The usual basic budetary math failure...

tommyjo

New Member
Ah...the historically disproven, yet historically consistent, Republican thinking rears its ugly head again....

President Donald Trump said he believes the extra $54 billion dollars he has proposed spending on the U.S. military will be offset by a stronger economy as well as cuts in other areas.

"I think the money is going to come from a revved up economy," Trump said in a Fox News interview broadcast on Tuesday, hours before he was to address a joint session of Congress.

"I mean you look at the kind of numbers we're doing, we were probably GDP of a little more than 1 percent and if I can get that up to 3 or maybe more, we have a whole different ball game. It's a whole different ball game."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-spending-idUSKBN16718E

The basic facts...and basic math....

  • projections are for a $500B budget deficit for FY 2018.
  • Total US economic output is roughly $19T
  • 1% of $19T is $190B

The ever present realities...

Trump and the Rs want to CUT taxes...and INCREASE spending...that alone makes the deficit WORSE not better.

Assume the economy can do 2% better than it is currently (a lofty expectation...but let's go with it)....2% GDP increase amounts to roughly $400B a year...maybe a little more if we assume higher growth. If the government taxes 100% of that extra growth, it isn't enough to erase the deficit that we already have!

Now...understand that Medicare and Medicaid costs are ramping up due to aging Baby Boomers...our illustrious egomaniac isn't dealing with that...has made no mention of the real problems our budget faces (caring for an aging populace). Instead, in his infinite insanity, he wants to raise defense spending---when we already massively outspend everyone else. From the moment he opened his mouth, Trump's budget proposals have been doomed to fail. He will make the deficit worse. He will make the debt significantly worse. There is no other end result.

This is the same BS economic proposal that Mr. Reagan made...Mr. Reagan was wrong (deficits exploded under Reagan and his budgetary policies put us on the path to where we are today)...Mr. Bush (43) was wrong when he copied the same philosophy (and he left us woefully unprepared to fight the Great Recession).
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
..maybe a little more if we assume higher growth. If the government taxes 100% of that extra growth, it isn't enough to erase the deficit that we already have!

When did ANYONE - including Newt and the newly minted GOP House in '94 - suggest we could wipe out the deficit in a single year?
Hell, they shut down the government because Bill didn't think they could do it in SEVEN (they did it in five).
 

PsyOps

Pixelated
Why do you waste so much of your brilliance on this pathetic little forum? Why aren't you hired up to get this government's finances in order? I mean, I know you'd be fired pretty quickly because you wouldn't be able to resist your hateful impulse to call everyone a moron; but at least your brilliance in fiscal problem-solving will be out there to get those morons a good start.

:loser:
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Instead, in his infinite insanity, he wants to raise defense spending---when we already massively outspend everyone else.

And we have a military so antiquated that we are *wasting* money keeping old stuff running.

But I have to say, I *hate* the old "we spend so much". Because comparing the defense budget of a nation of 320 million people to the budget of a nation with 70 million doesn't work.
Compare us to, say, the European Union - comparable population - and it comes about even. KENNEDY wanted defense spending to be 10% of GDP - it's around 4 and some change.
Russia has a higher percentage.

Or let's put it this way - do you want to live in a world where the world's sole superpower - is *China*?
 

PsyOps

Pixelated
Or let's put it this way - do you want to live in a world where the world's sole superpower - is *China*?

Yes! I think that's part of it. People like TJ view this country as the world's bully. The best way to resolve that is to have our military knocked down a few notches.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Yes! I think that's part of it. People like TJ view this country as the world's bully. The best way to resolve that is to have our military knocked down a few notches.

I read a book years ago written by - of all people - Bill Maher ("When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden") which fully lampooned many things all over the political spectrum.
Despite his remarks about Bush - which weren't wrong - he had a final chapter where he made one huge observation ---

NO world power prior to the United States hasn't slapped the world stupid once it held the power. No world power has *ever* trod so lightly on the rest of the world like the U.S. has.

For people (read: liberals) who think so poorly of the United States' presence in the world, we have gone to great lengths to be fair to the rest of the world in a fashion that previous super powers haven't even bothered.
Once that torch is passed to someone else - be prepared, because no one else has ever been good about it.
 

