tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3943197398825772515.post8281685599398593835..comments2023-03-25T07:49:13.719-04:00Comments on Blog Title Undergoing Renovation: 10 Things You Need to Know About the DeficitUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3943197398825772515.post-81095215267459503942011-05-04T01:18:19.807-04:002011-05-04T01:18:19.807-04:00Bilber,
Thanks for taking the time to post your c...Bilber,<br /><br />Thanks for taking the time to post your comments. I thought they deserved a follow-up post of their own, which is at http://jschardin.blogspot.com/2011/05/deficit-part-deux.html.Justinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06482037559369572543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3943197398825772515.post-7915682903423026102011-04-29T00:32:38.332-04:002011-04-29T00:32:38.332-04:001). The last year that Republicans did a budget wa...1). The last year that Republicans did a budget was '06 for the '07 year. The deficit in '07 was $167 Billion. The Democrats took the House and Senate in '06. They could raise taxes anytime they wanted after January 1, '09. They didn't, and they failed to do it again in the lame duck session in '10. Do they EVER take responsibility? Taxes affect behavior -- CBO does static analysis. It ALWAYS overstates the revenue from taxes and understates the revenue from cuts.<br />2). Look at that chart for one second. It is essentially flat! Therefore, taxes are NOT the problem, spending is! See any spending charts that look essentially flat? Nope!<br />3). Oh, be serious! The budget shot up from $2.8T to $3.8T and the deficit shot up from $167B to $1.6T. It really makes no difference at all what you want to try to label it, it is SPENDING!!! This dodge is exactly like me putting on 10lbs and trying to call it muscle mass! <br />4).OK, and is this new? The US defense total budget is $800B. Cut it in half and you don't even get the current deficit under a T. Cut it all and we are still running $700-$800 B. THE PROBLEM IS ENTITLEMENTS!!! <br />5). Transfer payments to individuals -- FICA, Medicare, Food Stamps, Unemployment, Farm Programs, etc are $2.2 Trillion. We are buying votes with over half our budget. 80% of the people receiving those payments are not "needy". Most are better off than the youngest quartile of the population. Quit stealing from current and future children and buying votes from greedy geezers!<br />6). OK, and this is news??? Helloooo ... and where were you decades ago when this was clear? Expecting Boomer mass suicide or something?<br />7). Not financially. Earmarks are "leverage" in the overall corruption of using one group of people and future generations as coerced campaign donors to buy votes. They are political credit default swaps.<br />8). Liberal "facts" are all about "projections". Look at the "actuals" .... pretty flat. Look at the big bump in "near in projections" 10-12. Look at FICA / other non-interest ... again, flat. THEREFORE, what this is about is Democrat ASSUMPTIONS / PROJECTIONS about the future. Is anyone surprised that they at least claim to believe that their policies work?<br /><br />Look at their track record -- when Democrats instituted Medicare in '65, they said it would cost $9B in 1990 -- in fact it cost $67B http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-02-09-edit_x.htm <br />9). OK, so what IS it like? Infinity? It is a WHOLE lot more like your family budget than it is like infinity -- it is much larger than your family budget, but it is limited like your family budget just the same. If government spending created wealth, every nation on earth would be filthy rich. The government IS a HUGE family budget, and our US family is way bankrupt from exactly the kind of fuzzy thinking in #9.<br />10). Continuing to pile on more debt will certainly be catastrophic. Stopping our debt addiction will only be catastrophic if the current administration plays suicide roulette. As long as we pay the interest on the debt and any redemptions, there is no default. The interest is around $400 B, but will rocket shortly if we don't quit borrowing since we need to jack interest rates to fight inflation or simply to inscent purchasers to buy debt from a bankrupt nation. All our debt is short term -- interest doubles and the payment is $800 Billion. The BEST way to prevent that from happening is to STOP BORROWING!!! It may be the only way left to somewhat save ourselves from ourselves. <br /><br />Our revenues are just north of $2T per year. That means that we could stop borrowing, pay the interest on the debt, and still have $1.6 Trillion and change to spend. Say $500B for defense and a Trillion for everything else.Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05484017289750901445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3943197398825772515.post-34020749181446816942011-04-27T14:52:03.896-04:002011-04-27T14:52:03.896-04:00It's a good question, and a strange situation....It's a good question, and a strange situation. The vast majority of specific spending cuts are very unpopular and, while cutting defense isn't very popular, relatively speaking it is. And yet, we talk very little about doing so, despite there being no coherent rationale for the budget we do have that I can see. Many conservatives argue that we ran defense spending at 4-5 percent of GDP during the Cold War so we can do it now. That's true, but it doesn't answer why we *should* do it.<br /><br />I don't have figures in front of me, but I seem to recall defense spending around 2000 was about $250-$300 billion a year. It's now around $800 billion, I believe, if one includes war spending. We can't afford everything at once.<br /><br />I don't know what the political path to cutting it is, but I'm not sure what the path is for any of the tough decisions that have to be made to balance the budget in the long term. If a "grand bargain" can be struck on a comprehensive plan in the next couple of years, it will be the result of masterful political skill on someone's part.Justinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06482037559369572543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3943197398825772515.post-91482168141744241362011-04-27T14:10:44.141-04:002011-04-27T14:10:44.141-04:00This is an excellent primer. A question for you: t...This is an excellent primer. A question for you: there's a lot of (valuable) discussion about controlling the long-term costs of Medicare/Medicaid, but not nearly as much about how to reduce the defense budget. Politically, what is the path to bringing down our expenditures on the military? Besides, ya know, not fighting 2 1/2 wars,Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10181729548072589331noreply@blogger.com