Republicans: Fiscal Sanity

[boedicca]

The proof that this is nonsense is to simply look at the government's own national debt summary- which I provided earlier.

Over the Clinton presidency there was a 41% increase in the national debt.

The national debt summary includes accruals to the trusts, which are noncash charges and do not measure the inflows and outflows of cash into the Treasury. Those liabilities can be created, and eliminated, with a stroke of a pen.

Over Clinton's two terms, national debt rose, but the government ran surpluses in the last years of the 1990s and paid down debt. You can see all this in the budget documents, of which I linked the 2000 budget above.

She's trying to pull an apples/oranges comparison. By making people think that by some arcane measure Clinton didn't technically balance the budget, and this is the important point,

that half-truth is meant to diminish Clinton vs. Republicans like Reagan and Bush, along the lines of well, Reagan and Bush didn't have balanced budgets, but hey!

neither did Clinton!

The problem, or the deceit, is that if you apply that same arcane measure to Reagan or Bush or Bush, their debt numbers increase proportionately.

The question I asked her the last time she tried to pull this, which of course she wouldn't answer, was:

Did Clinton come closer to balancing the budget than any president in the last 30 years?

Proper accrual accounting is not arcane. Cash accounting for something as big as the federal government is what's arcane.

 

[Ropey]

What I was agreeing with was (your secondary point) that deficits are the state of being, regardless of whether which side (your primary point) is implementing the shenanigans to make portions of the deficits appear as gains.

Then I have to agree with PC. I do not see them as surpluses. Where I disagree is that it would seem both parties do the same thing and why not? When they have those in the Capital industry giving them the thumbs up and supporting this 'decrease by increase'.

Working in Capital markets might have skewed your personal belief a bit?

Pardon....I never said that both parties did not behave in this manner....

I have pointed out that deficits have been the pattern in 44 of the last 50 years.

And explained that, since the 1983 Greenspan commission, every President has taken the SS surpluses and subtracted same from the deficits that they created.

They have carefully contructed methods to obfuscate the dire straits ahead.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The national debt summary includes accruals to the trusts, which are noncash charges and do not measure the inflows and outflows of cash into the Treasury. Those liabilities can be created, and eliminated, with a stroke of a pen.

Over Clinton's two terms, national debt rose, but the government ran surpluses in the last years of the 1990s and paid down debt. You can see all this in the budget documents, of which I linked the 2000 budget above.

She's trying to pull an apples/oranges comparison. By making people think that by some arcane measure Clinton didn't technically balance the budget, and this is the important point,

that half-truth is meant to diminish Clinton vs. Republicans like Reagan and Bush, along the lines of well, Reagan and Bush didn't have balanced budgets, but hey!

neither did Clinton!

The problem, or the deceit, is that if you apply that same arcane measure to Reagan or Bush or Bush, their debt numbers increase proportionately.

The question I asked her the last time she tried to pull this, which of course she wouldn't answer, was:

Did Clinton come closer to balancing the budget than any president in the last 30 years?

Proper accrual accounting is not arcane. Cash accounting for something as big as the federal government is what's arcane.

ar·cane   /ɑrˈkeɪn/ [ahr-keyn]
–adjective
known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric:

The alternative accounting that you and PC and a few others are referring to fits that definition precisely,

so once again today, I am exactly correct and you are grievously wrong.

 

[Trajan]

Social Security is solvent. Social Security does not add to the deficit or the debt...

...although the recent tax bill might change that equation.

so the FICA withholding portion for SSI is not necessary? great! I assume they are paying people right now from the' lockbox'....?

 

[boedicca]

She's trying to pull an apples/oranges comparison. By making people think that by some arcane measure Clinton didn't technically balance the budget, and this is the important point,

that half-truth is meant to diminish Clinton vs. Republicans like Reagan and Bush, along the lines of well, Reagan and Bush didn't have balanced budgets, but hey!

neither did Clinton!

