National Debt

You've made  a common, easy mistake. Budgets are passed in advance - so your study should have been from 1/1/02  (the 2001 budget was the last Clinton budget) to 1/1/10. (the 2009 budget was the last under Bush)

Except that you can make things even worse for Bush by admitting that since the Fascists refuse to pass any budget America has been funding through a series of continuing resolutions - in fact, we are still using Bush's last budget.

It would be easier if the decisions of one admin or Congress did not affect the next... and therefore a debt by date comparison as you did would provide more insight. But that's not the case. Bush was not there to clean up the mess he made and just one example, spending on Bush's two wars had to continue. On the revenue side, Bush left Obama with a sabotaged tax base that even in "good" times  only barely exceeded in constant dollars Clinton's last year FY2000 in 2 of Bush's 8 years. Just some thoughts.  

He stated he would cut the deficit in half. He has cut the deficit with each year's budget since he has been in office. What he didn't bet on was Republican governors torpedoing the economy, and using the govt to slash payrolls in a recession. That is why we have 15 states in Depressions, and 20 states with good growth. 

Getting the economy growing, adding 25 million jobs will solve the short term budget deficits and the long term debt issue, and social security and every other domestic issue other than healthcare.

It all depends on how you look at it.  Bush doubled the national debt.  Obama would have to get it to 20 trillion to do that.  It doesn't matter.  It's just a number.  I actually think that Bush doubling the debt was good for the country.  I think that Obama needs to double it in order to do the same.

Does the actual amount really matter? Either way you slice it it was too much.

Either way you slice it it wasn't enough.

Well, the point is that Bush's budget sort of remains intact.  This is because of the recession, the defense build up and the tax cuts.

This is different than the Clinton budget, which was more or less balanced.

You think the deficit did not grow enough over the last 30 years?

Why not use the beginning and end of the budget Fiscal year like youre supposed to:

10/01/2001  $5,806,151,389,190.21

09/30/2009

  $11,909,829,003,511.75

I believe that is about $6.1 Trillion that Bush added to the national debt. 

10/01/2008  10,124,225,067,127.69

And his last year's deficit was $1.7 Trillion which was a record by far. 

10/01/2010  13,610,847,585,810.09

So  Obama's 1st budget FY 2010 deficit was about $1.6 trillion or $100 billion less than Bush's. 

 

 

Absolutely.  The deficit equals money injected into the country.  It's not borrowed money either.  They tell you it is to keep you in line.  It's money that the government allows the bank to create out of thin air.  If unemployment was at zero and the need for welfare of the citizens was at zero and the military needs were at zero then you wouldn't need to go into further so called debt.  That 15 trillion dollar number is money that was created out of thin air therefore there can be no debt.  Who would they be indebted to?  Themselves?  It's a number to scare us into compliance and paying our taxes.

So when I buy a Tbill where does that money go?

I'm sure it goes right into the treasury.  It's just an investment like putting your money in a bank.  It usually pays less interest because it's such a safe investment.  The riskier the investment the higher the interest rates you get in return.  You are investing in the government bank instead of your local bank. 

T bills have nothing to do with the Fed's creation of loan money.

Did anyone see Bill Maher last night?

Obama has increased spending less than any President in recent history and yet he has added 4 million jobs  (in spite of all the repugnant governors laying off workers).  He seems almost super-human.

When talking about the debt, it would be more meaningful to talk about the ratio of debt to GDP.  Economists do that for a reason.  All businesses use a similar metric.  Among other things it is called "Return on Assets Employed".

While I've used these daily numbers before, there is a downside that they may not be as accurate an indicator as we might believe. Daily debt doesn't always correlate to actual FY budgeting or spending. Some of the debt has a life of its own. The government has no control when someone cashes in bonds. Conversely, the government may have to sell bonds to met expenses when revenues are not coming in at a steady pace. The debt goes up even if the revenues come in a few months later. There was a discussion a month or two back about whether Clinton actually paid down any debt because the annual numbers at the end of Sept FY2000 showed a small debt. But the daily numbers showed 147 billion of debt paid down between the highest debt reached in March 2000, and Sept of that year. Clinton did pay down debt within FY2000 but the annual numbers were too crude a measure to catch that.  

