Main problem: Natl Debt is too big. Republicans are compromising HUGE on the solution

[Little-Acorn]

The biggest economic problem we are facing today, is that our National Debt is too big. More than $14 trillion... plus another $50+ trillion that we have committed to spend in the future, above and beyond any revenue, with no plans of where the additional money will come from (aka "unfunded mandates" like Social Security, Medicare etc.)

The only real solution, of course, is to start paying that enormous debt off. Simply paying the interest on it (to avoid default) will never make it go away. God help us if we get into a major war any time soon - our former creditors might tell us to go pound sand, our present financial situation may make it difficult or impossible to pay off any more, so they won't lend it to us when we need it. And there won't be any rich, idle country across the ocean to bail us out as England had when they ran out of money in WWII.

But I keep hearing that Republicans are "refusing to compromise" on any solution to the problem, and that's why no deal has been arrived at.

"Refusing to compromise"??? Republicans are compromising HUGE. They aren't insising on paying off even a penny of the debt. They are even not insisting on balancing the budget so we can stop INCREASING the debt, except as a far-off proposal for a Balanced Budget Amendment that won't be ratified for years (if at all), and won't go into effect for even more years after that.

On the contrary. It's the Democrats who are refusing to compromise. Any deal MUST include raising tax rates they insist, which will hold back the economy, scuttle any possible revenue increases, and make the situation even worse. And of course, they are demanding more and more borrowing, with no end in sight. Start paying off the debt? Hah.

The solution to the problem, is to start paying off the national debt. If we don't do that, the problem will remain, and remain, and remain, and never get any better. Anyone who thinks the Democrats will willingly do that, is dreaming. The only hope for any real solution, lies with the Republican party - a party still on strict probation after ten years of wild spending. Yet even the Republicans, though they have held fast on refusing any tax INCREASES, have compromised hugely on any actual solution to the problem: Starting to pay off the National Debt.

Don't hand me that tripe about Republicans "refusing to compromise". If they compromised any more, they'd be Democrats (as they were for the first 8 years of this century).

Republicans deserve credit for refusing to increase tax rates. But it's barely a first step in solving the most severe economic problem we face today: The gigantic (and increasing) National Debt.

Republicans are compromising HUGE, even as we speak. That might be necessary to get anything out of the Democrats... but it has to stop, pretty soon, once more Democrats are voted out of office in 2012. Our major problems won't even begin to be solved, until they do.

The Democrats certainly won't.

[Wind Song]

Let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire, and we will recover fiscally.

[Kathianne]

Let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire, and we will recover fiscally.

Interesting, can you explain a bit your reasons for saying that?

[Wind Song]

If the Clinton era tax rates were still in place, the national debt (which was $10.5 trillion when George W. Bush left office) would have now been completely payed off.

The current 14 trillion dollar national debt is a direct product of continuous unfunded and irresponsible tax cuts (mostly for the very wealthy) by Republican leadership in Washington for the past 30 years.

[Kathianne]

Indeed the debt is too high and none of the elites of either party wish to address how to bring it down. Problem for them though are those representatives that actually are listening to the people. Compromises are going to have to be created, but there has to be real concessions on both sides. Instead so far it seems that not only with the debt, but budgets, pork, and overall mismanagement by those elected to care for the 'general welfare' so many like to spout off about, are leading us to a precipice:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-fear-based-economy/


The Fear-Based Economy

Posted By Tom Blumer On July 21, 2011 @ 12:00 am In economy,Money,Politics,US News
Finally, someone has publicly said what everyone has long known.

On Monday, during his company’s second quarter earnings call [1] with investors, Wynn Resorts CEO Stephen Wynn ended the three-year truth embargo over who is holding back the U.S. economy.

In July 2008, yours truly christened the economic conditions America began facing roughly a month earlier as the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy [2], named after its primary creators: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. In a comment at that original post, I noted [3] that the economy’s job and wealth creators were “genuinely frightened by the lack of seriousness and presence of abject irresponsibility in Congress and in Obama.”

This fright went viral long ago but remained whispered in carefully chosen company until Wynn broke the silence. When an earnings call participant asked why his firm hasn’t expanded its meeting space in Las Vegas, Wynn responded:


I’m afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States.

… my customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry, in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration. And it makes you slow down and not invest your money.

… this is Obama’s deal, and it’s Obama that’s responsible for this fear in America.