The problem, or the deceit, is that if you apply that same arcane measure to Reagan or Bush or Bush, their debt numbers increase proportionately.

The question I asked her the last time she tried to pull this, which of course she wouldn't answer, was:

Did Clinton come closer to balancing the budget than any president in the last 30 years?

Proper accrual accounting is not arcane. Cash accounting for something as big as the federal government is what's arcane.

ar·cane   /ɑrˈkeɪn/ [ahr-keyn]
–adjective
known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric:

The alternative accounting that you and PC and a few others are referring to fits that definition precisely,

so once again today, I am exactly correct and you are grievously wrong.

You are just showing your completely ignorance regarding proper accounting standards.

Accrual accounting has been the standard in the U.S. among corporations for a long time.

 

[Trajan]

Anyone see a pattern here?

Hmmm ... this is a PC thread so lemme guess ... Democrats = bad and Republicans = good?

Notice, that just for starters, she omitted

the Republicans 2 unpaid for wars in the '00's,

unpaid for Medicare part D,

Bush's 2001 tax cut that was explicitly for the purpose of getting rid of the Clinton surplus,

the unpaid for 2003 tax cut that had no economic justification,

the unpaid for Reagan military buildup,

the unpaid for Bush Sr. Iraq war

...for starters...

getting rid of what? the surplus? do you know what a surplus is in this context?

 

[Trajan]

But even if the transfer is simply paper, it's still transferred, and a reason as to why SS is not funded anymore.

I mean you can only go to the well so many times, even if you are tossing in rocks to raise the water level. The more I look into this, the more fakery I see.

It's a bizarre system. If a company ran its books the way the government does, the CFO and CEO would go to jail.

Buuuuuut ...

This is the way the government has accounted for its books for decades. And based on this method - cash coming in relative to cash going out - the government ran surpluses in the late 90s.

true, but thats like saying hey I have 20K of credit card debt, but I make more money a month than my minimum payment requires every month so I have a surplus...sooner or later, the crash comes and this is it.

 

[Trajan]

Marketable debt declined under Clinton. Increases in total national debt at the time was due to increases in noncash accruals in the trusts.


Debt outstanding held by the public fell.

.

so, if I have this right- you calculate the Public Debt by taking the previous year's public debt adding that to the total budget deficit (or subtracting the surplus), and then adding any other means of financing?

is that correct?


taken and parsed from

HowStuffWorks "Public Debt and the Economy"

 

[Toro]

But even if the transfer is simply paper, it's still transferred, and a reason as to why SS is not funded anymore.

I mean you can only go to the well so many times, even if you are tossing in rocks to raise the water level. The more I look into this, the more fakery I see.

It's a bizarre system. If a company ran its books the way the government does, the CFO and CEO would go to jail.

Buuuuuut ...

This is the way the government has accounted for its books for decades. And based on this method - cash coming in relative to cash going out - the government ran surpluses in the late 90s.

true, but thats like saying hey I have 20K of credit card debt, but I make more money a month than my minimum payment requires every month so I have a surplus...sooner or later, the crash comes and this is it.

Right. But the political Right is changing the goalposts. This is how we've always thought about the fiscal balance. The Right is changing the terms of the argument in an attempt to discredit their political opponents.

And ...

Whether or not one argues if there was a true surplus, there is absolute no doubt - zero, zip, nada, none - that the fiscal balance of the nation was better in 2000 than in 2006. This is why it is a straw man for the right to argue whether or not the budget was in surplus under Clinton when the Republicans ran Washington until 2006, increasing the national debt by $3 trillion.

 

[Toro]

Marketable debt declined under Clinton. Increases in total national debt at the time was due to increases in noncash accruals in the trusts.


Debt outstanding held by the public fell.

.

so, if I have this right- you calculate the Public Debt by taking the previous year's public debt adding that to the total budget deficit (or subtracting the surplus), and then adding any other means of financing?

is that correct?


taken and parsed from

HowStuffWorks "Public Debt and the Economy"

Yes, that is correct.

