It's not the economy stupid.Follow

When that happens, it just means the numbers were interpreted wrong

Sure. If that ever happens, you go for it!


You realize that clever quip doesn't change the hard fact that I'm absolutely 100% correct here, right? We can even look at the numbers in %GDP if you want:

 
year    revenue      spending   deficit debt 
2000	20.6	     18.2	2.4	34.7 
2001	19.5	     18.2	1.3	32.5 
2002	17.6	     19.1	-1.5	33.6 
2003	16.2	     19.7	-3.4	35.6 
2004	16.1	     19.6	-3.5	36.8 
2005	17.3	     19.9	-2.6	36.9 
2006	18.2	     20.1	-1.9	36.5 
2007	18.5         19.6	-1.2	36.2 
2008	17.5	     20.7	-3.2	40.3 
2009	14.9	     25.0	-10.0	53.5 
2010	14.9         23.8	-8.9	62.1 

It's pretty easy to see that the bulk of our current debt problem is because of spending increases. Even if we didn't implement the Bush tax cuts and had kept revenue up at over 20% of GDP, we'd still be spending too much. It should also be clear that despite running modest deficits for most of his administration, the Bush economic policy resulted in a high debt% of just under 37%, and for the two years prior to the housing bubble breaking, that debt percentage had been trending downwards.

In other words, the actual tax/spend policies of the Bush era were sustainable. So all the talk about bush spending and bush tax cuts are meaningless in the context of todays economic woes. Everything we're dealing with right now are the results of those last couple years. In 2009 and 2010 we see revenues drop significantly *and* we see spending increase significantly. That's a double whammy.


And I'll point out that this is exactly what conservatives were talking about when we kept saying you shouldn't spend money during a recession. The "recession" part of that is the two years of dropped revenues. By themselves, we'd have some debt accumulated dealing with that. Add in some TARP funds and there'll be some more. But the Democrats went well beyond those things and decided to go on a spend spree. Did we really need to spend tens of billions of dollars on "green energy" right in the middle of an economic crisis? No. We didn't. We didn't need to spend any of that "stimulus" money at all. TARP was sufficient all by itself at correcting the cause of the economic problems at the time. If we'd just left it there, the economy would have recovered and we'd see the whole thing as just a minor dip on the economic highway.


But because of the Dems and their runaway spending, now we're in a worse financial crisis than the housing bubble itself caused. And because the Dems are going to continue to be able to more or less control most of our spending and taxing policies for the next year and a half, the policy changes which need to be enacted to fix this wont be done. We'll continue to wallow in a recessionary pit while our debt piles up until the GOP is able to gain sufficient control to implement the policies which need to be implemented. We have to bring spending under 20% of GDP. Period. The Dems don't have the political will to do this though. And that's why we're screwed for the time being.

Edited, Jul 11th 2011 3:19pm by gbaji

And? You laugh, but don't look at the facts?

It's just amazing to me that every liberal pundit and politician lately has been repeating the same broken-record rhetoric: "We all know that our debt crisis was caused by the Bush tax cuts and two unfunded wars". It's false. It's a lie. The facts simply do not support that claim at all. Not only do they not support the claim, they show absolutely and unequivocally that the claim is false.


Do you have any response other than to laugh? I know that blind dismissal of uncomfortable truths is a common feature of today's political thought, but aren't you taking this a bit far? Engage the brain. Look at the numbers. It's clear that the tax rates didn't cause this and that defense spending didn't cause this.

Edited, Jul 11th 2011 3:46pm by gbaji

And yet, that's pretty much the only thing coming out of the mouths of Democrats and their liberal supporters these days. It's laughable because every single time I watch any news show where the economy is being discussed, no matter what channel it's on, someone will state as though it's absolute fact that the cause of the current debt crisis is because of one or both of those reasons I mentioned earlier.

The fact that this is provably false, yet so many posters on this forum repeat it as though it's unquestionably true, only shows that this is a case of "repeat a lie often enough, and many more people will assume it's true and repeat it too". Doesn't anyone think for themselves?

Huh? What hypocrisy? Are you sure you know what that word means? Someone posts false claims. I post hard facts which refute said false claims. And then you jump in and say I'm being hypocritical? Um... What?

That accusation look familiar? She was laughing at that specifically and it was easily changed to apply to you. If you got your facts anywhere, that is.

