Laugher; Obama Wants Fiscal Responsibility
by Big Dog on Jun 10, 2009 at 04:59 Political
After spending more money than any of the past presidents and after quadrupling the debt, Obama now claims to want fiscal responsibility. He is touting the pay as you go plan which means that Congress must have the money to spend it. If they spend a dollar they have to either cut a dollar or raise one in taxes. Besides the comedy involved with Obama wanting to be fiscally responsible, pay as you go is not a bad idea. Except…
Democrats have options under pay as you go. They either have to cut something or raise taxes. Their history is quite clear, they will not cut spending and they will not cut other budget items so that leaves them with raising taxes.
“The ‘pay as you go’ principle is very simple. Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere,” Obama said in a speech at the White House attended by several Democratic members of Congress. al-Reuters
Notice he did not say or raise taxes. That would be too honest and meet opposition. He is misleading us once again.
Under pay as you go the Democrats will continue to spend and will raise taxes to pay for it. Imagine if pay as you go was the rule prior to the stimulus. There is no doubt that taxes will have to be raised but they would have to have raised them when they passed the stimulus and we would be getting socked from all angles.
The stimulus would have never passed.
If pay as you go becomes the rule and there is no mechanism to keep them from raising taxes then everyone who earns wages will end up paying more. There are simply not enough rich people to pay for the largess of government.
The irony of it all is that Obama is talking about fiscal responsibility when he has been fiscally irresponsible since the day he took office.
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Tags: fiscal responsibility, Obama, stimulus
Oh yea, you can bet gas taxes are going up, and the government wants us to pay for our miles- that is what they mean when they say, Pay as you go- GPS that tracks our miles driven, and oh by the way, lets everyone know where you are at any given time. The pols know if we get cars that use LESS gas, they have to get revenue from somewhere, and the GPS mileage tax would do this, they think.
But wait there’s more- if you live in the next five minutes, we’ll also charge you some other ridiculous tax you have no recourse to challenge, because” here at Obamaville Motors, we will do you like you have never been done.
Our Czars will cut your wallet to the bone!”
This time at least, you quote Obama’s actual words:
“The ‘pay as you go’ principle is very simple. Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere,” Obama said”
DAR
Why would a person (a deficit hawk like myself), interested in paying our bills, be against such a statement?
And how is this different from what the republicans were trying to do in 1990? Note:
***
The Budget Enforcement Act of 1990 (Pub.L. 101-508, title XIII; 104 Stat. 1388-573; codified as amended at scattered sections of 2 U.S.C. & 15 U.S.C. § 1022) was enacted by the United States Congress as title XIII of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 to enforce the deficit reduction accomplished by that law and revise the budget control process of the Federal Government. The Act created two new budget control processes: a set of caps on annually-appropriated spending, and a “pay-as-you-go” or “PAYGO” process for entitlements and taxes.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_Enforcement_Act_of_1990
Bigd: “After spending more money than any of the past presidents…”
DAR
Bush borrowed more foreign money than all past presidents *combined.* Bush’s growth of government more than tripled Clinton’s during his first term:
3.4 percent, versus 10.4 percent.
I hope you were complaining then. Please let’s not try to pretend republicans are fiscally responsible.
BIGD: “…and after quadrupling the debt,”
DAR
I think you mean “deficit” here. Obama’s early numbers are going to be terrible. Reasonable people, and the vast majority of Americans, understand this is due to the lag effect, left over from Bush.
BIGD: Obama now claims to want fiscal responsibility.>>
DAR
There really is no comparison between the fiscal responsibility of Demo presidents and Republicans. Reagan never submitted a balanced budget and actually tried to outspend congress. He tripled the debt. Obama won’t be that bad. Carter and Clinton did not add to the debt.
Note:
“The only presidents to add to the debt since WWII have been Reagan, GHW Bush and GW Bush: http://zfacts.com/p/480.html
“All other presidents since WWII have contributed nothing to the Gross Federal Debt, which now stands at 63.6% of GDP.”