 

[Trajan]

It's a bizarre system. If a company ran its books the way the government does, the CFO and CEO would go to jail.

Buuuuuut ...

This is the way the government has accounted for its books for decades. And based on this method - cash coming in relative to cash going out - the government ran surpluses in the late 90s.

true, but thats like saying hey I have 20K of credit card debt, but I make more money a month than my minimum payment requires every month so I have a surplus...sooner or later, the crash comes and this is it.

Right. But the political Right is changing the goalposts. This is how we've always thought about the fiscal balance. The Right is changing the terms of the argument in an attempt to discredit their political opponents.

And ...

Whether or not one argues if there was a true surplus, there is absolute no doubt - zero, zip, nada, none - that the fiscal balance of the nation was better in 2000 than in 2006. This is why it is a straw man for the right to argue whether or not the budget was in surplus under Clinton when the Republicans ran Washington until 2006, increasing the national debt by $4 trillion.

okay first I make no bones about bushs spending. I can make some excuses like 911 and the peace dividend Clinton had but , right now?
it is was what it was, and is what it is.

I agree with you re:an earlier post I think you basically said, that lowering taxes and not cutting spending is a loser, I agree. But I don't agree that I should pay more in taxes UNTIL spending cuts come.

IF the deficit commission was for real and they said okay, we are letting the cuts expire but will also cut spending back to say 2008 levels, I would swallow it. I don't think they will I am not in love with this deal btw, that was just cut. I will not pay more so they can just roll along and keep funding at the same levels and frankly, until we really start pulling out of the flat line we are in taxs are a no go.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Proper accrual accounting is not arcane. Cash accounting for something as big as the federal government is what's arcane.

ar·cane   /ɑrˈkeɪn/ [ahr-keyn]
–adjective
known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric:

The alternative accounting that you and PC and a few others are referring to fits that definition precisely,

so once again today, I am exactly correct and you are grievously wrong.

You are just showing your completely ignorance regarding proper accounting standards.

Accrual accounting has been the standard in the U.S. among corporations for a long time.

yeah, and having a vocabulary is standard among people with brains.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The national debt summary includes accruals to the trusts, which are noncash charges and do not measure the inflows and outflows of cash into the Treasury. Those liabilities can be created, and eliminated, with a stroke of a pen.

Over Clinton's two terms, national debt rose, but the government ran surpluses in the last years of the 1990s and paid down debt. You can see all this in the budget documents, of which I linked the 2000 budget above.

She's trying to pull an apples/oranges comparison. By making people think that by some arcane measure Clinton didn't technically balance the budget, and this is the important point,

that half-truth is meant to diminish Clinton vs. Republicans like Reagan and Bush, along the lines of well, Reagan and Bush didn't have balanced budgets, but hey!

neither did Clinton!

The problem, or the deceit, is that if you apply that same arcane measure to Reagan or Bush or Bush, their debt numbers increase proportionately.

The question I asked her the last time she tried to pull this, which of course she wouldn't answer, was:

Did Clinton come closer to balancing the budget than any president in the last 30 years?

Proper accrual accounting is not arcane. Cash accounting for something as big as the federal government is what's arcane.

Well then I'll ask you the question:

Did Clinton come closer to balancing the budget than any president in the last 30 years?[/QUOTE]

 

[finebead]

You have no idea what you are talking about. Companies DO charge different prices for the same product in different countries.

Apparently you don't understand my post. I never said companies charge the same price everywhere. What I said is that price differences in various countries are NOT based on the local production cost, because in many cases, there is only ONE source of production (think Microsoft, they don't write Windows 7 100 times in 100 different countries). Pricing differences can be based on a lot of things, but they do not generally vary by 50%, like drug prices in Mexico vs. USA. A US auto does not sell for half off in S. Korea.