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
You all smoking something if you think our rate of growth will be 3-4% (which it has to be to afford these big govt. policies)

It's been about 2% the past 7 years or so.

Blame it on Obama in 3...2...1...
 

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
Why do you waste so much of your brilliance on this pathetic little forum? Why aren't you hired up to get this government's finances in order?

No, she was irrevocably fired after the stimulus debacle. Predictions for $1.25 return for every $1 spent and all that utter nonsense, none of which came even close to reality. TJ and reality are complete strangers, you know.

THIS is a classic example of "TJ total maffs failure":

Stimulus-vs-unemployment-July-2011.jpg
 
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Larry Gude

Strung Out
This is the same BS economic proposal that Mr. Reagan made...Mr. Reagan was wrong (deficits exploded under Reagan and his budgetary policies put us on the path to where we are today)...Mr. Bush (43) was wrong when he copied the same philosophy (and he left us woefully unprepared to fight the Great Recession).

Let us define what the parameters are, shall we?

Deficit and debt as related to GDP, YES?

Reagan's spending substantially grew receipts to the treasury, yes?

Bush, not so much, yes?

Reagan, for all his faults including being the father of the ACA, had simulative policies. Dubbya's sucked. he crushed us with oil prices, no help in paying for the wars and the cuts and tried to let it all hide behind growth being driven by people borrowing against their homes.

The left is all for tax increases to curb behavior, say, cigarette taxes yet insists on having it the other way when tax cuts are proposed, that tax increases will inhibit activity but cuts won't promote it.
That doesn't mean it's hard and fast. The Clinton's got their first term under way by raising capital gains taxes and it had exactly the impact desired; a short term sugar high of people selling off assets and paying taxes BEFORE the increase. Reagan did it the opposite way, a carrot, lower taxes to encourage activity.
 

PsyOps

Pixelated
No, she was irrevocably fired after the stimulus debacle. Predictions for $1.25 return for every $1 spent and all that utter nonsense, none of which came even close to reality. TJ and reality are complete strangers, you know.

You just had to do this. Now she's definitely staying.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
You all smoking something if you think our rate of growth will be 3-4% (which it has to be to afford these big govt. policies)

It's been about 2% the past 7 years or so.

Blame it on Obama in 3...2...1...

That's kind of the plan. Do we want 4 more yours of anemic growth? Frankly, I think it SHOULD be at 3-4%.
 

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
That's kind of the plan. Do we want 4 more yours of anemic growth? Frankly, I think it SHOULD be at 3-4%.

I think it should also.

But I'd rather see a budget plan based on a more realistic growth pattern of, say 2% rather than an assumption that growth will suddenly double in the next few years with no economic drivers to facilitate that.

Why not?? Look at the period from '92-2000, for example, and how many years were in that range.

You mean the internet wave? What similar wave of economic boom do we have down the pipeline?
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
I think Trump can get us to 3-4%. I'm pretty sure I've heard him say that as his plan and it's not simply wishful thinking.

Obama got us 6% growth with the various QE's. It didn't show as growth but, on paper, we'd be 6% lower, year by year, than what the 'number' actually was absent QE.

That's not a judgment on QE god or bad. It's an observation and does not get into what may have happen absent it; maybe 2 really bad years followed by 6 great ones? But when the Fed is buying $1 trillion a year, when 6% of GDP is that trillion of made up, out of the blew fake sales, it's 6%. :shrug:

I say that to say this; Bernanke fought 1929 in 2008 and it was enormous mistake. He fought WWII on a 2008 battlefield. Generals do that and it costs a lot until people get it. He, we fear inflation and no one, few, anyway, have done the look forward to see how susceptible a relatively slow economy is to inflation vs. the economy we have of today that can, virtually over night, meet new demands and safely retreat is it declines. We are FAR more elastic than Ben took into account.

I say that to say that 3-4, 5, 6% 8% growth is nothing to be feared from an inflationary standpoint. What is fearful is that that is not controllable by the Too Big To Fail model. it fears the opportunity little companies, and their people, will have to get in and out and make a lot of money, quick. Too Bog to Fail was built to preclude opportunity like that in the name of stability.

Theirs.
 
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