Budget deficit nears record under latest estimates

reaganomics baby!!!

let the debt trickle (more like gush) down to our children, grand children, great grand children, great great grand children...

 

I think you need to re-read this sentence a few times. If Bobby is worth a million dollars and owes 100,000 in debt, he's not in bad shape. If Jimmy is worth 100,000 and owes 100,000 in debt he IS IN BAD SHAPE.

Absolute dollar comparisons are silly and it must be compared to the size of the economy in which our deficit levels are still high, but lower than deficits of yesteryear. Thats surprising to me as well with market prices having been flat (S&P 500) for the last decade meaning a significant shortfall in capital gains tax and revenues for the USA.

 

Don't bother. They gush over an article which simultaneously quashes their own hysteria and yet still demonizes the evil Bush Tax Cuts.

It's nothing but schadenfreude. Miserably unhappy people who believe they will never be happy unless they do everything they can to make as many other people as miserable as they are. This is why so many of them are so venomously vehement about tax cuts - they MUST make us feel pain, and the best way they can think of is to reach in our pockets and take take take. Make us feel worry, make us hurt, make us feel angst and despair, make us miss our payments, lose our homes, destroy our families.

Only then will we have been taxed enough.

 

This is really one of the worst posts I've ever seen...

 

Hehehe it's called Hi-PER-buh-lee. Thought I would try it, since everyone else seems to enjoy it so much.

In any case, if that is one of the worst posts you've seen, you must not have been hanging out in the D&D much lately..

Whatever. Wailing about tax cuts reveals a mentality which reflects Reagan's statement from years ago: 'The closest thing to immortality is a government program.'. The problem is not tax cuts - the problem is the government spending too much of our money in the first place. The answer is not to take more from our pockets, it is to slash the size of the government. Strangely, this idea never seems to please the libs.

 

Okay, phew, thought you were serious for a second....

So do you think we should be making cuts in our bloated military budget as well?

Smaller government is great too, but what exactly are your suggestions? Things like unemployment and welfare aren't exactly the things that are breaking our bank here.

 

u know what sucks about this? the younger generation like me has to burden this deficit. the bush administration has basically put the younger generation in a big hole. what a pathetic president.

 

To be fair, Bush didn't make this deficit really. Now, he had the chance to turn the tide and start making that thing start ticking downwards instead of going up, but deficit spending is not his creation.

 

he's spending $10 billion a month on the miliary, which is 10x bigger than the next. we're fighting 2 wars when the only war we should be on is the war on terror. we're giving the iraqis $10 billion a month when they have a $79 billion surplus. yes, bush is not the first president to put us in a deficit. but are you kidding me with these spendings? i actually liked the guy when he first won the election in 2000.

 

I think you go back to the Constitution, and the subsequent Amendments, and start from there. What this country is obligated to do, what the states are obligated to do, and then work back up from there, and if something clearly does not belong, then it either gets privatized or axed.

Somehow humanity managed to survive and thrive for thousands of years, despite the notion of a welfare mentality never existing until maybe 100 years ago.

Are there easy answers? Of course not. But slowly circling the drain in a continuing death spiral is probably not going to work out well.

It'll take some hard choices. But I will never buy into the mantra of 'tax increases! tax increases!' which for some inexplicable reason the libs love so much. (Well, I know why, but when you bring up terms like 'socialism' and 'wealth redistribution' and 'class warfare', it sort of makes them spontaneously combust, and while it's amusing, it never seems to go anywhere after that)

 

He didn't create the idea of deficit spending, but much of the deficit *is* directly tied to his decisions and policies. Part of is the war with Iraq - a completely voluntary war he made the decision to embark on. Part of it is that the 2000-2006 period marked the largest growth in discretionary non-defense spending in recent history.

The difference between Dems and GOP isn't "tax and spend" vs "smaller government". It's "tax and spend" or "borrow and spend".

 

I think the republicans are brilliant.

They were so sick of big government liberals that they decided that liberals needed to be taught a lesson.

So, now liberals are even harping about being fiscally conservative.

BRILLIANT!





just disregard the history of repub presidents vastly increasing the size of the government compared to democratic presidents.

 

I agree with you in principal here...I don't think any of us enjoy the idea of giving away our earnings to those who don't deserve it. Even though as a poor student right now I could potentially benefit from low income programs, I don't think I could ever take anything, it goes against what I stand for.

But the problem of our rapidly shrinking middle class isn't going to go away. And with the way the super wealthy continue to increase that wealth - there is only so much to go around, obviously - I seriously worry about the future of our country. Sometimes it's not just a matter of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and making something out of yourself. In time, the rich are just going to get richer until...well, something is going to have to give. I obviously don't have any answers either, I just worry.

 

To be fair, the counterproposal coming from the "conservatives" is "tax cuts tax cuts" coupled with more spending than the liberals.

I'm not a fan of that either. If you're going to waste tax dollars, at least be honest about it.

 

good point, you know who runs the highest percentage of deficit to gdp historically, reagan (not even close) and bush I, bush II to be fair is not that far out of line with others even though still high

also, there are some anomolies during WWII. For instance reagan's highest was -6% which is by far the highest of any in the past fifty years, but some WWII totals are -30%

 

FOUR MORE YEARS....FOUR MORE YEARS.....

Uh.....no thanks.

DD

 

Be careful using the word 'conservatives' there, even if you do use "scare quotes".

Fact is, a typical Washington Republican politician bears little resemblance today to a 'conservative', so don't lay this crazed spending at the feet of conservatives. Lay it at the feet of Republicans trying to get and stay elected by aping liberals. When we conservatives say we want to 'clean house', that does not just mean democrats - it means ALL of the ones who have lost their minds and are driving this country's future into oblivion.

This, of course, is one of the main reasons why I practically weep at having to choose between McCain and Obama.. Death by Hanging, Firing Squad, or Electrocution? Lethal Injection maybe? Doesn't matter, dead is dead.

Maybe when Palin is in there in front of peoples' eyes and minds for the next 8 years, even though she may not wind up being the candidate in 16, maybe the American People will have finally gotten over this love affair with spend-crazed politicians, and will be more willing, more DEMANDING even, of having some actual genuine conservatives in Washington for a change. Because we have not had any in there in quite a while.

 

Republicans are not fiscal conservatives.

They are Debtors......

That is my main problem with them....if they would actually do what they promise....cut spending.....cut government, I would believe them...but the bottom line is their record shows they promise this.......and then they grow government, spend more, and incure more debt for our kids and grandkids.

That is not fiscal conservatism, that is downright stupidity.

DD