Bigd: “He is touting the pay as you go plan which means that Congress must have the money to spend it.”>>
DAR
That seems imminently reasonable and is how I run my household (except for when I buy houses).
D.
——————-
“Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. “You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: “We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due.” A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.
The vice president’s office had no immediate comment, but John Snow, who replaced O’Neill, insisted that deficits “do matter” to the administration.”
http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/Dick_Cheney_Budget_+_Economy.htm
There is no “lag effect” when Hussein more than quadrupled the debt – and no, I mean the DEBT- what we will pay on interest alone will dwarf anything Bush had done, and the only way Hussein can say that he “saved” money would be to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and he can’t do that, because he wants to get re- elected.
By the time Hussein is through with us, our GDP will be 82% government – heavy instead of 43%. The private sector will be squeezed out of all kinds of work.
BLK: There is no “lag effect”>>
DAR
Sorry, I can’t take this (or you) seriously. You don’t believe this junk.
BLK: when Hussein more than quadrupled the debt – and no, I mean the DEBT>>
DAR
The debt Bush left for Obama was around $10 trillion, depending on how you figure it.
http://zfacts.com/p/461.html
Quadrupling would mean Obama has made the debt $40 trillion, in his five months.
If you would like to have an intelligent conversation, as an adult, let me know. Otherwise, you have been so beaten down you have no credibility and are choosing the bizarre tactic of not making any sense whatsoever. Hope that works out well for you
D.
—————–
Incidentally, here is a cogent explanation of how these deficits were created. It has pictures too:
How Trillion-Dollar Deficits Were Created
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/06/09/business/economy/20090610-leonhardt-graphic.html
Oh, and if it wasn’t obvious to everyone where you get your swill, let’s reveal that now:
***
“…yesterday’s show when Rush — in the midst of calling President Obama “childish” and “immature” — declared that Obama did not inherit a financial mess and that former President Bush, in his eight immaculate years in office as America’s most perfect president ever, “didn’t do diddly squat to damage this country’s economy.” At the time, we thought, “Man, wouldn’t it be nice if there were a clearly defined chart that could demonstrate the degrees to which Bush and Obama are responsible for the economic situation we find ourselves in?” Well, David Leonhardt of the New York Times quite helpfully did all that work for us, analyzing Congressional Budget Office reports from the past decade and finding that the policies of George W. Bush were the major contributing factor to the record deficits we’re now looking at. That, of course, stands to reason, since Bush had eight whole years to wreak havoc on the economy, whereas Obama’s been in office for less than five months. But, as we’ve all come to learn, “reason” is a rare commodity on The Rush Limbaugh Show.”
DAR
Ditto-heads should listen to their radio, nod their heads, and not try to defend Rush’s unbelievable horse manure in public. When they do, they quickly find (much to their dismay) that they get absolutely slaughtered with the facts. No exceptions.
I have said it once, I do not listen to Rush- what part of that sentence is ambiguous to you? Are you ignorant of basic sentences, or what?
Bush only had ten trillion if you count non public debt which the government does not count when it reports debt numbers. The debt left was around 10 trillion if you add intergovernmental and public. It was about 5.7 when he took office. Obama has increased the debt by about one TRILLION dollars in 5 months. At that rate it will not take him long to increase it more than 5 trillion. He will leave someone debt. (I counted all debt)
The issue is the deficit (the difference between what we spend and what we take in). The deficit Bush left was projected at 482 billion. Obama’s debt projection is 1.8 trillion which is just under 4 times as much.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/28/2009.deficit/index.html
Oh yeah, and one of the things they did to show a surplus for Clinton was assuming that Social Security is NOT paid back. Many accounting tricks went into that lie. If you go to Treasury Direct and look up the national debt you will see that we had debt each year Clinton was in office.
http://zfacts.com/p/519.html
BigD: “The deficit Bush left was projected at 482 billion. Obama’s debt projection is 1.8 trillion…>>
DAR
I wonder of the money Bush was blowing on TARP in the Fall counts toward this? And even the Heritage Foundation admits:
“Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for the FY 2009 budget deficit that overlaps their administrations, before President Obama assumes full budgetary responsibility beginning in FY 2010.”