I saw the CEO of one of the major drug companies get cornered on why the drugs were much cheaper in Canada and Mexico, and he finally came clean. The Canadians and Mexican govt. imposed "price controls" on the drugs. The company figured out how much profit they wanted to make, and since the US insurance companies would reimburse them what they asked for branded drugs that had not gone generic, they just set the price in the US to make their nut for the year. That's it. Nothing about approval process, etc.

If the U.S. market didn't provide enough of a return to so that the R&D was a worthy investment, those other countries would not have the drugs upon which to place price controls in the first place.

Instead of lauding price controls as Good Policy, perhaps you should think about how other countries imposition of such just increases the cost to U.S. consumers?

You operate under several misconceptions.

It is NOT the US responsibility to provide enough of a return so the R&D is a worthy investment so the other countries can have drugs on which to place price controls. If the drug companies sell worldwide, they should charge a price worldwide that recoups their expenses and a fair profit.

I never lauded price controls. Read what I said. I said Canada imposes price controls, and they do. That is a simple fact, I don't indicate if I think it is good policy or bad policy, it just is stated that it is their policy. You seem to have some preconceived notion about what I think and you are assuming what I mean when I say something and your conclusions are wrong. Please stop assuming you know what I mean, clearly you do not unless I have stated it.

As far as other countries price controls increasing the price to american consumers, that is only true if the company can sell into the US market at essentially fixed prices, to a market of a certain size, in order to come up with their desired overall profit. The company could accept a smaller profit margin. But at the end of the day, it is our third party payer system where I as the insured do NOT pay the bill for most of what I consume, the insurance company pays the bill. At that point, since I have paid my monthly premium, I HAVE NO INCENTIVE TO MINIMIZE MY COST. I may have a fixed co-pay, and then it makes no difference to me if I consume the least expensive or the most expensive drug. If the insurance company will pay for a very expensive drug, and generally they do if the FDA has approved the drug to treat my condition, I will use it. And that has much more to do with why the drug companies can charge what they want in the US and get away with it, than the fact that Canada places price controls on the drug up there. There are just inadequate incentives for US consumers to minimize their purchase prices when they are not directly paying the bill. Our system fails in this respect.

 

[finebead]

I saw the CEO of one of the major drug companies get cornered on why the drugs were much cheaper in Canada and Mexico, and he finally came clean. The Canadians and Mexican govt. imposed "price controls" on the drugs. The company figured out how much profit they wanted to make, and since the US insurance companies would reimburse them what they asked for branded drugs that had not gone generic, they just set the price in the US to make their nut for the year. That's it. Nothing about approval process, etc.

Yeah. Those price controls in Canada are working out really well:

Canadian Pharmacists Association highlighted serious concerns over a lack of generic drugs and commonly prescribed medications, like penicillin.

Even with shelves full of medication, pharmacist Dennis Abud frequently has to tell patients in the Moncton suburb of Dieppe that their drugs just aren't available.

The national association surveyed more than 400 of its members in October to get a sense of the problem, and 70 per cent said the health of patients was adversely affected.

Almost 94 per cent of pharmacists indicated over a period of one week that they had problems finding medication to fill prescriptions.

"We try and beg, borrow and steal," said Abud. "We try to find medication. We call other stores, other companies. It's a lot of time on the phone. A lot of time talking with patients, trying physicians."

Abud said penicillin, one of the most commonly prescribed drugs, is available only in pill form....

CBC News - New Brunswick - Drug shortage worries pharmacists

The article does NOT STATE WHY there are shortages of drugs in Canada, so it cannot possibly support your contention that the shortage is due to the existence of price controls on the drugs in Canada. The article does not support your assertion, so again you simply leap to the conclusion that because there is a shortage, it must be due to price controls, because you wish to show price controls are bad. But that is not stated in the article, and it cannot simply be "made up".

 

[NYcarbineer]

She's trying to pull an apples/oranges comparison. By making people think that by some arcane measure Clinton didn't technically balance the budget, and this is the important point,

that half-truth is meant to diminish Clinton vs. Republicans like Reagan and Bush, along the lines of well, Reagan and Bush didn't have balanced budgets, but hey!

neither did Clinton!

