Deficit Falls to Lowest Level in 4 Years

[forestal]

Nope, this time YOU ARE wrong. You can check this site for verification, but "Less Fast" is perfectly acceptable. Now the big question is, can you admit when YOU are wrong??? BTW, even though they are describing "comparative/superlative adjectives" the same rules apply for comparative/superlative adverbs.

You can form comparative adjectives two ways. You can add er to the end of the adjective, or you can use more or less before it. Do not, however, do both! You violate the rules of grammar if you claim that you are more taller, more smarter, or less faster than your older brother Fred.

Or check Websters for Less Fast

Or check google for it's use. You'll see the New York Times amongst other sites that have that string. Sooner or later you'll have to trust your lying eyes.

Next..

Originally Posted by MMDad

Try again. Your grammar really sucks when you aren't copying from the koolaid sources.

By the way, you can't give karma. Next time, preface your karma with either :red: or :green: so I know what you would have left if you were not impotent.

[FromTexas]

Originally Posted by forestal

Hmmm, you're not making much sense. If you make a payment on your debt, yet your debt continues to grow, you still have made a payment and reduced your overall debt compared to what it would have been had you not made that payment. It's just grown less faster. That's still an important distinction to make when your current President and previous Congress made no attempt to rein in spending. Imagine that! Republicans aren't the conservatives they pretend to be!

Money that the government borrows is money that you can't. That leads to interest rates that are higher than they need to be. That affects the economy adversely.

All you showed is that he transfered debt from the public to other government sources. He didn't pay down anything. It still grew. It didn't grow because of interest. The government is required to pay the interest on the debt every year. Any growth is from actual debt growth. What he did is took the social security surplus which is for the future survival of social security and bought up some of the public debt with it. It was invested in the governments own debt instead of other places. That doesn't mean a surplus happened. It just means he knows creative financing.

So, again, point to where he paid down the actual government debt. You can't because it never happened.

[forestal]

The government does have some creative financing. I'll admit that easily...

It really doesn't matter if they transferred debt from one sector to the other. The fact remains is that the government had a SURPLUS that year, and they used it to pay their creditors. Have you seen this happen during the Bush years?

Originally Posted by FromTexas

All you showed is that he transfered debt from the public to other government sources. He didn't pay down anything. It still grew. It didn't grow because of interest. The government is required to pay the interest on the debt every year. Any growth is from actual debt growth. What he did is took the social security surplus which is for the future survival of social security and bought up some of the public debt with it. It was invested in the governments own debt instead of other places. That doesn't mean a surplus happened. It just means he knows creative financing.

So, again, point to where he paid down the actual government debt. You can't because it never happened.

[Pete (Premo)]

Originally Posted by forestal

The government does have some creative financing. I'll admit that easily...

It really doesn't matter if they transferred debt from one sector to the other. The fact remains is that the government had a SURPLUS that year, and they used it to pay their creditors. Have you seen this happen during the Bush years?

How can you cling to that silly argument? The government did not have a SURPLUS, they just borrowed from a different pot of money. Look at the total debt, it INCREASED every year, if we actually had a surplus the total debt would have decreased.

[FromTexas]

Originally Posted by forestal

The government does have some creative financing. I'll admit that easily...

It really doesn't matter if they transferred debt from one sector to the other. The fact remains is that the government had a SURPLUS that year, and they used it to pay their creditors. Have you seen this happen during the Bush years?

What surplus? They just went to the bank and changed creditors, essentially.

If you move $5k in credit card debt to another credit card, did you have a $5k surplus that year? No. The only thing public debt means is it is publically held. Total debt is still total debt. The difference is Clinton used Social Security money (the money that pays for a portion of your retirement one day) to pay off some of the public and move it. Just because you can't fathom the difference between off budget and on budget and how that does not make a surplus, does not mean one magically appeared.

Think about it simply. If he paid off debt, why did it still grow in total? If you pay off your interest and $500 dollars of credit card debt, then your credit card debt should go down, right? It never happened.