Regardless, it’s important to point out that part of the reason Obama’s number is bigger is because he isn’t using Bush’s dishonest accounting tricks. Observe these four:
***
The Obama budget projected a 2009 deficit of $1.75 trillion. But that number would have been much lower had the White House used the same accounting tricks and conventions used by the Bush administration.
Follow the bouncing deficit:
1. The $1.75 trillion deficit included $250 billion for additional assistance for financial institutions that the White says it’s not requesting in the budget but may need later in the year. The Bush budget would have excluded this from the budget and simply added it later if and when the funds were needed. Excluding it from the Obama budget as Bush would have done would have reduced the apparent deficit to $1.5 trillion.
2. The Obama budget included $75.5 billion for additional funds for activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. This would also have been excluded from the Bush budget. Doing that here would have reduced the apparent deficit to about $1.4 trillion.
3. The Obama budget included about $70 billion in lower revenue from the one-year patch for the Alternative Minimumn Tax that was included in the stimulus bill. The Bush budget typically assumed that the AMT would not be patched even though everyone knew it would be. The Bush accounting treatment would have reduced the deficit to about $1.35 trillion.*
4. The Obama budget included about $20 billion for natural disasters; the Bush budgets always assumed that there would be no floods, earthquakes, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. Using the Bush budget rules, this would have reduced the 2009 deficit to $1.33 trillion.
http://www.capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/stan-collender/789/bush-gimmicks-2009-obama-deficit-would-have-been
BigD: “we had debt each year Clinton was in office.”
DAR
You’re moving the goal posts. Of course they are counting SS being robbed. If you don’t do that Bush’s deficits were over a trillion every year. If you count it the same way for all presidents, Clinton has a surplus, the other guys don’t. You can’t just change the rule for him.
You guys and your accounting tricks.
D.
Assuming all of this is true that still means he tripled it. Not much better.
They had debt with or without counting SS. Look at the OBM and see the numbers. There is debt listed for each year Clinton is in office. It does not list a surplus. The balanced budget was hokus pokus as they did things and said if we do all this it will be balanced and then they did none of it. Show me where there is a surplus in any Clinton year according to the government. You can’t have a surplus if you still owe a lot of money.
BIGD: “They had debt with or without counting SS.”
DAR
No. If you are consistent and count SS revenue (and this is not an option btw, note: “The Social Security Administration is legally required to take all its surpluses and buy U.S. Government securities, and the U.S. Government readily sells those securities–which automatically and immediately becomes intergovernmental holdings.”)
Then he had a surplus.
Here is what Bush’s numbers really look like if you want to set the goal posts there:
***
“In the fiscal year 2004, government revenues were $1.9 trillion . . . The net cost of the government’s operations was $2.5 trillion . . . Total revenues less operating costs resulted in a net operating cost of slightly more than $615 billion,” Snow states.
I took some words out to make it understandable. Now, allow me to translate: the government ran a deficit of $615 billion.
In the missing parts, the Treasury Secretary correctly said that this was an improvement from the $668 billion deficit that the government ran in 2003. He correctly added that this was the first gain in revenue in four years.
Notice that Snow took great pains to avoid using the term “deficit.” But even a kid with a paper route understands that when the “net operating cost” — as the Treasury Secretary calls it — exceeds revenues, that’s the definition of a deficit.
You can be forgiven if you thought that Washington’s budget deficit was “just” $412 billion in the last fiscal year because that’s the number the government puts out in the big press release. And that’s the figure that the media plays up.
How can there be a $203 billion discrepancy in the numbers?