The problem, or the deceit, is that if you apply that same arcane measure to Reagan or Bush or Bush, their debt numbers increase proportionately.

The question I asked her the last time she tried to pull this, which of course she wouldn't answer, was:

Did Clinton come closer to balancing the budget than any president in the last 30 years?

Proper accrual accounting is not arcane. Cash accounting for something as big as the federal government is what's arcane.

Well then I'll ask you the question:

Did Clinton come closer to balancing the budget than any president in the last 30 years?

<sullen silence>

Oh my! I'm sorry that's not correct. The correct answer is "Yes"...we would have also accepted

'Certainly', 'Absolutely', 'Yep', 'Yepper', 'Yer dang tootin', and 'True Dat!'

 

[NYcarbineer]

The proof that this is nonsense is to simply look at the government's own national debt summary- which I provided earlier.

Over the Clinton presidency there was a 41% increase in the national debt.

The national debt summary includes accruals to the trusts, which are noncash charges and do not measure the inflows and outflows of cash into the Treasury. Those liabilities can be created, and eliminated, with a stroke of a pen.

Over Clinton's two terms, national debt rose, but the government ran surpluses in the last years of the 1990s and paid down debt. You can see all this in the budget documents, of which I linked the 2000 budget above.

That's really groovy other than the fact it is based on fictitious accounting.

So how much debt did Reagan rack up, under 'non-fiction' accounting? Could you provide us that number please?

In current dollars too.

 

[finebead]

Certainly undestandable why you would post what seems to you to indict Repubs, but let's be clear.

You are attacking Repubs, rather than the economic tsunami rapidly approaching.

If that is your intent, fine, I will not defend President Bush's spending....

But if you would like a dose of reality, read on:
1. In the last 50 years, 44 of 'em have been in the red.

2. Our Trillion-Dollar War, by Edgar K. Browning of The Independent Institute:
When Lyndon Johnson inaugurated the War on Poverty in 1964, he assured the public that &#8220;. . . this investment [of tax dollars] will return its cost many fold to our entire economy.&#8221; Now that this &#8220;investment&#8221; has reached a trillion dollars a year we should evaluate whether the returns have, in fact, been large. Some questions to consider:
Is the low-income population more independent and self-supporting than before the War on Poverty?

If a trillion dollars were simply given to those counted as poor by the federal government (37 million in 2005), it would amount to $27,000 per person. That&#8217;s $81,000 for a family of three, higher than the median income of all American families, and far greater than the poverty threshold of $15,577.
Right Truth: War on Poverty, the high costs and the depressing results

3. When L.B.J.&#8217;s War on Poverty initiatives are balanced against costs&#8212;the lost economic growth, the massively expanded taxation, the substantial increase in the size and scope of government, and the creation of a class of citizens completely dependent upon the government&#8212;the War on Poverty looks like a failure.

4. A cautionary tale from LBJ&#8217;s &#8216;Great Society&#8217; discredits the progressive principle of more services via ever-expanding government. And, in fact, unemployment and inflation did occur simultaneously. &#8220;Carter cannot be blamed for the double-digit inflation that peaked on his watch, because inflation started growing in 1965 and snowballed for the next 15 years.&#8221; Carter ruined the economy; Reagan saved it

5. &#8220;&#8230;he was schooled in governmental activism by the New Deal. As he scaled the political ladder in the years following World War II, Americans expected increasing benefits from Government, and L.B.J. was happy to provide them. He subscribed to what could be called a politics of plenty: more of everything for everybody. He was the ideal President for the insatiable 1960s.
HISTORICAL NOTES: L.B.J.: Naked to His Enemies - TIME

6. LBJ fit the progressive mold perfectly, and he wanted to continue FDR&#8217;s advances toward a cradle-to-grave European style government. The theater of endeavor was not as much economic equality, but racial, but still aimed at undoing the attempts of Truman and Eisenhower to return America to its tradition of fiscal responsibility (between 1946 and 1960, the national debt had fallen from 122% of GDP to less than 56% of GDP; over that period, America&#8217;s total deficit was some $740 million versus FDR&#8217;s deficit of $15.6 billion in 1946 alone. Historical Tables | The White House).

