General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe New Freaking Deficit Numbers?
From 1.4 trillion in 2008...to 486 Billion in 2014?
Democrats running this year? You're absolutely foolish not to be touting your republican opponents with
these numbers.. Check out Below!!!
From CNN Business:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/08/news/economy/deficit-2014/index.html?iid=SF_BN_Lead
napkinz
(17,199 posts)spanone
(135,816 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)another Morning In America
spanone
(135,816 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)doing so at all costs.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Throw in peace, and without all the warfighting, we might be able to afford public works again.
tularetom
(23,664 posts)He's done what everybody said they wanted and he won't even tell us that he did.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)If so, why?
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)They are just improved. We are heading towards bankruptcy but at a slower pace.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)This is usually a GOP talking point
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)I don't see Republicans wanting debt reduction. Both Reagan and Bush increased our debt a lot. I think you heard wrong or were misinformed. Democtratic party is the only party to cut the debt. Remember Clinton? And now Obama. I don't know why you are trying to give credit to the Republicans. I wouldn't if I were you.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Last edited Wed Oct 8, 2014, 08:30 PM - Edit history (1)
I really don't give a shit about the deficit. It would be impossible for me to be
since I don't think it deserves credit. As Krugman has often pointed out, austerity is the absolute worst path to take out of a recession. I am way more concerned that the poverty level is not improving, that the minimum wage still hasn't improved, and that my own yearly max on my employer provided health insurance is now half of my annual take-home pay. Why should I care about the fact that government spending is down?
IronLionZion
(45,410 posts)That must be nice.
busterbrown
(8,515 posts)It is a talking point.. But we need to address it never the less.. Because so many have been duped..
Igel
(35,296 posts)When it was an argument against Bush II and the $200+ billion deficit was unsustainably high.
One of Obama's campaign promises was to decrease it; I'm not sure I want to call Obama a Republican. The decifit was one reason for making the first anti-recession stimulus package so small--this was a Reid/Pelosi argument, not just a "Republican" Obama argument--and the small stimulus package was predicted to lose its effect in August or September 2008. (Which is just before the financial disaster hit.)
Obama got the deficit--with some large tax increases--back down to where Bush II had it in 2005 or so.
The only thing that makes the deficit smaller in any real sense is the decade of inflation that's rendered each dollar less valuable.
It's fashionable to attribute the large 2009 stimulus to Bush, as well as both parts of TARP (and consider them to still be part of the debt), as well as some large funding bills that increased spending. But the spending bills Bush II refused to sign if passed, the stimulus really was Bush II's, and more than half of TARP was initially expensed by Obama (and the entirely of the repayments credited against Obama-era deficits).
The issue of whether deficit reduction is good or not most definitely was not an issue until there was a Democrat in the White House. Until then, it was clearly, unequivocally, irremediably bad.
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)Having debt and using it appropriately is the best way to invest in the future. If you waited 20 years to collect tolls in order to build a bridge, it would be paid for as it was built. But, that is 20 years of suffering without a necessary means of transport.
Instead, if we take out a loan, and spend the $250,000,000 now, not only is there employment, not only is there a demand for supplies and materials, but the tax payer gets an almost immediate bridge, not one 20 years in the future.
Loans, debt, infrastructure investment go hand in hand. Pity idiot GOP pseudo-economists have made "debt" a dirty word. It is not.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)I never looked at it that way.
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)it is to any growing nation. He was brilliant and explains it far better than I, including how debt between nations is one of the best ties countries can have. If you want peace and prosperity, that is.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)that's your $15 minimum wage, federal payroll jobs, pay increases and benefits and social security cuts paying down the deficit. Not the rich guys, not the banks that they bailed out. Just the 90% or so of us who really cannot afford the collapsing economy that has resulted by fixating on the deficit reduction without supporting any economic demand...
Furthermore, that federal deficit has been shoveled off onto the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve. Unless we permit the Fed banks to go under (now, how likely is that?), that debt will come back onto the Treasury's books, and probably sooner rather than later.
It's a con, a shell game, in a word: FRAUD.
Throw in the multiple wars in the Middle East and Central Europe, the engineered economic collapse of the Eurozone and Japan, the ebola epidemic in Africa (coming to a continent near you), and it's looking a lot like Game Over.
That's why I refuse to worry about Climate Change. We won't be bothered by it at all.
Botany
(70,483 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)may not see that as a benefit.
Lots and lots of other denied opportunity for people without jobs to make something as well, via adult education in universities and the communities, money for social experiments and innovative architecture and energy among others. We know how good that was for the human spirit and the country in the 60's and as it ramped up in the Carter administration. Doesn't surprise me at all that CNN thinks it's great
It's still a fact. Many are now poorer without those things, despite the "glow" this austerity plan seems to bring to some.
tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)You know... picture worth a thousand words
IronLionZion
(45,410 posts)Someone should tell Republicans that Obama supports breathing and the best way to prevent Ebola is to stop breathing.