It mostly has to do with Social Security costs and cash vs. accrual accounting. The $203 billion gap (between the $615 billion “net operating cost” and Washington’s officially publicized $412 billion budget deficit) is the amount of Social Security money that the government collected and used for its everyday operations.”
Link
And note also at that link: “[The] unfunded future obligations grew by a massive $11.1 trillion in just the past year.”
Here is what the ubiquitous chart looks like, using CBO numbers, when you use the same standard for all of the presidents:
Link
DAR
Oh wait, it even gets better. According to factcheck.org, even if you don’t count SS, he [Clinton] still had a surplus.
“…even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.”
***
Q: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?
A: Yes to both questions, whether you count Social Security or not.
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/during_the_clinton_administration_was_the_federal.html
Read this article
And then read this one
In no year was there a surplus. It is more budgetary tricks.
A taste (since you mentioned FactCheck)
For some reason, my response to this went above:
http://www.onebigdog.net/laugher-obama-wants-fiscal-responsibility/comment-page-1/#comment-132103
D.
—————-
ps. typo in the title.
I can’t find which comment.
Click on the link.
And as BD has pointed out there has never been a Dem who could cut a government program- they lack the stones to do this, so taxes will go up on all people, and Hussein will just shrug his shoulders and say, My bad-
BLK: “there has never been a Dem who could cut a government program…”>>
DAR
What a load. Let’s just look at Clinton and what he had accomplished by 1994:
***
* Already cut the Federal Workforce by over 200,000 — on the way to lowest level in 30 years.
* Abolishing 16,000 pages of obsolete regulations and rewriting 31,000 more pages.
* Eliminated 284 federal advisory committees.
* major welfare reform (reduction)
http://www.perkel.com/politics/clinton/accomp.htm
Contrast that with Reagan who: “expanded the federal government by about 90%.”
Note: “the number of workers on the federal payroll rose by 61,000 under Reagan. (By comparison, under Clinton, the number fell by 373,000.)”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0301.green.html
DAR
For those who would like to see a side by side comparison of the country Bush inherited from Clinton and how he left it for Obama, see the chart here:
“The Country He Inherited, The Country He Leaves Behind”
http://tinyurl.com/28hgau
Bush made every category worse. Unfortunately it’s from Jan ’08. Bush’s numbers got *far* worse later.
D.
The one thing Clinton did do was reduce welfare- I agree with you there- the rest is rather ambiguous in translation, as you said,it depends on how you figure it, or in Clintonese, what the definition of “is” is.
The number of federal workers fell because he eliminated 13 Army divisions.
Clinton did not cut, the Republicans in Congress did. Major welfare reform was the result of the Republicans. Clinton did not want to sign it.
The comparison is real handy. There was no surplus under Clinton. Look at the treasury numbers or the CBO and you will see we still had debt during all that time. They do not count government to government debt so he moved a few major budget items off the budget record and a other agencies assumed a lot of debt. We still had a deficit. The surplus is another myth.
Remember, Republicans in Congress did all this.
Uninsured? How many illegals entered the country since Clinton left office? Some of the consumer costs rose after Democrats took over. Gas was not that high before they took over.
You can play with numbers. Remember, the government uses funny methods to count and this comparison comes from the Democratic Caucus. Not exactly a beacon of unbiased opinion.
BIGD: “There was no surplus under Clinton.”
DAR
When you apply the same accounting standards to the presidents, he most certainly did. I can refer you to an analysis of what Bush’s numbers would be minus the tricks and his numbers look more than twice as bad as they are. But that’s not fair. Don’t move the goal posts for Clinton.
BIGD: “Major welfare reform was the result of the Republicans.>>
DAR
Rubbish. He Campaigned on it and delivered, just as he had in Arkansas. I’ll let Clinton respond, he is honest enough to give credit where it is due:
***
How We Ended Welfare, Together
By BILL CLINTON
Published: August 22, 2006
TEN years ago today I signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. By then I had long been committed to welfare reform. As a governor, I oversaw a workfare experiment in Arkansas in 1980 and represented the National Governors Association in working with Congress and the Reagan administration to draft the welfare reform bill enacted in 1988.