Why shouldn’t the economy’s key players be afraid? In 2-1/2 years, Barack Obama and his administration have shown that they will do anything in their power — even if not in their constitutional power — to further their far-left redistributionist and science-free environmental goals. If it means subverting the rule of law [4] to favor bankrupt union-dominated car companies, so be it. If it means shutting down oil drilling and exploration in the Gulf of Mexico and restoring it in slow motion [5] at a cost of tens of thousands of jobs [6], well, that’s unfortunate collateral damage. If it means revoking an already-issued permit [7] for coal mining, too bad, so sad.

...

It has long been known and accepted, with proof going all the way back to Herbert Hoover’s ill-conceived actions in the early 1930s, that tax increases will at a minimum prevent an economy attempting a recovery from reaching its full potential. At worst, they will send it back into recession. Additional tax increases in the current economy will create an overwhelming danger of another recession and a subsequent malaise which could rival the Great Depression.

Did I say, “additional tax increases”? Well, yes. The Wall Street Journal helpfully reminded us [9] on July 11 that tax hikes associated with ObamaCare amounting to $438 billion over the next 10 years will begin taking effect in 2013. Of course, these impending levies, the legislation’s stifling bureaucracy [10], and disastrous work disincentives [11] have been hanging over employers’ growth and hiring plans since Pelosi, Reid, and Obama made it law 16 months ago.

As if we needed more problems, make no mistake: The economy, which has failed to grow at the brisk pace required for a genuine recovery in employment since the end of the recession, has shown signs of serious deterioration in the past few months. Here are just a few of the indicators:

* In May and June combined, seasonally adjusted employment grew by only 43,000, while the unemployment rate rose in both months.
* The new-home market has barely budged [12] from its historic lows.
* Consumer confidence is at its lowest level since March 2009 [13], one of the worst months of the recession.
* The director of the widely read Consumer Reports Index stated his belief last week [14] in a radio interview that seeing the unemployment rate hit 9.6% in the next few months “is not out of the question.”
* In mid-July, announced U.S. layoffs and terminations at Cisco [15] and Borders [16] alone were within striking distance of the number of seasonally adjusted jobs the whole economy gained in June.
* On Friday evening, July 15, the better to avoid attracting much attention, Goldman Sachs dropped [17] its annualized second- and third-quarter growth forecasts to 1.5% and 2.5%, respectively, and indicated that another recession is “clearly a possibility given the recent numbers.” Putting its employment practices where its predictions are, Goldman announced on Tuesday [18] that “it might lay off as many as 1,000 employees globally.”
* Most germane to the Washington discussions is the fact that federal collections, after rising steadily if not spectacularly for about a year, suddenly fell on a year-over-year basis [19] in June.

When the economy is sitting on such a dangerous precipice, unless the goals are to deliver a knockout punch and to take the intimidating uncertainty to the level of debility (given this administration’s mindset, these cannot be ruled out), you don’t even think about raising taxes. With a federal budget hopelessly out of balance, all you can do is cut spending, period.

You also don’t raise taxes when you know, as anyone with an ounce of perception does, that for the next eighteen months if we’re lucky, or an unthinkable 66 if we’re not, we’re stuck with the current fear-based economy. I could be wrong, but I can’t conceive of anything this administration could do to change the current frightened mindset in the business community before it leaves the stage. Wynn agrees, saying that until Obama is gone, “everybody’s going to be sitting on their thumbs.”

You could also call this “going Galt.”

Given the above and lack of serious address to the budget and debt, regardless of the machinations going on, unless a real solution is found, there won't be increased revenues from taxes, as unemployment will continue to rise; businesses will fail to expand and invest; sales will fall or remain flat.

[Little-Acorn]

Let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire, and we will recover fiscally.

Yep. Draining more money out of the economy, is a great way to stimulate the economy and start creating more jobs (and tax revenue). Yup, yup. Liberals are right as they have always been. :lol:

[Kathianne]

If the Clinton era tax rates were still in place, the national debt (which was $10.5 trillion when George W. Bush left office) would have now been completely payed off.

The current 14 trillion dollar national debt is a direct product of continuous unfunded and irresponsible tax cuts (mostly for the very wealthy) by Republican leadership in Washington for the past 30 years.

Somehow you think that it's been lack of taxing, not spending by government or the economic fallout from multiple undeclared wars that brought us to this place?

[Wind Song]

The Congressional Budget Office says the deficit could be fixed almost completely simply by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled in 2012 and broadening the alternative minimum tax. Rising debt could lower economic growth by 6% by 2025, and 18% by 2035.

