The Clinton Surplus Myth...

Exactly. The middle classes will spend proportionately more of it. That spending will drive demand, the demand will motivate companies to invest to increase production and hire workers, hiring more workers, increasing revenues and profits.

Everyone wins.

That is why we need to reverse the trickle down policies that have redistributed wealth to the 1%, and strengthen the middle class.

When our policies encourage companies to pay workers the lowest possible amount, the middle classes don't have the incomes to spend and power the economy. Profits are temporily boosted as companies cut costs, but the economy stalls, and everyone eventually loses.

LMAO! Let them eat cake, Marie.

 

Exactly. The middle classes will spend proportionately more of it. That spending will drive demand, the demand will motivate companies to invest to increase production and hire workers, hiring more workers, increasing revenues and profits.

Everyone wins.

That is why we need to reverse the trickle down policies that have redistributed wealth to the 1%, and strengthen the middle class.

When our policies encourage companies to pay workers the lowest possible amount, the middle classes don't have the incomes to spend and power the economy. Profits are temporily boosted as companies cut costs, but the economy stalls, and everyone eventually loses.

LMAO! Let them eat cake, Marie. Cheerio.

 

Actually, no, I don't care what anyone does with their money. Like I said, my only problem is with folks who think they deserve what others have earned.

I don't disagree that the wealthiest people will probably earn more investment income than ordinary income. That is irrelevant. We have a fundamental disagreement on the capital gains rate.

 

Clinton had nothing to do with the success of our economy, the success of our economy had everything to do with a tech boom, a budding online marketplace, and other innovations. Clinton simply got to enjoy the ride. Any president who takes much claim for a successful economy has a huge ego. A president's job should be to not get in the way and make sure things dont get too anticompetitive.

Right wing propaganda? There arent too many neocons who will admit Bush as a big spender. This seems to be chicken and egg argument. Well the problem is there is only so much revenue you can tax, however it seems like there is no limit to what we are willing to spend. We will always have a disagreement on this matter because I believe spending should be cut before taxes raised because I believe government is inefficient and wasteful while you think government is effective.

The gov gives its money to the people? Last time I checked, the government is nothing more than a body of representative that we elect. Since when is the government some higher power that owns us? How is most of the wealth trickling down to the 1% when most of the budget goes to medicare and SS and other social programs for people who are retired, often middle class or poor?

 

First, there WAS a surplus. The Republican Congress and Newt Gingrich had as much to do with the surplus as Clinton. However, as the link states, the national debt INCREASED each year under Clinton. The reason for a budget surplus and a national debt increase is the interest on the prior debt outstanding. The amount of surplus was not enough to cover the interest on the standing national debt. Just as what we face today with b.o.'s $16 trillion debt. @ only 3% interest, we'd need a surplus in excess of $480 billion to break even. @ 5%, a more NORMAL interest rate, a surplus of $802,985,500,000.00 would not reduce today's national debt by one cent. It would be a HUGE surplus, but the national debt would remain the same.
If b.o. was saddled with NORMAL interest rates instead of the artificially manipulated low rates, I'd guess the national debt would already exceed $17 trillion.

 

There is some truth to that. I don't know what debt would look like, but the Fed has had the practice over the last 5 years of buying our expiring debts and in turn inflating the money supply.

 

Feel free to prove it. I think one could make an argument that compentent management of the Govt budget helped to create confidence that stimulates prosperous business activity.

But the point isn't that Clinton did it or not.

The point is that the conservatives back then, just like today, claimed his big tax increase would wreck the economy and destroy jobs.

And the conservatives were totally, completely wrong.

That thinking is why we are $16 trillion in debt.

I think they should do both and get the deficit down.

Sure. All those SS checks, military contract, health care payments, law enforcement, etc all is money that goes to people.

 

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I used to think that too. But then in 2001 they spent like drunks and slashed revenues and squandered the surplus and in a couple years had new record deficits.

The only thing that changed was the person who was president.

The national debt DECREASED in 2000 by $114 billion.

ftp://ftp.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opds122000.pdf

Not true. There was a surplus even including interest payments. You can see it is included in the budget figures.

http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/HistoricalBudgetData.xls Table F-3.

 

Unfortunately, in the short term, they will have to do both.

Yeah the money does go to the poeple, but that money was paid in by the people before the government decided how it was going to spend it.

 

And it was paid to those people by other people or the Govt before the paid it to the govt in taxes.

That's what makes the world go round.

 

National debt by fiscal year. IT IS A LIE TO PICK OUT A DATE WITHIN A FY. The debt is kept by FY, which is 10/01/xxxx to 09/30/xxxx.

US TREASURY,

09/30/1998-$5,526,193,008,897.62

09/30/1999-$5,656,270,901,615.43

09/30/2000-$5,674,178,209,886.86

09/30/2001-$5,807,463,412,200.06

Dec, 31, 2000 is a meaningless date within the FY. More of your constant intentional manipulation of data to promote liberal lies.