Yet when I ran for president in 1992, our system still was not working for the taxpayers or for those it was intended to help. In my first State of the Union address, I promised to “end welfare as we know it,” to make welfare a second chance, not a way of life, exactly the change most welfare recipients wanted it to be.
Most Democrats and Republicans wanted to pass welfare legislation shifting the emphasis from dependence to empowerment. Because I had already given 45 states waivers to institute their own reform plans, we had a good idea of what would work….
On Aug. 22, 1996, after vetoing two earlier versions, I signed welfare reform into law. At the time, I was widely criticized by liberals who thought the work requirements too harsh and conservatives who thought the work incentives too generous. Three members of my administration ultimately resigned in protest. Thankfully, a majority of both Democrats and Republicans voted for the bill because they thought we shouldn’t be satisfied with a system that had led to intergenerational dependency.
The last 10 years have shown that we did in fact end welfare as we knew it, creating a new beginning for millions of Americans.
In the past decade, welfare rolls have dropped substantially, from 12.2 million in 1996 to 4.5 million today. At the same time, caseloads declined by 54 percent. Sixty percent of mothers who left welfare found work, far surpassing predictions of experts. Through the Welfare to Work Partnership, which my administration started to speed the transition to employment, more than 20,000 businesses hired 1.1 million former welfare recipients. Welfare reform has proved a great success, and I am grateful to the Democrats and Republicans who had the courage to work together to take bold action.”
The rest…
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/opinion/22clinton.html
D.
There were no tricks and numbers that have not been employed for decades. The same standards apply. If you reduce the military and you cut funding for it as well as move stuff off budget it looks good but it is only looks.
And mentioning Clinton and honesty in the same sentence is beyond reason.
BigD: “The surplus is another myth. Remember, Republicans in Congress did all this.>>
DAR
That’s another howler. I would give them some credit but it mostly goes to The 1993 Budget Act which was opposed by every single republican.
Here’s a nice summary of how we become so solvent during Clinton’s time:
“The 1993 Budget Act was President Clinton’s response to mounting federal deficits and debt. Under President Carter, the federal deficit had been modest – averaging $55 billion a year. But under Reagan, it exploded to an average of $186 billion a year. Federal spending as a percentage of GDP went from less than 21% under Carter to an average of around 23% under Reagan. During the eight years Reagan was president the national debt nearly tripled, from roughly $900 billion to $2.6 trillion. It rose from 34% of GDP to 55% of GDP. By the last full year of George H.W. Bush’s presidency, the federal budget deficit had reached a record $290 billion (after having also set a record the previous year). Reaganomics had resulted in a bloodbath of red ink. (As an aside, contrary to popular myth, economic growth averaged slightly higher under Carter than it did under Reagan.)
[big snip]
What followed was the longest economic expansion in US history and the fastest economic growth in a generation. Over 23 million jobs were created (compared with a total of 5 million during the 12 years of BOTH Bushes combined – much less than the increase in the labor force during those years). The stock market surged during the Clinton presidency with the S&P 500 increasing by 300%. Clinton bequeathed a federal budget that ran four consecutive years of surpluses totaling $560 billion. The projected 10-year surplus when he left office was $5.6 trillion (causing Fed chairman Alan Greenspan to express concern that the entire US debt may get paid off too rapidly…). Those surpluses were a result not only of painful tax increases but also of a decrease in the relative size of the federal government. Federal spending as a percentage of GDP fell from 22.1% in 1992 to 18.4% in 2000.
And all this began without the support of a SINGLE Republican in Congress, as they predicted economic calamity would follow from the 1993 Budget Act.”
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/pol/1175471578.html
D.
You are mistaken. None of the accounting methods have changed (though ALL of the government does fuzzy math). When Clinton reduced the military and moved some items off budget he just hid what we owed.
