claims is that we didn't run a surplus. That is wrong. We ran a surplus for four years.

Only in one area...and that was by skimming from the Social Security Trust Fund.

The implication is that the government ran a surplus.
This is untrue.
It didn't.


And...purposely untrue.....for political reasons.

 

[Toro]

They don't "skim" the trusts. The trusts are consolidated into the budget.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

1. Leftism is so pervasive, that if applied to any other way of looking at life, it would be widely recognized as a form of brainwashing!

Image a person who attended only fundamental Christian schools from preschool through graduate school, who never saw a secular, let alone anti-Christian, film, and who only read religious books. Most would say that they had been ‘brainwashed.” Yet, we regularly find individuals who only attended secular liberal schools from preschool through college, watched or listened to only Left-of-center television, movies, music, and had essentially no exposure to religious or conservative ideas.
Brainwashed?

Of course not! Liberals are open-minded!!! The irony here is that the denial itself shows how very effective the brainwashing has been.

Now, Christians or Jews who have rarely been exposed to secular ideas and values would readily acknowledge same. It is only those on the Left who fool themselves into believing that they have been exposed to all points of view.
Prager, “Still The Best Hope,” chapter two.



2. Universities have become to Liberalism what a Christian seminary is to Christianity. The difference is that Christian seminaries acknowledge their purpose, to produce committed Christians.

a. “The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible.” The University's Part in Political Life” (13 March 1909) in PWW (The Papers of Woodrow Wilson) 19:99.




3. Now, while the indoctrination by universities is thorough and complete…it is not permanent. This is the meaning of 'If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not Conservative by 40, you have no brain'.

Therefore, what is required to maintain the miasma, the haze of Liberalism, is the media.

The media is the wall against which most folks bounce their search for “Truth.” In the Golden Days of Liberal control of the media, there was the Cronkite-Chancellor-Reasoner Cartel. In this top-down system for determining the Truth, it was handed out by a very few networks…and a handful of national newspapers. Cronkite went so far as to end any debate, each night with” “And that’s the way it is.”

a. Cronkite was a big believer in the powers of centralization, that the smartest people could get into a room and solve all the world’s problems.

b. Cronkite: “It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order.”
Remarks on Accepting the 1999 Norman Cousins Global Governance Award - World Beyond Borders

c. Frank Zappa saw this top-down journalistic ‘Truth’ for what it was: “They walk in the door seeking a method by which they can reinforce conclusions they've already arrived at. “Zappa Family regains control of Frank's Catalog!! - Furthur Community Forum




4. Why so many in the profession lean Left? “The radicals [of the 60's] were not likely to go into business or the conventional practice of the professions. They were part of the chattering class, talkers interested in policy, politics, culture. They went into politics, print and electronic journalism, church bureaucracies, foundation staffs, Hollywood careers, public interest organizations, anywhere attitudes and opinions could be influenced. And they are exerting influence.”
Robert H. Bork, “Slouching Toward Gomorrah,” p. 51



But the spell is wearing off....fewer watch the nightly news, and fewer yet the newspapers.

5. In 1987 a group of conservative news junkies started the ‘Media Research Center.’ The same year, the Reagan administration repealed the Fairness Doctrine. A year later, Rush Limbaugh began his wildly successful radio show. And in 1996, Matt Drudge appeared.



The internet: the final battleground.

Sorry I didn't realize I was being indoctrinated when they tought me thermodynamics and calculus.

 

[Uncensored2008]

We did not bring in less than we spent. That is factually incorrect. We brought more in than we spent.

Well cool, then the debt went down!

No?

Hmmmm.

A surplus is the excess cash inflow over cash outflow. That's it. That's what happened for four years in a row.

Uh, no one claims that. Even the most rabid of the dims won't try to make that claim.

Early on, an attempt to claim that 98, 99. and 2000 were surplus years, but 98 was quickly dropped as absurd.

The myth is that 99 had a $123 billion surplus and that 2000 a $230 billion surplus. Of course this is false, as a quick look at the numbers show.

For fiscal year 1999, ending 09/30/1999 the closing debt was $5.656270 trillion, $130.08 billion above FY98. A $130.08 billion deficit.

For fiscal year 2000, ending 09/29/2000 the closing debt was $5.674178 trillion an increas of $17.91 billion over FY99, i.e. a deficit.