[Little-Acorn]

The Congressional Budget Office says the deficit could be fixed almost completely simply by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled in 2012 and broadening the alternative minimum tax.

Link? Reference?

Maybe I haven't been following the news as closely as I should, but I can't recall ever hearing the CBO say this.

I am also eager to see their (or your) figures showing that draining this money from the economy, does not slow it down enough to negate any possible revenue increases. That would also be major news... which has somehow gone unreported.

Back to the subject:
As I have pointed out, the Republicans have been compromising hugely in this "budget battle", giving up any progress toward solving the biggest problem, and even offering to RAISE the debt ceiling if they can get some promises of future spending cuts... spending cuts that still don't eliminate the need for even MORE borrowing.

When can we expect the Democrats to offer equal compromises on their side? Starting, for example, with giving up their insistence on even more tax rate increases, that wouldn't have done any good anyhow?

[Wind Song]

Yep. Draining more money out of the economy, is a great way to stimulate the economy and start creating more jobs (and tax revenue). Yup, yup. Liberals are right as they have always been. :lol:

I'm reporting what the Congressional Budget Office actually said. Congress is composed of democrats and republicans.

Eliminating the bush tax cuts will nearly eliminate the deficit problem.

I am proud to be a liberal. Whether the CBO is right or not, remains to be seen. I have no reason to doubt them. Apparently, you do.

[Kathianne]

The Congressional Budget Office says the deficit could be fixed almost completely simply by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled in 2012 and broadening the alternative minimum tax. Rising debt could lower economic growth by 6% by 2025, and 18% by 2035.

Actually not exactly. I think you are referring to a paper written, including a chart by Ruffing and Horney that has been used to say what you have. What the CBO report did that their paper didn't was include the other variables into the equation: entitlement spending, defense spending, etc., in other words all facets of the budgetary process, not just one variable that stands alone. Indeed, if the Bush cuts were left in place, the growth rate would remain near the same point as had been the case.

What the CBO further found was that if spending continued as planned, the debt would balloon past sustainability in 7 years.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/27360.html

[Wind Song]

I agree that spending needs to be reduced. The government is an incredibly inefficient company. Nonetheless, the Bush tax cuts have to go.

Here’s what the CBO said:

Through 2008, federal debt equaled 40 percent of the nation’s GDP, pretty close to the 40-year average of 37 percent since 1945. At the end of this year, federal debt will be approximately 70 percent of GDP.

Spending on mandatory health care programs (i.e., those that do not require annual appropriations, such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and health insurance subsidies established by the national health insurance reform legislation) will rise from 6 percent of GDP today to 9 percent of GDP in 2035. Together with Social Security, their part of GDP would rise from 10 percent now to 15 percent 25 years from now.

The expiration of the Bush era tax cuts enacted in 2001 that President Obama largely extended in 2010 will lead to tax revenues equaling 23 percent of GDP in 2035. If the tax cuts are extended again and if the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is not expanded, revenues will be closer to their historical average of 18 percent of GDP.

If revenues are at the 18 percent level and mandatory expenditures increase as predicted, if not even faster, the CBO suggests that debt as a percent of GDP will surpass its historical high point of 109 percent by 2023 and approach 190 percent by the year 2035.

The CBO predicts the following consequences from higher debt levels:

1.“Rising debt would increasingly restrict policymakers’ ability to use tax and spending policies to respond to unexpected challenges, such as economic downturns or financial crises. As a result, the effects of such developments on the economy and people’s well-being could be worse.”

2.“Growing debt also would increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis, during which investors would lose confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget and the government would thereby lose its ability to borrow at affordable rates. Such a crisis would confront policymakers with extremely difficult choices. To restore investors’ confidence, policymakers would probably need to enact spending cuts or tax increases more drastic and painful than those that would have been necessary had the adjustments come sooner.”

3.“To keep deficits and debt from climbing to unsustainable levels, policymakers will need to increase revenues substantially as a percentage of GDP, decrease spending significantly from projected levels, or adopt some combination of those two approaches.”
http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13461:new-congressional-budget-office-report-sounds-the-alarm-over-deficits&catid=155:nonprofit-newswire&Itemid=986

[Little-Acorn]

I'm reporting what the Congressional Budget Office actually said. Congress is composed of democrats and republicans.

Eliminating the bush tax cuts will nearly eliminate the deficit problem.