I do not change the methods and the government has been using the same ones over and over. That link says Obama’s spending will lead to a surplus. Not in our lifetime.
Its always hilarious when D uses Clintons words to “Prove” Clinton’s argument. Really, all Clinton did was sign a law- the Republican Congress made the law.
Clinton’s explanation gives a good, and accurate summary. And he properly credits republicans.
BLK: “Republican Congress made the law.”
DAR
That he shaped the final product is shown by the fact that he vetoed the first two versions. Without Clinton’s signature, the “Republican congress” didn’t make Jack.
D.
The Republican Congress changed welfare. Clinton signed it but he objected to several parts of it. He also vetoed two earlier versions.
I give him credit for signing it but the Republicans came up with it.
It is only different because Democrats will increase taxes in order to spend the dollar.
I wonder how long it will be before I am charged for every breath I take?????
If there was a way to do this they would, but the new thing will be GPS units that calculate every mile you drive, and tax you based on that. It’ll be the “new” gas tax.
BLK: “GPS units that calculate every mile you drive,”>>
DAR
I am opposed to that, but… here’s the problem: if you pay for (very expensive) road building and maintenance with a gas tax, and we start to get electric cars on the road, how do *you* propose to raise the needed money for the roads? Certainly it is best to have a tax the charges people using the roads the most?
D.
How will they calculate the mileage people drive on private roads? People who drive many miles on them will be charged and the states and feds don’t fix those roads
You program the GPS/computer to subtract or not count miles traveled on those roads. Easy.
D.
No Darrel, I don’t need to be forgiven. I understand the government budget process and how they count debt. I have pointed it out any number of times. I also know that we never had a surplus.
It also has to do with what they decide to leave in as a budget item or move to a non budget item. A lot of things were moved off budget to claim a surplus. I am not saying no one else has done this but I am saying we have never had a surplus of money.
Sorry Darrel, the Treasury says we owed money and they should know. The deficit was not erased. The budget was only “balanced” contingent on certain paths forward and they did not follow them.
BIGD: “Read this article”
DAR
In fact, I already did. I read it this morning *before* doing my post. That’s a fluke. Small internet eh? I even quoted from it above. He’s (an amateur) and doing the same trick, pretending we suddenly can’t count SS revenue *just for Clinton.”
That’s ridiculous.
Then, when busted on this, in part two he tries to throw in *other* trust funds which are not counted for any other president either. Same poop, different pile.
Look, this is not an opinion, these are easily verifiable objective facts we should be able to agree on. When you calculate everything the same with Clinton as with every other president (your claims about him snuffling stuff around off budget is just nonsense, he has no such power), you get a surplus for him according to all standard, publicly available information.
Now, if you are referring to the *projected surpluses* that the CBO projected for the future years (2001+), those were never going to fly. Sometimes people refer to these as “the Clinton surpluses” (Limbaugh has made this mistake) and those projections never materialized and most people knew they never would (I did). Those rates of increase, after the dot com bubble were never going to be sustainable. But those were projections, and post Clinton.
That Clinton had a surplus, when identical accounting standards are applied (no moving the goal posts), is quite undeniable. The factcheck link is straightforward enough.
Charts:
Reuters: http://prorev.com/wer.jpg
D.
They use public debt, not total debt. You have to include what is owed to all sources. You must include what we owe or you are being dishonest. Treasury numbers are the onny ones that count. And they show we had a national debt each year.
If the Republican Congress had claimed to have created a surplus and balanced everything (which would be the case because Congress is the money branch) you libs would be screaming that it is not true. Be honest about it and understand that debt is debt no matter who you owe and shifting a bunch of public debt to intergovernmental debt in order to deceive is not really balancing anything or a surplus. It is kicking the can down the road.
The charts supplied only include public debt not intergovernmental debt and that means they did not disclose all the debt. That is how government reports and that is why a bunch of stuff was moved to intergovernmental debt. It is why Things like trust funds were counted as surplus even though they are committed money.