And the debt can go up even if we run a surplus.

No, it actually can't.

This can happen a number of ways. It can go up if FICA tax receipts rise faster than income and other tax receipts. It can happen when the trusts are running at a surplus while the operating budget is in a deficit. The operating budget ran a deficit. The trusts ran surpluses. The surpluses in the trust exceeded the operating deficit.

Was the trust funded or was it diverted to operating budgets? So the concept of a trust "surplus" is a farce, smoke and mirrors.

Ergo, because both are combined into the budget, we had a surplus. In fact, the CBO estimated that had the estimated economic growth and budgetary policies continued to today, all of the public debt would have been paid off by now. We still would have had the debt in the trusts, but there would have been no more publicly traded Treasury bonds.

I highly urge a business to try this sort of accounting....

No, in fact I don't, they would go to prison. You know why? Because it's fraud.

 

[Uncensored2008]

They don't "skim" the trusts. The trusts are consolidated into the budget.

You're trying to argue both ends. The trusts were used to shore up deficits in the operational budget.

Skim, raid, whatever.

Look, you're a smart guy who knows what he's talking about, so how about we subject the federal government to GAAP?

Did these transactions meet GAAP requirements?

 

[PoliticalChic]

They don't "skim" the trusts. The trusts are consolidated into the budget.

Puleeeezzz...


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.” http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/04/h...ever-perpetrated-against-the-american-people/

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.

c. “Instead of Social Security subsidizing the rest of the budget, the rest of the budget will have to subsidize Social Security.” Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/31/politics/washingtonpost/main4906936.shtml

 

[PoliticalChic]

1. Leftism is so pervasive, that if applied to any other way of looking at life, it would be widely recognized as a form of brainwashing!

Image a person who attended only fundamental Christian schools from preschool through graduate school, who never saw a secular, let alone anti-Christian, film, and who only read religious books. Most would say that they had been ‘brainwashed.” Yet, we regularly find individuals who only attended secular liberal schools from preschool through college, watched or listened to only Left-of-center television, movies, music, and had essentially no exposure to religious or conservative ideas.
Brainwashed?

Of course not! Liberals are open-minded!!! The irony here is that the denial itself shows how very effective the brainwashing has been.

Now, Christians or Jews who have rarely been exposed to secular ideas and values would readily acknowledge same. It is only those on the Left who fool themselves into believing that they have been exposed to all points of view.
Prager, “Still The Best Hope,” chapter two.



2. Universities have become to Liberalism what a Christian seminary is to Christianity. The difference is that Christian seminaries acknowledge their purpose, to produce committed Christians.

a. “The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible.” The University's Part in Political Life” (13 March 1909) in PWW (The Papers of Woodrow Wilson) 19:99.




3. Now, while the indoctrination by universities is thorough and complete…it is not permanent. This is the meaning of 'If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not Conservative by 40, you have no brain'.

Therefore, what is required to maintain the miasma, the haze of Liberalism, is the media.

The media is the wall against which most folks bounce their search for “Truth.” In the Golden Days of Liberal control of the media, there was the Cronkite-Chancellor-Reasoner Cartel. In this top-down system for determining the Truth, it was handed out by a very few networks…and a handful of national newspapers. Cronkite went so far as to end any debate, each night with” “And that’s the way it is.”

a. Cronkite was a big believer in the powers of centralization, that the smartest people could get into a room and solve all the world’s problems.

b. Cronkite: “It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order.”
Remarks on Accepting the 1999 Norman Cousins Global Governance Award - World Beyond Borders

c. Frank Zappa saw this top-down journalistic ‘Truth’ for what it was: “They walk in the door seeking a method by which they can reinforce conclusions they've already arrived at. “Zappa Family regains control of Frank's Catalog!! - Furthur Community Forum




4. Why so many in the profession lean Left? “The radicals [of the 60's] were not likely to go into business or the conventional practice of the professions. They were part of the chattering class, talkers interested in policy, politics, culture. They went into politics, print and electronic journalism, church bureaucracies, foundation staffs, Hollywood careers, public interest organizations, anywhere attitudes and opinions could be influenced. And they are exerting influence.”
Robert H. Bork, “Slouching Toward Gomorrah,” p. 51



But the spell is wearing off....fewer watch the nightly news, and fewer yet the newspapers.