7. Notice how similar are the characteristics of Democrat administrations: Never having worked in the private sector during his entire adult life, the solvency of his programs was never a consideration. And, thanks to the New Deal and a world war, many Americans had been weaned away from traditions such as self-reliance, free enterprise, local control, and the kind of society that voluntarily helped its neighbors.

8. Using the rhetoric that goes back to President Wilson, Johnson proclaimed his &#8216;war&#8217; on poverty. The bedrock of is plan came from the writings such as &#8220;The Other America,&#8221; by Michael Harrington, who claimed that there were millions of Americans drowning in poverty. Two problems:

a. &#8220;I work on an assumption that cannot be proved by Government figures, or even documented by impressions&#8230;&#8221; Michael Harrington, &#8220;The Other America: Poverty in the United States,&#8221; p. 17-18

b. Harrington had a political ax to grind. &#8220;Michael Harrington, Socialist and Author, Is Dead,&#8221; Michael Harrington, Socialist and Author, Is Dead - Obituary - NYTimes.com

c. LBJ and Congress had enacted hundreds of new subsidies, welfare programs, housing programs, urban programs, and educational programs. Federal Aid to the States: Historical Cause of Government Growth and Bureaucracy | Chris Edwards | Cato Institute: Policy Analysis

9. Those of us on the right have warned progressives about the unintended consequences of policies not fully considered...folks like you. Here is how LBJ stuck his foot in it: LBJ accomplished the expansion of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC). Under FDR, AFDC had been limited to widows, those who had lost their husbands and needed help to support the children. To progressives, loosening and expanding the eligibility to any woman living alone with children, benefitted huge groups of voters. No matter that it incentivized out-of-wedlock births, and single motherhood, reinforcing the same negative behaviors that caused poverty in the first place. (in 1960, only 5.3% of children were born out of wedlock&#8230;today? Around 40 %). Millions of women could be better off financially by not marrying. See Charles A. Murray, &#8220;Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980.&#8221;

a. The motto of liberalism: do whatever feels good, and don&#8217;t worry about the consequences.

b. Which explanation makes more sense: progressives couldn&#8217;t imagine these consequences, or they just didn&#8217;t care?

10. So, my biased friend, if you would like to go after Bush for spending, do so by all means....but remember Democrat LBJ was worse by several measures, including the fiscal timebombs of Medicare and Medicaid...

President Bush was the biggest spender since LBJ. From 2001 to 2006, Republicans controlled the presidency and House, and, with the exceptions of &#8217;01 and &#8217;02, the Senate. This was the 'conservative' Progressive Era. . Average Annual Spending Increases (excluding interest):
a. JFK 4.6%
b. LBJ 5.7%
c. Nixon 2.9%
d. Ford 2.7%
e. Carter 3.2%
f. Reagan 1.9%
g. BushI 2.0%
h. Clinton 1.9%
i. BushII 5.6%
Historical Tables | The White House

1. We have gone overboard on entitlements. Not all entitlements are bad, but some of them are bad, and some good programs get abused because of inadequate audit and control.
2. You have to consider what happens in the nation if the gulf between rich and poor gets too wide, and people are malnurished is a land of plenty. They get mad, very mad. They start rioting. It happened in the French Revolution. It happened in Watts and Detroit in 1968, and it would have gotten worse had we not enacted some "share the wealth" programs. The most destructive action for any economy is the conduct of war. At the end of the day, it is always cheaper to feed the people than to fight them in the street. That is not the kind of nation I want to live in.
3. You have not proposed a viable alternative to medicare for meeting the health needs of those over 65, other than yada yada private enterprise, which frankly is NOT a serious proposal.
4. The problem with the cost of medicare is not that it is an entitlement, it is due to the nature of the healthcare system in america in which it operates. See below from a conservative expert:

Health care is expensive because of the pervasive entitlement attitude held by literally everyone in the system: patients, providers, suppliers, insurers. Government insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, veterans, Department of Defense) covers 87 million; tax breaks subsidize 176 million in employer coverage; insurers and other third-party payers take care of the bills for 85 percent of Americans.