Sure debt matters. I'm not one of those who believes we can print our way out of our fiscal irresponsibility. In 2000 Bush ran on protecting the Clinton Surplus as a way to strengthen Social Security. Here's one of his old press releases.

http://romcache.tripod.com/bush2000.pdf

 

Gee... when Bush then does everything he can to sabotage that Surplus to create MORE debt... isn't that a tiny clue that he intended to sabotage Social Security?

 

There are problems even here. With both Reagan and Bush2, they made the phasing in of their irresponsible tax cuts retroactive to Jan 1 of 81 and 01 respectively... technically FY's of Carter and Clinton.  

 

It was more like $6 Trillion!: This is a re-post:

Why not use the beginning and end of the budget Fiscal year like youre supposed to:

10/01/2001  $5,806,151,389,190.21

09/30/2009

  $11,909,829,003,511.75

I believe that is about $6.1 Trillion that Bush added to the national debt. 

10/01/2008  10,124,225,067,127.69

And his last year's deficit was $1.7 Trillion which was a record by far. 

10/01/2010  13,610,847,585,810.09

So  Obama's 1st budget FY 2010 deficit was about $1.6 trillion or $100 billion less than Bush's. 

Obama has cut in half the debt service charge. Mainly because he has reduced spending as mentioned earlier, reduced it by more than any president since Truman.

Debt service fiscal 2008: $451,000,000,000

Debt service fiscal 2012: $241,000,000,000

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm

BW, "The deficit equals money injected into the country. It's not borrowed money either."

So, does that mean we can tell the Chinese, Japanese and social security trust fund to kiss our ass?

Doug, "Obama has cut in half the debt service charge."

Debt sevice charge would be interest. The fed has had to lower and keep interest rate artifically low to keep them from skyrocketing. If interest rates end up being 1 percentage point higher than the CBO assumes over each of the next 10 years, interest costs could go up by another $1.3 trillion, putting total costs at $6.8 trillion.  Of course, it's not just rising rates that could push up interest costs -- it's also the accumulation of more debt than expected, which is likely considering the inability of the idiots in the Whitehouse and Congress to cut spending. And greater than expected inflation will push those interest costs even higher.

This could mean interest costs of 5.5 trillion -7.5 trillion over the next 10 years!  That's 14 cents to 19 cents of every tax dollar that will not be available to pay for government services and programs, or to aid Americans and states in the event of an economic downturn or natural disaster.

It is unsustainable and insane what our criminals in DC have been and are doing. I doubt that the 1%, the military or medical industrial complex will suffer. It will be the middleclass, elderly and working poor the will get the shaft.

 

No, it means that our government can just print the money to pay them back.  Pretty simple isn't it?  That is how a fiat monetary system works.  Our national wealth in terms of money is not backed by anything but our future labor and production.

So Stimulus spending early  in the Obama admin should go to Bush because it fell in FY 10?

Both FY and daily debt numbers have their problems.

LOL... if the  interest is down on growing debt, that speaks only to the interest rate set by the fed.  

What Pierpoint said.

Plus Quantitative Easing.

Actually the interest rate set by the Fed is a little higher than it was in 2011.  in 2011 the debt service charge was about the same as in 2008.

Greece doesn't have a debt problem. They have a monetary policy problem caused by foreign banksters who demand to extract Greece's debt payments on a devalued, stable currency, when Greece ought to be able to inflate their currency, and grow their economy to pay their debts.

None of use should take ANY comfort in the national debt or the money we piss away on interest. It's the biggest waste of money there is... a full 2.9 TRILLION just in Bush's eight years alone. In one year it was 453 billion. NASA gets only about 25 billion a year.

I take great comfort in the national debt.  Without it we would be doomed.  Why do you care if the United States wastes money that it creates out of thin air?  We don't owe anybody an ounce of gold.  We can print what we need.  We can add digits to a bank account without it costing a penny.  The part of the national debt that irks me is the unfair portion that is handed to the people who don't need any more.  We need MORE national debt because it's obvious that the super rich that run this country are not going to give any of theirs back to the system.  As long as they keep hoarding money then the government will have to keep creating more of it in order for our country to stay stable.