5. In 1987 a group of conservative news junkies started the ‘Media Research Center.’ The same year, the Reagan administration repealed the Fairness Doctrine. A year later, Rush Limbaugh began his wildly successful radio show. And in 1996, Matt Drudge appeared.



The internet: the final battleground.

Sorry I didn't realize I was being indoctrinated when they tought me thermodynamics and calculus.

I've seen your posts, poo.....hard to believe you've learned anything.


You would be well advised to switch to textbooks for research, rather than grimoires.

 

[Toro]

They don't "skim" the trusts. The trusts are consolidated into the budget.

You're trying to argue both ends. The trusts were used to shore up deficits in the operational budget.

Skim, raid, whatever.

Look, you're a smart guy who knows what he's talking about, so how about we subject the federal government to GAAP?

Did these transactions meet GAAP requirements?

I've made it very clear right from the beginning that the government budget surplus includes all cash flows from the trusts. If you exclude the trusts, the budget was not in surplus. But it is political convention to include the trusts.

A surplus is cash flowing into the government less cash flowing out. Full stop. That's it. There is no other definition. If you want to parse the cash flows between the accounts to attribute the sources and uses of cash, fine. But cash inflows across all federal government entities exceeded cash inflows for four straight years. Across all government accounts, the government brought in more cash than it spent. That money was used to pay down publicly traded debt. That is real cash coming in and out of the government which was used to retire CUSIP-numbered publicly traded debt securities. Absent massive sales of government assets - which didn't happen - you can't do that without a surplus. Total national debt rose because cash flows were not great enough to offset debits to the trusts. I explained how this can happen in the links above.

And it's silly to say that they "raided" the trusts. They can't "raid" any of the trusts because the liabilities aren't publicly traded. They are debits and credits against future government cash inflows. Unlike Treasury bonds, they can't be liquidated to be diverted.

As for GAAP, I don't know. James Grant has done it, and it was interesting, but I'm not sure what actionable benefit it would be. The main benefit of GAAP is the construction of the income statement and balance sheet. A balance sheet would be interesting but an income statement would probably be useless. The closest approximation of the government fiscal process is the GAAP cash flow statement, though the government budget doesn't break down the sources of cash flow as the GAAP CF statement does.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Like I said, get someone to explain the term off-budget

So sparky, do you think off-budget items have no impact on the nation debt?

I take it that you sometimes write checks and don't record them in the register so that they don't lower your bank account, right?

No. I think that when someone says the budget was balanced under Clinton, the budget was balanced.

Correction, I don't think that; I know that.

 

[NYcarbineer]

My from my side, it's technical knowledge devoid of politics. From your side, it's ideological partisanship that tries to score cheap political points and demonstrates why some accuse the right of being anti-intellectual. Conservatives who have an inkling of understanding don't make this argument. You're smarter than this. That's why I'm asking you to please stop. It looks so bad from my side.

She heard this somewhere and now it's stuck to her head like a tick. You won't dislodge it.

The ineducable are always among us.

Don't you feel "dirty" having made a promise to admit Food Stamps are used in the ways I've suggested....

...and then reneged on the promise?

Since your alleged 'proof' of it was to quote the poster rightwinger making a joke about it,

I'd say no, I don't feel dirty at all. I feel vindicated, like I do 99% of the time.

 

[Toro]

They don't "skim" the trusts. The trusts are consolidated into the budget.

Puleeeezzz...


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.” http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/04/h...ever-perpetrated-against-the-american-people/

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.

c. “Instead of Social Security subsidizing the rest of the budget, the rest of the budget will have to subsidize Social Security.” Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/31/politics/washingtonpost/main4906936.shtml

OK PC.

How can money be "diverted" or "raided" when the assets in the trust are non-tradeable assets?

Also, what is the difference in the economics of a trust fund invested solely in Treasury securities, as it was prior to 1985, and to debiting and crediting non-tradeable liabilities, as occurred thereafter. In other words, what is the difference between the government purchasing and selling government bonds in the trust fund and the government debiting and crediting non-tradeable liabilities as if they were buying and selling government bonds? That will help you answer the first question.


BTW, do you want to know why the surplus in the SS trusts exploded? Because Reagan doubled the payroll tax. Interesting, eh?