This virtually guarantees payment to the medical community, who are the gatekeepers to health care. There is little awareness of the full cost or value of medical treatment on the part of consumers or providers, and little opportunity for individuals to choose their own coverage or make informed decisions with their doctors about treatment.

Why Does Health Care Cost So Much? - NYTimes.com

Another perspective from the same source:

A common lament is that we don&#8217;t know how to control costs. That&#8217;s false. Other nations with broad health programs have a much better track record than we do, and even the Medicare program has controlled costs better than the private sector. These experiences suggest that a big reason health care in America is so expensive is that there&#8217;s too little countervailing power in the markets for health insurance and health services.

Insurers, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, doctors and hospitals are all able to drive up prices with limited pushback. On the one side, insurers have virtual monopoly power in many markets. Without serious competition for their business, they often have little incentive to contain costs. On the other side, providers of health care services have enormous market power in many local markets. Without insurers jawboning them to bring down rates and improve efficiency, they continue to charge too much and operate without proper economy.

The problem is not medicare (which has controlled costs better than the private sector), it is that the insurance companies and health providers have too much power. I read that there are 2 lobbiests in Wash. DC employed by the healthcare industry for EACH senator and representative. Big Pharma and its lobby fund many campaigns. That is a major reason that no legislation effectively controls them, whether it is a repub OR a dem administration.

Medicare does not cause annual price increases from hospitals and insurance companies to run at rates double the national inflation rate year after year, and that really is the problem. That does not make medicare bad, it indicts the heath care structure in which medicare operates.

Medicare is a good program, because everyone in this nation should have health care available, they need access to health insurance. Medicare provides it for those over 65. If you don't like the program, propose the outline of a system to replace it. What will the monthly premium be for people aged 65, 70, 80, 90, 100, and 110+ ? Would the private insurers (since you advocated "private enterprise" be able to reject people? Before you can trash medicare, you have to be able to describe an alternative that works, and you have not (don't feel bad, nobody in the nation that I know of has described such a system, that would indicate their ARE NO GOOD IDEAS ON HOW TO DO IT, and that is why medicare stays.).

 

[PoliticalChic]

Yes there is a "trust fund", treasury bonds were issued to cover the rape of the trust fund.
Of course the "stolen" money will have to be repaid out of general funds and that is what most politicians are trying to squirm out of. And why they are callin it a crisis, etc.
But too fracking bad.

Citi...now sit down when you read this:

It should be enlightening, here, to explore accounting procedures…one of which is known as the Unified Cash Basis Budgeting. Just as with any one of us who writes a check, it is recorded as an expense, and when we receive a check, it is listed as income. Generally, government treats budgets in the same way.

a. So, a deficit means that the government spent more than it received during a specific fiscal year.

b. Now, think about this: using the cash basis method, you plan for a vacation in January by taking a $2,000 loan in December. This will appear as an asset in your bookkeeping- even though you will be obligated to repay this loan: it is actually a liability!

This is exactly the situation that allowed Clinton to raid the Social Security Trust Fund, and claim this as revenue, even though it is an obligation to pay in the future.


Every President since the 1983 Greenspan Commisssion, has taken the SS Trust Fund surplus as revenue, and used it funding its programs...

If a private concern did this it would be calle double counting....but the federal govenment makes its own rules...

