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Yeah, and that's with interest rates at almost 0%. Just wait till interest rates normalize and we start paying a couple trillion a year in interest on top of the 40% deficit spending.
This thread is such a kick ass example of what's wrong with politics in America and why guys like Boutons are actually right that this country is ed (I refuse to use the word un able because it sounds ing re ed).
OP: Our debt is 16 trillion
Repub: Thanks for nothing Obama
Dem: Your guy started it
Repub: Your guy made it worse
Dem: Yeah but your guy started it.
Repub/Dem: Vote for my guy and it will change.
Yeah, and that's with interest rates at almost 0%. Just wait till interest rates normalize and we start paying a couple trillion a year in interest on top of the 40% deficit spending.
There is still a deal to be had on the issue of long-term debt reduction and the 'fiscal-cliff' is the catalyst to get a deal done. One side wants to do it by raising taxes with modest reforms to en lements over time and the other side wants to do it by reducing taxes an additional 20%, eliminating the estate tax, eliminating capital gains taxes on those making >$200k with major reforms to en lements and drastic spending cuts although there is little specificity wrt the cuts.
MIC-spending/tax cutting policies put USA in debt, and the same policies can reduce the debt.
USA has revenue problem, not a spending problem
This is everything that's wrong with the country, someone who's so far left/so far right he says it's one or the other. The way our deficit is ballooning out of control, it's both a revenue and spending problem.
just froze
Both actually, but thanks for playing.
the conservative/Repug policy-driven revenue problem ($Ts in tax cuts) and THEIR Banksters' Great Depression ($Ts in lost property/income taxes) and THEIR bogus/bull wars dominate.
This is a revenue and spending problem. One side denies this outright whereas the other agrees, however they lack the balls to do anything about it
You mean the T's in tax cuts that Obama now owns? And the Bankster's Great Depressionwas an exclusively Republican phenomenon? I'll give the Republicans the wars, but the Dems get the assist.
Pretty well said.
Thank God Obama and the dems came along and got rid of all those evil Bush tax cuts and ended all the wars. , I thought that Afghanistan thing was never going to end.
Put another way, the national debt is currently $136,260 per household. This includes the almost 50% of households that pay no income taxes. This debt has risen by $45,848 per household just since Obama took office 3 1/2 years ago.
So how much do you think your taxes need to go up to be able to keep pace with this kind of spending?
Scott's table says it all; both W and O have screwed the pooch in terms of spending.
Bush
Expenditure that he inherited from Clinton [2000]: 1.9 Trillion
Expenditure at the end of his tenure [2008]: 3.286 Trillion
CAGR: 7.1% per annum over 8 years
Obama
Expenditure that he inherited from Bush [2008]: 3.286 Trillion
Expenditure at the end of last year [2011]: 3.923 Trillion
CAGR: 6.1% per annum over 3 years
Bush spent money while cutting taxes. Obama did nothing to reverse those tax cuts and continued spending. However, the numbers beg the question: why wasn't the Tea Party formed during 8 years of 7% spending hikes under a Republican president? Why did it get formed within the first year of Obama's presidency, and why are his spending hikes portrayed as much worse than his predecessor's?
Because the same percentage of a larger base line = more dollars every year. Letting spending grow "only" 6% still means that spending doubles in 11.66 years.
wal-mart drained more wealth out of this country than the cost of all these wars combined tbh
Primary reason: My guy's defecit = OK, your guy's defecit = not OK
Secondary reasons:
1) Bush years 2001-2002 national attention was on 9-11. Bush years 2003-2007 everyone was happy with 4%-5% unemployment and double digit market returns. By the time things went to we were already into the 2008 election cycle and Bush was pretty much an afterthought.
2) I think the $1 trillion dollar defecit presented an emotional barrier for a lot of people.
could become the new normal. there's a number of things we've gotten used to in the last ten years that were basically unthinkable before 9/11.
The Tea Party was formed in 2009 (before Obama completed 1 year in office). They sure reacted very promptly to his projected spending increases following a recession, considering that they calmly sat through a $200 billion spending increase by Bush in 2005 when there were no comparable economic conditions to justify such spending.
The Tea Party is a bunch of partisan hypocrites.
I'd hope that we could come to our senses before that happens, but who knows?
The original Tea Party unease with the way our government was headed was really more unorganized and bipartisan IMHO. The TP "label" then got co-opted by Republican religious extremists.
There is still a huge number of "original TP" folks out there who share the sentiment that our government by both parties has betrayed us.
It ended up that way, but I don't think that's how it started. I do think it started as an honest grass roots movement of rational people who were genuinely concerned about the fiscal tract we are on. But it didn't take long for the republican establishment, desparate for any kind of an image makeover to disassociate themselves from Bush, to move in and take it over. Once that happened it was all about being anti-Obama.
that's not the way it works. first of all, the central banks control interest rates so they can do what they want there. secondly, the coupon payment on those bonds is going to be the same regardless of the interest rate. the only thing that fluctuates is the amount that investors will pay for the bonds, and that determines the interest rate on the bond. but the coupon rate is constant. if we owe 500,000 coupon payments semiannually on each bond for example, then were still going to pay that same coupon payment regardless of the interest rate.
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