Link? Reference?

Maybe I haven't been following the news as closely as I should, but I can't recall ever hearing the CBO say this.

I am also eager to see their (or your) figures showing that draining this money from the economy, does not slow it down enough to negate any possible revenue increases. That would also be major news... which has somehow gone unreported.

Back to the subject:
As I have pointed out, the Republicans have been compromising hugely in this "budget battle", giving up any progress toward solving the biggest problem, and even offering to RAISE the debt ceiling if they can get some promises of future spending cuts... spending cuts that still don't eliminate the need for even MORE borrowing.

When can we expect the Democrats to offer equal compromises on their side? Starting, for example, with giving up their insistence on even more tax rate increases, that wouldn't have done any good anyhow?

[Kathianne]

I agree that spending needs to be reduced. The government is an incredibly inefficient company. Nonetheless, the Bush tax cuts have to go.

Raising taxes during a recession or what may well be a depression is not likely to bring relief.

[Thunderknuckles]

Raising taxes during a recession or what may well be a depression is not likely to bring relief.
I think you can make a strong case for not sun-setting the Bush tax cut during a recession but at some point I think you have to let that tax cut expire as it was originally meant to. I think our deficit/debt issue is just too damn big to be handled by spending cuts alone. I'll even take a small tax increase as long it comes with a sunset clause just as Bush's tax cut did.

[Kathianne]

I think you can make a strong case for not sun-setting the Bush tax cut during a recession but at some point I think you have to let that tax cut expire as it was originally meant to. I think our deficit/debt issue is just too damn big to be handled by spending cuts alone. I'll even take a small tax increase as long it comes with a sunset clause just as Bush's tax cut did.

I agree, however whatever hikes there may be must be vastly overshadowed by cuts in spending where possible and rate of growth for all.

[Thunderknuckles]

I agree, however whatever hikes there may be must be vastly overshadowed by cuts in spending where possible and rate of growth for all.
Agreed.
That was too amicable. I feel the need to go club some baby seals now :p

[Missileman]

If the Clinton era tax rates were still in place, the national debt (which was $10.5 trillion when George W. Bush left office) would have now been completely payed off.

The current 14 trillion dollar national debt is a direct product of continuous unfunded and irresponsible tax cuts (mostly for the very wealthy) by Republican leadership in Washington for the past 30 years.

Baloney! We have a 14 trillion dollar debt because the federal government spent too much money, NOT because they didn't confiscate enough from the taxpayers. Shrimp on treadmills, trillion dollar non-stimulating stimulus bill, bank bailouts, Fanny and Freddy, 800,000 non-essential federal employees...the list goes on forever and ever.

You wouldn't even be able to get a DEM to sign off on legislation that any monies raised from higher taxes be used to pay off the debt...they live only to spend more and more. Cutting spending is a concept they'll never realize. Why do you think they want the nation's healthcare money to be routed through DC? It's because they already have plans on how to blow it on things other than healthcare.

[Kathianne]

Baloney! We have a 14 trillion dollar debt because the federal government spent too much money, NOT because they didn't confiscate enough from the taxpayers. Shrimp on treadmills, trillion dollar non-stimulating stimulus bill, bank bailouts, Fanny and Freddy, 800,000 non-essential federal employees...the list goes on forever and ever.

You wouldn't even be able to get a DEM to sign off on legislation that any monies raised from higher taxes be used to pay off the debt...they live only to spend more and more. Cutting spending is a concept they'll never realize. Why do you think they want the nation's healthcare money to be routed through DC? It's because they already have plans on how to blow it on things other than healthcare.

My personal favorite of late?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016255/Thousands-tax-dollars-funded-study-penis-size-gay-community.html


Thousands of tax dollars funded a study on penis size in the gay community

By Rachel Quigley

Last updated at 1:54 AM on 19th July 2011


As the country plunges further into debt and with the small task of securing a multi-trillion dollar deal still on the cards, it has emerged that thousands of tax dollars were wasted on a study examining the correlation between a gay man's penis size and his sex life.

The study was among several backed by the National Institutes of Health who granted almost $900,000 in one year on this and other studies.

The institute has come under scrutiny from a group claiming the agency is wasting valuable tax dollars at a time when the country is trying to control its debt...