1957 was the last time the national debt went down for a FY.

 

YOU ARE TOTALLY WRONG. IT IS NOT A LIE AT ALL AND WHY WOULD YOU POST SUCH A LIE?

The debt *is* kept on a month to month basis showing the year over year changes. Anyone can see see it is not me lying by clicking on the link I provided. ftp://ftp.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opds122000.pdf. I didn't make that report, the U.S. Treasury Department did. Anyone who denies that is lying.

As anyone who actually bothers to look at the report can see, for the year 2000, 12/31/99 to 12/31/00, the total debt decreased by $114 billion.

Funny how so many of our conservative friends call others "liars" for simply reporting facts from relible sources. Well, if you don't have an argument, start with the ad homs, I suppose is the strategy.

 

If memory serves me, the Bush/Obama tax cuts on the top group was about $80 billion per year. So, if we have a $1.3 trillion deficit this year, raising those rates will bring down the deficit to $1.22 trillion.

However, if there are no spending controls, then extra tax revenues do not necessarily mean less deficit spending...

 

Given that Obama's full year budgets has showed spending under his administration has been the slowest growing of all recent presidents, I'd say its a good bet that extra tax revenues will go to reducing the deficit.

 

I only note that you are a liar because you are. We have no US Govt calender year, we have a US Govt Fiscal Year. You know that, and you intentionally lie by picking out a date within A FISCAL YEAR and presenting it as the US Govt year 2000. When IN FACT, Dec 2000 was only the THIRD MONTH OF FY 2001. Which ran from 10/01/2000 to 09/30/2001. So you picked a date from the wrong Fiscal Year.

Another FAILED LIBERAL LIE!

 

Feel free to quote anything I've lied about.

It's increasingly common here we see folks, mostly conservatives, screaming "liar" when their lame arguments are destroyed with indisputable fact.

I said nothing about the Govt's fiscal year and neither did you in your post to which I responded. There is no lie except yours.

I pointed out that the total debt decreased by $114 billion dollars in 2000. Which my link to the US Treasury Deparment conclusively and indisputably proves.

Here it is again for anyone who wants to see for themselves I'm not lying, since Dan40 apparently won't look at it

ftp://ftp.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opds122000.pdf

But I'm sure he'll call me a liar again. That is what dishonest losers do when they have no argument to make. We see it all the time, unfortunately.

 

I don't know. What does that have to do with the fact that conservatives seem to not understand that basic concept, and seem to think that deficit = spending?

Why would they "know" that?

No, I think it is better 1) to spend money to get the economy going, and 2) reduce the deficits.

But why do you believe it's better for trillions of dollars to be sitting in the offshore bank accounts of the 1% where it is doing nothing for the economy?

That no doubt is a factor. The obstructionists in the House is the main reason.

That is true. Thanks mostly to tax cuts and huge growth in military spending, we are trillions more in debt. That needs to stop.

There is idiot deficit tax cuts mostly in one party.

 

It is tiring reading all of this liberal vs conservative rhetoric when the truth is both parties are irresponsible spenders. Preemptive wars, inefficient social programs riddled with fraud, grants and low interest loans for campaign contributors, it goes on and on. The corruption and greed plagues both sides and I am over it. We need a separation of money and state.

 

The real question is, if I didn't argue that, how can you ask me that question?

I can now appreciate what you mean by pea brain.

Not if it shouldn't have gone to them in the first place.

How many times do they have to do it?

Not at all.

 

Also from the US Treasury.
Total public debt outstanding:

12/31/1999 $5,776,091,314,225.33
12/29/2000 $5,662,216,013,697.37 [no entry for 12/31/2000, so the 12/29 number carries]

However there is also this:

Historical Debt Outstanding - Annual 1950 - 2001

* Rounded to Millions
Includes legal tender notes, gold and silver certificates, etc.

The first fiscal year for the U.S. Government started Jan. 1, 1789. Congress changed the beginning of the fiscal year from Jan. 1 to Jul. 1 in 1842, and finally from Jul. 1 to Oct. 1 in 1977 where it remains today.

FY 1999, 09/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43
FY 2000, 09/30/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
FY 2001, 09/30/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06

The date, 12/31/2000, was simply the 92nd day of the US Govt Fiscal Year 2001. It was not the beginning or ending point of anything.

The CALENDER YEAR ends 12/31/xx. The Govt year begins 10/01/xxxx and ends 09/30/xxxx. One CANNOT claim a reduction in the national debt until the year is ended, THE FISCAL YEAR!

 

Sure one can.

The debt is not a budget item. The debt is simply the amount the US owes at any give period of time. You can look at it and compare it for any time period you want. And over the year 2000, it decreased $114 billion.

That is simply an indisputable fact.

If you want to look at it for the 12 months ending 9/30, you can do that too.