Debt tops $18 trillion, up 70% under Obama

But if he reduced the deficit at historic levels, how could he have accumulated spending more than all previous presidents combined?

 

Because he inherited a starting point deficit that was bigger than all other presidents combined. He may be reducing the deficits very quickly but we still have to pay for the deficits as they happen. His first 5 years were the largest 5 deficits in US history and that's because we're still reducing from that initial starting point that was larger than 3 times the next largest deficit.

Day one in office the deficit was 1.4 trillion dollars.

After his first year it was 1.3

After his second year it was still 1.3

After his third year it was 1.1

After his 4th it was 0.6

He cut the deficit in half in 4 years. But we still had to pay for all those trillion+ deficits. Each one enough to shatter records on their own.

 

No, everything is NOT going great now, but that is due almost entirely to Republicans. Now before you start another conniptionial fit, check this:

..Macroeconomic Advisers, a forecasting firm that calculated that previous fiscal fights, combined with tighter budgets, shaved as much as 1 percentage point off economic growth, a big sum considering that growth has averaged an annual rate of 2.15 percent since Republicans took control of the House in 2011.

So who's been instigating those fiscal fights? who shut down the government in one of their mammoth hissy fits over spending? and who's been fighting the president on virtually anything he wants to do, even if they've supported something like it in the past? And the one thing we have NEVER, EVER heard from Republicans is to institute a tax, with no offsets, to pay for their wars. None. Zero. Zip. Not one freakin' word. And they haven't quit because there are many items that need to be addressed right now, plus many more coming up throughout next year. Failure of Republicans to deal intelligently with Dems to address the problems we do have is causing uncertainty in the markets and business in general and that ain't good:

Macroeconomic Advisers’ analysis in October 2013 said spending cuts alone — many forced by budget standoffs — cut economic growth by 0.7 percentage points since 2010, while raising unemployment by 0.8 percentage points. Uncertainty alone raised corporate bond prices, lowered growth by 0.3 percentage points a year and raised unemployment last year by 0.6 percentage points.

You give too much credit to the TP but they do seem to have an inordinate influence on otherwise sane Republicans who really do know how to govern. Here's one final clue - Obama may write the checks, but it's Congress that puts money in the accounts so they don't bounce.

 

In 2007 Bush and the Republicans handed over a strong economy with soaring revenues and a plunging deficit based on the strongest tax base in the history of the country.

Wrong it was measure as all budgets are measured, even if you add in the cost of the wars which was also receding it was about $250B, my what we would give for that.

And the decimated economy Bush inherited with the recession, the dot.com bust and stock market bust and then 911............he and the Republican took the correct actions which lessened the effects and ushered in 52 months of full employment and economic growth and soaring tax revenues.

 

He didn't inherited it he was part and parcel to it's creations and signed it into law. The 2008 budget leading up to it was a DEMOCRAT budget only held to the $400B deficit because Bush threatened to veto any higher spending, Obama fully supported and voted for that budget. The 2009 budget was held up until Obama won the election because the Democrats knew Bush would not sign on to their HUGE spending increase. PRESIDENT Obama signed the 2009 Omnibus Spending Bill into law, not Bush. It's HIS and his fellow DEMOCRATS spending increase. You don't inherit what you created.

 

Good question, once you break through all the partisan exculpatory b.s
Who did shut down the government? The Tea Party (in charge of nothing)? Or the president of the United States of America (able to close down all our parks, national monuments, the White House..etc.)?

The question answers itself.

 

You do realize that every year Reagan was in office he requested less spending than the Congress authorized and submitted rescissions they never passed?
You do realize that Bush41 entered into an agreement with the Democrats to give them their tax increase if they would cut spending, you know the "read my lips" thing and they passed the tax increase but they, the Democrats never cut the spending?
You do realized that after the 2000/2001 recession/recovery Bush and the Republicans got the deficit down to a paltry $161B and it was DEMOCRATS including Obama in 2008 and 2009 took it to $1,400B.

You DO realized these things don't you?

 

I don't know what any of that nonsense was supposed to mean, but yes, the tea party caucuss almost caused a depression. Don't take my word for it. There are the words of most of the financial writers, central bankers and quite a few foreign ministers to go by.

The economy was in trouble through half of the Reagan presidency, and the speculative boom of the late 1980's was already winding down when Bush became president.

Alas the debt was still accelerating (which is what happens when you borrow and spend, the next guy always gets stuck with the tab).

And if you have any doubt about what I was saying about worries about US debt, you can read the financial press from 1989-91, or look at a chart of the selling prices of 30 year US debt.

 

No, we don't realize any of that, since it's all pure unaduterated spin.

You first claim is especially hilarious. First of all, Congress ALWAYS outspends the President's budgets, no matter who is in the White House. Second, it's not like Reagan ever submitted a budget that didn't include many times more debt than had ever been asked for before.

Yes, Bush made a deal with Democrats to raise taxes and cut spending., He had to. The Fed was warning him about inflation as T Bill discounts were steadily rising and they were beginning to have trouble placing US debt.

We also realize that we were running surpluses before the GOP decided it would be a nice idea to squander them and start running up debts.

The $161billion number is political fiction, and as so many people have accurately pointed out, hides the cost of Mr Bush's war off the books, a game the right wing spin doctors are still playing.