The pic is pretty funny too:

http://i54.tinypic.com/z2u0h.png

[Gaffer]

My personal favorite of late?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016255/Thousands-tax-dollars-funded-study-penis-size-gay-community.html



The pic is pretty funny too:

http://i54.tinypic.com/z2u0h.png

That would be rofl funny if it weren't so serious a waste. That's a prime example of a program that NEEDS to be cut immediately.

[KarlMarx]

If the Clinton era tax rates were still in place, the national debt (which was $10.5 trillion when George W. Bush left office) would have now been completely payed off.

You forgot a few things. First, the Bush tax cuts, as you call them helped get us out of the recession that we slid into after 9/11. Raising the tax rates to the Clinton era rates would only drag down the economy.
Second, spending, since Clinton has escalated enormously. Although the Republican controlled Congress under Hastert was irresponsible, the Democrat controlled Congress under Pelosi has been reckless and dangerous. Even if you taxed every cent above incomes of 100,000 dollars, you could not pay back the debt that Obama and the Democrats have doubled in the past two years. No, spending cuts, repealing Obamacare, reining in entitlements are what are needed.


The current 14 trillion dollar national debt is a direct product of continuous unfunded and irresponsible tax cuts (mostly for the very wealthy) by Republican leadership in Washington for the past 30 years.
Wrong again. The current 14 trillion dollar debt doubled in the past two years. It has nothing to do with the Bush tax cuts. It had everything to do with Obama's policies and a more than willing Congress controlled by the Congress under the leadership of Pelosi and Reid.

[KarlMarx]

I think you can make a strong case for not sun-setting the Bush tax cut during a recession but at some point I think you have to let that tax cut expire as it was originally meant to. I think our deficit/debt issue is just too damn big to be handled by spending cuts alone. I'll even take a small tax increase as long it comes with a sunset clause just as Bush's tax cut did.
Apparently, you must have a lot of disposable income. If you want to pay more taxes, great, go for it... why not do this? Just send the federal government a few hundred extra dollars a month and tell them to keep it. However, John and Jane Q Public are trying to make ends meet. They are trying to pay their bills, they are trying to save money to send their kids to school, they are trying to pay for groceries, gasoline, etc etc. Eliminating the Bush era tax cuts will take money out of their pockets either directly or indirectly. What the Middle Class does not need is to have to pay more taxes in order to satisfy some class warfare rhetoric by the Left.

[red states rule]

Let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire, and we will recover fiscally.


You must be using the same math as Obama used when he said he would cut the deficit in half by 2012.

Here are the real numbers that bust your bubble





snip

The Bush tax cuts wiped out last decade's budget surpluses. Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), for example, has long blamed the tax cuts for having "taken a $5.6 trillion surplus and turned it into deficits as far as the eye can see." That $5.6 trillion surplus never existed. It was a projection by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2001 to cover the next decade. It assumed that late-1990s economic growth and the stock-market bubble (which had already peaked) would <NOBR>continue (http://www.debatepolicy.com/#)</NOBR> forever and generate record-high tax revenues. It assumed no recessions, no terrorist attacks, no wars, no natural disasters, and that all discretionary spending would fall to 1930s levels.
The projected $5.6 trillion surplus between 2002 and 2011 will more likely be a $6.1 trillion deficit through September 2011. So what was the cause of this dizzying, $11.7 trillion swing? I've analyzed CBO's 28 subsequent budget baseline updates since January 2001. These updates reveal that the much-maligned Bush tax cuts, at $1.7 trillion, caused just 14% of the swing from projected surpluses to actual deficits (and that is according to a "static" analysis, excluding any revenues recovered from faster economic growth induced by the cuts).

The bulk of the swing resulted from economic and technical revisions (33%), other new spending (32%), net interest on the debt (12%), the 2009 stimulus (6%) and other tax cuts (3%). Specifically, the tax cuts for those <NOBR>earning (http://www.debatepolicy.com/#)</NOBR> more than $250,000 are responsible for just 4% of the swing. If there were no Bush tax cuts, runaway spending and economic factors would have guaranteed more than $4 trillion in deficits over the decade and kept the budget in deficit every year except 2007.

• The next decade's deficits are the result of the previous administration's profligacy. Mr. Obama asserted in his January State of the Union Address that by the time he took office, "we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program."

In short, it's all President Bush's fault. But Mr. Obama's assertion fails on three grounds.
First, the wars, tax cuts and the prescription drug program were implemented in the early 2000s, yet by 2007 the deficit stood at only $161 billion. How could these stable policies have suddenly caused trillion-dollar deficits beginning in 2009? (Obviously what happened was collapsing revenues from the recession along with stimulus spending.)