I don't believe in free lunches... Left wing or Right. Germany thought it could print its way out of its problems. At some point real economies... domestic and international will devalue those dollars. If the dollar is perceived not to have any value, the dollar will soon not become the currency safe haven it now is. I think we've pushed the limits with the Fed's creation of money with QE1, QE2, and whatever money is used to prop up international banks.  

What would happen to the value of a dollar if we simply printed trillions of dollars to pay back debt?

As long as you don't inject more money into the economy than the working capacity of that economy you have little to worry about.  The stronger our economy is then the stronger our dollar is.  It will not devalue the dollar.

Can you provide an example where this worked in the past?

Since currencies float against each other, the value of the dollar is subjective. Even with a strong economy if there are too many dollars floating around the perceived value will decrease. If this free lunch theory was so viable, every nation would be doing it.

BW, "I take great comfort in the national debt. Without it we would be doomed. Why do you care if the United States wastes money that it creates out of thin air?"

What Pierpiont said. It would create inflation like nobody's business and shortly the dollar would be wothless as all faith (that is what the value of the dollar is based on) in it's value would disappear.

 In 2000 Sadam was working on a deal to trade oil for euros instead of the US dollar. It is now obvious the invasion of Iraq had less to do with any threat from Saddam’s long-gone WMD program and certainly less to do to do with fighting International terrorism than it has to do with gaining control over Iraq’s hydrocarbon reserves and in doing so maintaining the U.S. dollar as the monopoly currency for the critical international oil market. Throughout 2004 statements by former administration insiders revealed that the Bush/Cheney administration entered into office with the intention of toppling Saddam Hussein. Indeed, the neoconservative strategy of installing a pro-U.S. government in Baghdad along with multiple U.S. military bases was partly designed to thwart further momentum within OPEC towards a "petroeuro." However, subsequent events show this strategy to be fundamentally flawed, with Iran moving forward towards a petroeuro system for international oil trades, while Russia discusses this option.

If this happens, or with Irans banking assets frozen with an embarge set to take effect in July and the Iranians, Chinese and India are negotiating to trade Iranian oil for thier gold, the petrodollar will be devastated. China and India buy about 40% of Iran's oil.

http://www.rt.com/news/iran-india-gold-oil-543/

The money supply increases and decreases depending on what the Fed thinks the economy needs... expanding it to stimulate the economy, contracting it to decrease inflation. But you're suggesting pumping enough money into the economy to pay off a $16 trillion debt... and doing so in a manner that the Treasury gets the money in some off-budget transfer, then uses that money to pay down debt as it comes due. I just don't see enough productive capacity in the US to absorb $16 trillion in new money when that's about the same as the ENTIRE OUTPUT of the economy.

It is the numbers that Bill Maher presents you should challenge, not what he says about women.

What example are you looking for?

16 trillion seems so small when you compare it to the swaps market.  900 trillion in derivatives at the time of the 2008 crash.  This number went to 1400 trillion (1.4 quatillion) in early 2009.  With a 0.5% transaction fee on swaps we could pay off the national debt in 4 years.

Also, the fed loaned out 30 trillion after the 2008 crash.  That 16 trillion seems like nothing.

I think many economists say that there is a  7 year lag in the effect of any economic policy.  I have to believe that is an aggregate average over all policies.  In any case, I find it interesting that the W tax cut occurred in 2001 and the crash happened 7 years later.

It's not as if the entire irresponsible Bush tax cut took place in 2001. It was to be phased in... and that was accelerated in 2003. I think the bigger culprit here was the deregulation of the banking and derivatives markets in the last years of the Clinton admin… instigated by Phil Gramm. The irresponsible Bush tax cuts only added fuel to the fire of new speculation.

I think many want to completly blame the collapse of the economy on the GOP when Clinton bares much responsibility. The simple fact is he accepted some nutty right wing ideas. This flies in the face of the simpleminded Dem vs GOP dichotomy. What's needed is a new Left vs Right axis... where the Left isn't blamed for the actions of corporate Dems like Clinton.