2008 was George W Bush's deficit entirely, The fiscal year ended two months before he left office.

2009 is largely his as well, as he was well on his way to an $800 billion deficit as the economy began its near fatal nose dive. The Stimulus and Quantative Easing are the only reason we're not standing on breadlines now.

 

Let's not forget that 70% of the debt is from Obama. As stated above.

 

First of all the Tea Party caucus was not capable of causing anything, let alone a depression, because it was the president of the United States of America alone that was/is capable or responsible for putting us in default.
And of course we had more than enough to cover ALL our bills. I guess those scary tales are still keeping you awake at night.

As we are seeing now in spades under Obama, perhaps? http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/05/05/reaganomics-vs-obamanomics-facts-and-figures/

I have severe doubts about everything you advocate.

 

You do relize this thread blew up in your face Bush 2 spent wildly and did not account for it all Reagan spent wildly and over saw the largest expansion of government and they both took more vacation time than Obama period end of file

 

Anyone that's really interested in a surprisingly balanced view of the debt situation in light of the Keynesian approaches taken around the world to deal with the 2009 - ? recession/crisis should take an hour an a half of their lives and watch the video lecture, below. It was given by Prof Stanley Fischer, Governor of the Bank of Israel and Humanitas Visiting Professor of Economic Thought. It's a clear, concise, and fascinating look at what we (and others) did right and what it looks like we may have done not-so-right.

Pro-Keynesian liberals will be in for a few surprises as will anti-Keynesian conservatives. The lecture deals with the strategies and results of the world economy, advanced economies, emerging economies, and especially the US and UK's approaches in particular since they took the more radical Keynesian approaches.

The lecture is especially concerned with the actual economic results, good, bad, and... well..., there's no indifferent, of the various undertakings in fiscal and monetary policy. And most importantly, it deals with what lessons can be drawn from those results.

For example, it's has been calculated (see link at the end of post) that we could've been pretty much where we were in late 2012, in terms of growth and other economic factors, if we would've (on the average - everything is one the average) only used about half as radical of an approach to spending increase-tax decrease (Keynesian) strategy as what we and others actually did. That is, we and others may have taken the correct approach (or not), but we implemented the Keynesian strategy almost twice as radically as necessary. That's hindsight of course. But still, looking back and evaluating the practical results of the various policies has some important lessons for future policy considerations.

That being said, another surprise was that even though national debt vastly increased as a result of these policies, especially in the US, the highly controversial decisions to let the Keynesian strategy ride and correct the ensuing fiscal mess later, after things turn around and get brighter, has had much less negative impact on the US's economy than most economists - even Keyesian ones - feared. Surprise, surprise for most ALL of us.

Anyway, if you're at all interested in how well or badly Keynesian strategies worked or failed and under what circumstances, this lecture is for you.

[video=youtube;lHckOM7Mm5A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHckOM7Mm5A[/video]

See also, World Economic Outlook: Coping with High Debt and Sluggish Growth, Box 1.1 in Chapter 1.

 

there is no such thing as "off the books" spending................. The costs were "off budget"

the 161 billion deficit included the war spending........... They add and subtract the on and off budget items to get here.

 

Don't even try and pretend that any of that is remotely true.

The near default of the US is the responsibility of tea party hero Ted Cruz. There isn't any doubt about that, either.

 

You will have to document that claim. The cost of the Iraq war was NEVER factored into federal spending totals during the Bush era. That policy was one of the first things that Obama changed, creating the impression that deficits rose immediately.

Of course, the deficit was rocketing past $800 billion when Bush was going out the door. In the months between September 2009, when the wheels finally fell off the 2000's speculative boom and the artificial sense of well being it created) and the end of Bush's term, his Adminstration didn't meet a big bank or corporation it didn't throw billions at, largely with few if any strings attached.

 

"I will not compromise" - Barrack Obama

 

of course it was factored in. It was done as an appropriations bill.........

ALL appropriations bills are off budget because they are spending above and beyond budget.

All Obama did was put it in budget.............which once it went over budget an appropriations bill was drafted to cover the overruns..........off budget

That years budget initially had a 400mm budget shortfall.......................additional spending is not what created the deficit, it was lack of revenue due to the downturn..

 

So, the ballooning of the national debt under his watch is not his fault?

 

In the mean time, people are still trying to figure out where the trillion dollar stimulus money went. Seems the money vaporized into thin air.

 

I just wish people would be consistent in deciding whose fault budget deficits are.

Is it the president, or Congress?

Please pick one and stick with it.

 

How is it ballooning if it's going down?

 

The national debt is declining? Are certain of that? Not long ago it was approaching 17 trillion dollars, now it's around 18 trillion. How is that a decline? New math?

 

And what do we have to show for it? An albatross called Obamacare, illegal immigrants sucking the life out of entitlements, more entitlements than ever with more poor people than ever, bad economy, still in Afghanistan, now back in Iraq, Americans out of work, racial tension, scandal after scandal, wasted money by his czars and their departments, his golf games which he probably charged to the taxpayers, his luxurious vacations on our dime, etc., etc.

 

Every president in the past 50 years (except Clinton) added more to the deficit than every presdient that came before them combined.

Odds are the next president will do the same.