Second, the president's $8 trillion figure minimizes the problem. Recent CBO data indicate a 10-year baseline deficit closer to $13 trillion if Washington maintains today's tax-and-spend policies—whereby discretionary spending grows with the economy, war spending winds down, ObamaCare is implemented, and Congress extends all the Bush tax cuts, the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch, and the <NOBR>Medicare (http://www.debatepolicy.com/#)</NOBR> "doc fix" (i.e., no reimbursement cuts).
http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2010/07/the-bush-tax-cuts-and-the-deficit-myth

[red states rule]

If the Clinton era tax rates were still in place, the national debt (which was $10.5 trillion when George W. Bush left office) would have now been completely payed off.

The current 14 trillion dollar national debt is a direct product of continuous unfunded and irresponsible tax cuts (mostly for the very wealthy) by Republican leadership in Washington for the past 30 years.


The "surplus" that we are told Clinton had was a PROJECTED number based on high economic growth

The reason we have a 14 trillion dollar deficit is due incane government spending.

Obama has taken that new levels. In three years Obama has increased spending by 29%. In Bush's last year the budget deficit was around $480 billion dollars. This year Obama will rack up a defcit of $1.7 trillion

You could tax the "wealthy" at a 100% tax rate and not cover one year of Obama debt

Sure the "wealthy" got most of the tax cut since they pay a huge majority of the taxes paid. The top 1% earn about 21% of the money but over over 40% of the federal income taxes collected.

Meanwhile the bottom 50% pay less then 3% of federal income taxes

[fj1200]

Let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire, and we will recover fiscally.

One has nothing to do with the other.


If the Clinton era tax rates were still in place, the national debt (which was $10.5 trillion when George W. Bush left office) would have now been completely payed off.

Not really.

The Bush tax cuts wiped out last decade's budget surpluses. Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), for example, has long blamed the tax cuts for having "taken a $5.6 trillion surplus and turned it into deficits as far as the eye can see." That $5.6 trillion surplus never existed. It was a projection by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2001 to cover the next decade. It assumed that late-1990s economic growth and the stock-market bubble (which had already peaked) would continue forever and generate record-high tax revenues. It assumed no recessions, no terrorist attacks, no wars, no natural disasters, and that all discretionary spending would fall to 1930s levels.
http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2010/07/the-bush-tax-cuts-and-the-deficit-myth

And the only reason we had a surplus under Clinton was because the SS revenues were used to fund then-current spending.


The current 14 trillion dollar national debt is a direct product of continuous unfunded and irresponsible tax cuts (mostly for the very wealthy) by Republican leadership in Washington for the past 30 years.

There is nothing true in that statement.


I'm reporting what the Congressional Budget Office actually said. Congress is composed of democrats and republicans.

Eliminating the bush tax cuts will nearly eliminate the deficit problem.

I am proud to be a liberal. Whether the CBO is right or not, remains to be seen. I have no reason to doubt them. Apparently, you do.

You should, their track record is abysmal.


I agree that spending needs to be reduced. The government is an incredibly inefficient company. Nonetheless, the Bush tax cuts have to go.

Here’s what the CBO said:

Through 2008, federal debt equaled 40 percent of the nation’s GDP, pretty close to the 40-year average of 37 percent since 1945. At the end of this year, federal debt will be approximately 70 percent of GDP.

...

The expiration of the Bush era tax cuts enacted in 2001 that President Obama largely extended in 2010 will lead to tax revenues equaling 23 percent of GDP in 2035. If the tax cuts are extended again and if the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is not expanded, revenues will be closer to their historical average of 18 percent of GDP.

If revenues are at the 18 percent level...

http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13461:new-congressional-budget-office-report-sounds-the-alarm-over-deficits&catid=155:nonprofit-newswire&Itemid=986

What would have you believe that Revenues will magically climb to 23% of GDP when they have never exceeded 20% for any sustained period, including the Clinton years?

[fj1200]

I think you can make a strong case for not sun-setting the Bush tax cut during a recession but at some point I think you have to let that tax cut expire as it was originally meant to. I think our deficit/debt issue is just too damn big to be handled by spending cuts alone. I'll even take a small tax increase as long it comes with a sunset clause just as Bush's tax cut did.

The only reason that the expiration clause was added was to meet an arbitrary budgetary rule. If you ask Bush I'm sure he would say that it was meant to be extended permanently.