Publicly traded companies are bound by accounting rules known as “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles,” GAAP, which account for revenue, expenses, assets, and liabilities. So, can we count on government figures with the same degree of certainty?

a. Not exactly: the government uses the rules of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board, FASAB. The rules are set by Congress and the White House.

b. “The government's record-keeping was in such disarray 15 years ago that both parties agreed drastic steps were needed. Congress and two presidents took a series of actions from 1990 to 1996 that: Created the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board to establish accounting rules, a role similar to what the powerful Financial Accounting Standards Board does for corporations.” USATODAY.com - What's the real federal deficit?


And they do this so Citizens will say "Yes there is a "trust fund", treasury bonds were issued to cover the rape of the trust fund."

IOU's Citi, just IOU's.

Ugh.

Nobody's raided SSI...

And trusting publicly traded companies for accuracy?

OMG...I hate when I have to do this, but this just came in, and supports your post:

"New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit against Ernst & Young for civil fraud Tuesday, accusing one of the nation's largest accounting firms of helping Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. hide its financial weakness from investors for about seven years before the bank finally collapsed in September of 2008.

Ernst & Young knew about, supported and advised Lehman on its "Repo 105" transactions, a type of debt the bank took on, but labeled as sales, which made the firm appear to investors less risky than it really was, according to the complaint. The audit firm also stood by while Lehman misled analysts and investors on conference calls and in financial filings about its levels of risk, particularly after the firm's stability began to crack after the credit crisis began in 2007, said the complaint."
Cuomo Sues Ernst & Young - WSJ.com

 

[Ropey]

Citi...now sit down when you read this:

It should be enlightening, here, to explore accounting procedures…one of which is known as the Unified Cash Basis Budgeting. Just as with any one of us who writes a check, it is recorded as an expense, and when we receive a check, it is listed as income. Generally, government treats budgets in the same way.

a. So, a deficit means that the government spent more than it received during a specific fiscal year.

b. Now, think about this: using the cash basis method, you plan for a vacation in January by taking a $2,000 loan in December. This will appear as an asset in your bookkeeping- even though you will be obligated to repay this loan: it is actually a liability!

This is exactly the situation that allowed Clinton to raid the Social Security Trust Fund, and claim this as revenue, even though it is an obligation to pay in the future.


Every President since the 1983 Greenspan Commisssion, has taken the SS Trust Fund surplus as revenue, and used it funding its programs...

If a private concern did this it would be calle double counting....but the federal govenment makes its own rules...

Publicly traded companies are bound by accounting rules known as “Generally Accepted Accounting Principles,” GAAP, which account for revenue, expenses, assets, and liabilities. So, can we count on government figures with the same degree of certainty?

a. Not exactly: the government uses the rules of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board, FASAB. The rules are set by Congress and the White House.

b. “The government's record-keeping was in such disarray 15 years ago that both parties agreed drastic steps were needed. Congress and two presidents took a series of actions from 1990 to 1996 that: Created the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board to establish accounting rules, a role similar to what the powerful Financial Accounting Standards Board does for corporations.” USATODAY.com - What's the real federal deficit?


And they do this so Citizens will say "Yes there is a "trust fund", treasury bonds were issued to cover the rape of the trust fund."

IOU's Citi, just IOU's.

Ugh.

Nobody's raided SSI...

And trusting publicly traded companies for accuracy?

OMG...I hate when I have to do this, but this just came in, and supports your post:

"New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit against Ernst & Young for civil fraud Tuesday, accusing one of the nation's largest accounting firms of helping Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. hide its financial weakness from investors for about seven years before the bank finally collapsed in September of 2008.

Ernst & Young knew about, supported and advised Lehman on its "Repo 105" transactions, a type of debt the bank took on, but labeled as sales, which made the firm appear to investors less risky than it really was, according to the complaint. The audit firm also stood by while Lehman misled analysts and investors on conference calls and in financial filings about its levels of risk, particularly after the firm's stability began to crack after the credit crisis began in 2007, said the complaint."
Cuomo Sues Ernst & Young - WSJ.com

Shades of Fanny and Freddy ...