Why? Defense spending only increased by $140B between 2007 and 2010. During that same time period, our deficit increased by $1,134B. I'm not talking about "prior defense spending patterns". I'm saying that the actual defense spending during the time in question didn't increase anywhere near enough to be considered a cause of the deficit increase during that same time period.




Huh? I didn't make that argument at all. What the hell!?


My argument is in two parts:

1. It can't be the Bush tax rates because we had those same rates from 2001 on but deficits were going down prior to 2008 *and* debt as a percentage of GDP was going down as well. Thus, the tax rates at that time was sufficient to create a sustainable economic picture in terms of revenue vs spending.


2. It can't be the cost of the wars because I'm looking at historical figures, not projections. This isn't how much we budgeted at the beginning of the year, but how much we actually took in and spent on various things. There's no "hidden or unbudgeted costs" involved. We actually spent X amount on defense in 2007 and actually spent just $140B more on defense in 2010.


The left has created this myth where somewhere there's some off the books spending that took place which all came due in 2009 and 2010 and can be blamed for why spending went up so high in those two years. But the fact is that this spending doesn't exist. If we did spend money in those years paying for past wars, it would show up somewhere in the historical data. It doesn't. Therefore, it's a complete fabrication and anyone who makes the claim is either lying, or repeating a lie.


There is no truth to it. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. Yet, it's repeated a dozen times a day by liberal pundits and politicians. I can only assume that they figure if they just repeat it enough times, people will assume it's true. And apparently, in the case of many forum members, that is true. You didn't bother to go see if there really was a massive bill from Iraq and Afghanistan which came due and had to be paid in 2009/2010, did you? You just swallowed the lie, hook, line, and sinker, and then went on to repeat it.


Do some research first. It's not that hard. The CBO data is available for anyone to find and read. Why not go find out if those claims are true before repeating them?

Research isn't hard when you come to your conclusions first.

Which is why I used the words that I used and not the ones you're suggesting.

Yes, your conclusion is always "DEM IS BAD," and your examination of the available data, minus reality, proves that conclusion to you. No one has denied that.

Your personal opinions of me aside, can you at least acknowledge that in this case, I'm right?

They're also not responsible for the current debt crisis, right?



"Entirely" is a loaded word though. How about 99% their fault? It's just somewhat ridiculous when Conservatives and Republicans were jumping up and down screaming that we shouldn't spend this money, or that money, or the other money because it would run us into massive debt and then just a couple years later, when exactly what was predicted has occurred, the fact that we're in massive debt is somehow our fault now? How exactly does that make sense to anyone? The GOP voted against those spending bills nearly unanimously. They were out voted by the Democrats. And on the few occasions that the GOP was able to mount a filibuster to try to block the spending, they were demonized for it.


How now do you place blame on anyone but those who not only spent the money which pushed us over the brink, but did so against the clearly stated objections of the other party? Objections, which in hindsight turned out to be absolutely correct.



No, it hasn't. That's just the tired rhetoric you've chosen to adopt and repeat. The facts simply don't support that assessment. Prior to the housing bubble collapse, the debt% was decreasing. Same tax rates. Same wars already in play and costing us money. The only changes were three things:

1. The housing bubble collapse and the resulting hit to the financial market which had invested heavily in it.

2. The spending allocated to bailing out the financial industry.

3. The spending (in multiple bills, not just the recovery act) designed to stimulate the economy out of the recession caused by the first event.


Right now, the only direct effect we're feeling from #1 is that many homes have lost their value. But the correction has happened and is largely done. The spending in #2 worked and prevented additional financial institutions from failing, allowed most of them to recover to pre-crash levels, and most of the money has been paid off.


It's the spending in #3 that is killing us. And that is pretty much entirely the fault of the Dems. They chose to spend that money over the objections of the GOP. They did so out of a belief that by doing so they could fix the economy. But the economy hasn't been fixed and we're still out the money they spent. So yeah, I think it's fair to blame the Dems for this one.

Edited, Jul 12th 2011 6:18pm by gbaji

/shrug

My primary objective was to highlight the false claims being tossed around by liberal pundits with regard to blaming the Bush tax cuts and some mysterious unpaid war debts for the current debt crisis. I consider that objective achieved.