 

The numbers being tossed around for derivative trading are astounding. I can't imagine how any of those trades would get sorted out should there come a time for a payout. While I'm sure such trading makes a perverted sense to Wall St, I just see them as crazed. Finances should be simpler and more transparent.

 

I agree with what you say about the various causes.  As a matter of fact, Alan Greenspan said Clinton was the best republican president he knew.  Also very important was NAFTA, CAFTA and SHAFTA (Thom's joke).  I think a root cause of all this was the lack of enforcement of the anti-trust laws by Reagan.  This enabled the Corporatists to gain power to drive the DLC.

Even in the prescence of this power, the democratic party fought the corporatist much harder than the repubs.  Clinton adminstration brought Microsoft to court.  Microsoft purjured themselves in court, and Clinton was ready to break them up when W came into office and stopped the anti-trust proceedings.  The Obama adminstration kept it going i.e. democrats good.  His admistration stopped the T-Mobile and AT&T merger.

In spite of all the corrosive actions of presidents Reagan to W, I still think if Obama had a super majority in the senate our economy would be improving.  Nancy Pelosi passed to 218 laws that never made it out of the senate.  Many of those laws would have improved our economy.  For example, not providing tax credits for sending jobs overseas.

I would point out he did have a super majority in his first year.

As far as the fed loans, these are short term loans that involved many rollovers.

He had  a supermajority for about six months from the date Al Franken was sworn in to the date Scott Brown was sworn in. And even then you're counting Fox News Lieberman.

 

I'm not proposing paying off the debt.  That would take money OUT of the economy and be disasterous.  I'm suggesting that we stop tracking the money borrowed into existence from ourselves and categorizing it as debt.  It can't be a real debt if you can create your own money.  The government should inject as much money into the system to keep our country stable.  THEY say that our debt jeopardises our National security.  In reality a poorly controlled economy and social system is what jeopardises our National security.  There is no reason that in a country with a fiat monetary system that there should be unemployment and people without health care.  Full employment and a healthy populous is where the bar is always set.  Anything below that bar and the people in charge are not doing their jobs.

If our monetary system was still based on gold reserves and silver then that would be a totally different story.  A fiat system is always self balancing.  Money injected into the economy shows up on a ledger as debt.  Money paid back on that debt is money removed from the economy.  You cannot pay off the so called National debt without hurting the economy.  The debt isn't real!  The United States government did not borrow money from some private enterprise that needs to be paid back.  They borrowed money from their own bank account that will never run dry.  It can't run dry because they create their own money.  WE aren't supposed to know this and that's why you'll never hear a politician bring it up.  They will continue to play with our lives as if we fund all of their expenses.  That's how you keep the populace producing.

Uh? How is creating MORE money out of thin air taking ANY money out of the economy?

Wasn't it your proposal to pay off the national debt by printing money?

On paying creditors:

Sorry BW, as I said I don't believe your the Free Lunch theory of budgeting… any more than I believe the Right's Free Lunch claim that irresponsible tax cuts pay for themselves.

No offense, but when I become president, I won't put your name in nomination for any budget post! LOL

You have to think of money as economic energy rather than as "wealth" to feel how it works.  Because we use money to pay for stuff, and because we are paid for our work, etc., the medium of exchange becomes what "the deal" is all about in our mind.   But, it is always the symbol of value, a claim on future value, and not the substance of wealth no matter what form it is.  Gold and silver cannot buy what is not for sale.  When an economy crashes, the money may be wallpaper or dead weight.

How a society symbolizes its "full faith and credit" is the point.  We do borrow from the future, but we also invest in what pays off for them.  If we are a healthy, going concern, we have a social asset we can capitalize to use now that will be good for those who follow.  Or, we can run it all into the ground and mess up the place.  It depends upon what we use debt or money for now.

The idea that money must be protected at the expense of society and human beings is inverted.  The value is in the latter, and that is what must be preserved if the money is going to be worth anything anyway.

He did not have a super majority ever.  If you count Bernie then I get to discount Ben Nelson and Mary Landreiux.

Why is no one mentioning Jude Wanniski in this discussion?  This is the republican plan per Thom and Jude. Run up the national debt while in office, and not let out a peep (e.g. Cheneys deficits don't matter).  Then when the democrats come into office complain about the debt continuously.