[dustin]

Originally Posted by Pete

How can you cling to that silly argument? The government did not have a SURPLUS, they just borrowed from a different pot of money. Look at the total debt, it INCREASED every year, if we actually had a surplus the total debt would have decreased.

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

...we discuss the relevance of debt and deficits?

How much debt is good and why?

How much deficit is good and why?


Our debt isn't even equal to one years GDP yet the average citizen has debt equal to 3,4 or more times their gross annual earnings.

The deficit of late is a smaller % of GDP that some recent years.

The only point I've read anyone make against debt is that it hurts interest rates when, if you look at the refinancing craze because of low interest rates of the past 5 years, doesn't seem to hold much water.

[FromTexas]

Originally Posted by Larry Gude

...we discuss the relevance of debt and deficits?

How much debt is good and why?

How much deficit is good and why?


Our debt isn't even equal to one years GDP yet the average citizen has debt equal to 3,4 or more times their gross annual earnings.

The deficit of late is a smaller % of GDP that some recent years.

The only point I've read anyone make against debt is that it hurts interest rates when, if you look at the refinancing craze because of low interest rates of the past 5 years, doesn't seem to hold much water.

You mean Deficit Spending.

Do you really think after we can hardly get him to admit the surplus didn't exist, you will make some headway in such an advanced topic?

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

Originally Posted by FromTexas

You mean Deficit Spending.

Do you really think after we can hardly get him to admit the surplus didn't exist, you will make some headway in such an advanced topic?

...not at all. I think 'him' has proven rather...elusive when it comes to actually debating a given issue. I'm talking in general and all are welcome to opine.

To me, it is nothing short of classic chicken little-ism to be about deficit spending today, yesterday or tomorrow unless it is contextual to the source of the money that pays for it; gdp. Point being governmental deficit spending, aka 'borrowing' is not in and of itself a bad thing.

For instance, you show a chart showing the debt over the last 20 years;

09/29/2006 $8,506,973,899,215.23
09/30/2005 $7,932,709,661,723.50
09/30/2004 $7,379,052,696,330.32
09/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16
09/28/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06
09/29/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 $3,665,303,351,697.03
09/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.25
09/29/1989 $2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 $2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 $2,350,276,890,953.00

That's a pretty good picture by anyones standard, point being how much value is there in discussing gdp and debt and deficits from 30 and more years ago in the context of a debate over current policy: Good old day-ism is only so useful. Case in point;

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

The lowest debt as % of gdp since the end of WWII was the Carter years. Anyone wanna advocate Carter economics? If my new best friend forestal thinks things are out of whack now yet just peachy under Bubbanomics, the same graph says if things are wrong now and not then, it ain't because of gdp to debt ratios and, even more to the point, the Bubba Bubble Burst downturn of 2000 that W inherited corresponded with with the oh so lauded 'improvement' in gdp:debt ratio. HOW CAN THIS BE???

So, debt vs. income (gdp), what's a good number and why? Same thing for deficit spending. Once again using the BubbaMatrix, deficit spending should now be just about where they are.

This probably boils down to how one keeps score. While it is true W is responsible for record deficits, it is also meaningless without context; he is also responsible for record GDP and record US Treasury receipts.

Percentage is king, that's my argument.

[PsyOps]

Originally Posted by forestal

Imagine how soon we could pay off the debt with even higher taxes on the rich! That would generate an even bigger surge.

BTW, they are still forecasting yet another record deficit, and our national debt stands at 8.6 TRILLION dollars.

Won't that be fun to hand off to our kids???

You mean sort of like how the democrats handed their deficits off to me when I entered into the work force? Or maybe you aren't old enough to remember the Carter years.

Higher taxes have never, NEVER resulted in more revenue (or surpluses as you claim) to the fed. It's only resulted in more money for the fed to spend. And they have regardless of GOP or demo control.

Our wealthy are our business owners. The only result in raising taxes on them will be shifted over to the consumer. WE will pay for that tax hike not the rich.