BigD: “That is how government reports…”
DAR
Exactly right. That is how the government reports, and has always reported, for decades. And when they report like this, as they do for each and every other modern president, Clinton has a surplus, the other guys don’t.
But it really doesn’t matter. You can put the waterline where you like. If we did even better under Clinton, conservatives, in their desperation to deny this reality, could then add in unfunded mandates which, as I showed, increased $11 trillion in one year under Bush. That just puts the waterline up higher. That is, it moves the goal posts. A logical fallacy.
So put the waterline where you wish, or ignore the waterline, it doesn’t matter. We are comparing presidential terms and it doesn’t change the record of the relationship between presidents one little bit.
BigD: “The charts supplied only include public debt not intergovernmental debt…”
DAR
This chart shows both. Public debt and gross debt went down:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.png
D.
———————-
“Moving the goalpost, also known as raising the bar, is an informal logically fallacious argument in which evidence presented in response to a specific claim is dismissed and some other (often greater) evidence is demanded.”
Darrel, he outlined the trust funds first in the original article. He was not busted, as you claim. He has clearly shown that there was debt each year.
As far as SS, I clearly stated that was one of the things done, NOT ALL. That plenty of accounting tricks were used (as they are in other years).
I am going to write it again; We had NO surplus. There was a DEBT. We still OWED money. The budget was “balanced” predicated on doing certain things that they did not do.
Fact check is in error because they went for the accounting gimmicks.
Until someone can show me a zero or negative number in official government numbers then there was no surplus. That is because you cannot show this. The Treasury says we owed money so I don’t care what Clinton, FactCheck or anyone else has to say. We OWED money.
BIGD: “he outlined the trust funds first in the original article. He was not busted,”>>
DAR
His first article is based upon moving the goal post to add in SS alone. He acknowledged the factcheck article and, was busted in that doing this wasn’t enough to do what he wanted to do (Clinton still scored). So he went back and wrote a follow up where he moved the goal posts further and added in a *new* category, other trust funds, which, by law have to buy government securities with their funds.
The guy subtly reveals all of this buried in his last little footnote.
Bigd: “We had NO surplus. There was a DEBT.”
DAR
We are talking about yearly deficits going up and down. Of course there was, and is, a “debt.”
D.
So if we had debt Darrel, which you admit, we did not have a surplus.
Bigd: “So if we had debt Darrel, which you admit, we did not have a surplus.”
DAR
You seem to make the elementary mistake of confusing “debt” with “deficit.” Debt refers to the national debt total. Clinton’s surpluses refer specifically to changes in the yearly budget deficit/surplus.
That “we had [a national] debt” does not change (or even address) the fact that we had yearly surpluses under Clinton.
D.
—————
“President Clinton announces another record budget surplus
CNN White House Correspondent Kelly Wallace
September 27, 2000
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year’s record surplus of $122.7 billion.
Eight years ago, our future was at risk,” Clinton said Wednesday morning. “Economic growth was low, unemployment was high, interest rates were high, the federal debt had quadrupled in the previous 12 years. When Vice President Gore and I took office, the budget deficit was $290 billion, and it was projected this year the budget deficit would be $455 billion.”
Instead, the president explained, the $5.7 trillion national debt has been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years — $223 billion this year alone.
This represents, Clinton said, “the largest one-year debt reduction in the history of the United States.”
Link
Ah, the good old days.
A budget surplus is when more money comes in than goes out. Assuming that it happened during the Clinton years it had nothing to do with him. During that time there was a dot com bubble that made huge sums of money. There was about a 60% increase in revenue and that is what covered the 20% increase in spending.
As for the budget, it is easy to manipulate numbers in order to say the budget is balanced. The PROJECTED expenses and PROJECTED incomes are what they based these on and they kicked many of the budget items down the road so they would be costly to the next administration. The first “surplus” happened in 1998 and Clinton just kicked the can down the road.
All smoke and mirrors.