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Post by Marshall on Aug 13, 2019 12:03:52 GMT -5
I found a spreadsheet online. It shows the GDP vs Receipts vs Spending. It shows the precentage of of the GDP taken in as revenue has gone down considerably over the last 50 years. It represents 0.08% of GDP in 2018. It was 0.66% in 1980 and has steadily declined since then.
So the deficit is a small small percentage of GDP. I'm not saying that's good. In fact the deficit does concern me greatly. It sticks in my craw, so to speak. But what I am saying, is there's no collapse coming anytime soon. There's just too much good economy buoying that burden.
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Post by aquaduct on Aug 13, 2019 12:43:29 GMT -5
I found a spreadsheet online. It shows the GDP vs Receipts vs Spending. It shows the precentage of of the GDP taken in as revenue has gone down considerably over the last 50 years. It represents 0.08% of GDP in 2018. It was 0.66% in 1980 and has steadily declined since then. So the deficit is a small small percentage of GDP. I'm not saying that's good. In fact the deficit does concern me greatly. It sticks in my craw, so to speak. But what I am saying, is there's no collapse coming anytime soon. There's just too much good economy buoying that burden. Again, deficit and debt are totally different animals. If I recall, the relatively recent insolvency crisis of various European countries (Ireland, Greece, Spain, and maybe 1 or 2 more. There was a cool acronym for it but I can't remember it) happened when debt started to exceed 150% of GDP. We've been dancing in that range for a while. Of course, we're big bad asses that control the value of our currency so maybe, sorta we're not in that kind of trouble yet, but servicing our debt is becoming dicey and something that could turn quick. And a new budget needs to be agreed on by the end of September. The smart money is on another Continuing Resolution and another vote to raise the debt ceiling, I think for the second time this year. And that's the only thing Congress can do these days. The 70's are calling. Time to pay the piper.
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Post by theevan on Aug 13, 2019 12:46:07 GMT -5
I found a spreadsheet online. It shows the GDP vs Receipts vs Spending. It shows the precentage of of the GDP taken in as revenue has gone down considerably over the last 50 years. It represents 0.08% of GDP in 2018. It was 0.66% in 1980 and has steadily declined since then. So the deficit is a small small percentage of GDP. I'm not saying that's good. In fact the deficit does concern me greatly. It sticks in my craw, so to speak. But what I am saying, is there's no collapse coming anytime soon. There's just too much good economy buoying that burden. Debt will collapse us, not the deficit.
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Post by Marshall on Aug 13, 2019 13:09:54 GMT -5
Yeah the spreadsheet I downloaded doesn't seem to be right. Hhmm. Let me look into that.
If you can't trust the Internet, who can you trust?
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 20,289
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Post by Dub on Aug 13, 2019 13:18:38 GMT -5
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Post by theevan on Aug 13, 2019 13:21:09 GMT -5
Yeah the spreadsheet I downloaded doesn't seem to be right. Hhmm. Let me look into that. If you can't trust the Internet, who can you trust?
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Post by millring on Aug 13, 2019 13:34:51 GMT -5
If you can't trust the Internet, who can you trust? me.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 20,289
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Post by Dub on Aug 13, 2019 13:41:35 GMT -5
If you can't trust the Internet, who can you trust? me. No question about that.
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Post by Marshall on Aug 13, 2019 15:10:46 GMT -5
If you can't trust the Internet, who can you trust? me.
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Post by dradtke on Aug 13, 2019 17:00:24 GMT -5
But our revenues are up. Our revenues are up. Our revenues are up even after tax cuts. Revenues are up. Tax revenues have gone up every year since 2009. Where was all the cheering before?
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Post by millring on Aug 13, 2019 17:22:05 GMT -5
But our revenues are up. Our revenues are up. Our revenues are up even after tax cuts. Revenues are up. Tax revenues have gone up every year since 2009. Where was all the cheering before? Who cares? That was never the question. What has been stated repeatedly but is objectively and demonstrably untrue is that revenues would go down if Americans got a tax cut. The tax cut occurred, the revenues continued to go up, so right on time the question got changed and the goalpost got moved to "the deficit is still going up" with no acknowledgement that that rising deficit is due to the spending.
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Post by dradtke on Aug 14, 2019 8:41:26 GMT -5
Tax revenues have gone up every year since 2009. Where was all the cheering before? Who cares? That was never the question. What has been stated repeatedly but is objectively and demonstrably untrue is that revenues would go down if Americans got a tax cut. The tax cut occurred, the revenues continued to go up, so right on time the question got changed and the goalpost got moved to "the deficit is still going up" with no acknowledgement that that rising deficit is due to the spending. Oh, I'm sorry, I missed the switch. I thought this was the deficit discussion, I missed where it changed into the trickle down discussion. I just thought it odd that when Obama cut taxes in 2009, 2010, and 2013 and revenues continued to go up, you weren't chirping "revenue's up." I understand that we've traded presidential perjury, racism, and deficit spending for the supreme court.
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Post by millring on Aug 14, 2019 9:04:15 GMT -5
I thought this was the deficit discussion, It is. That's why the subject of revenue came up -- the assertion being that the deficit occurs because revenue is down. But revenue is not down. It is up. But -- and this is key-- spending is up even more.
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Post by lar on Aug 14, 2019 11:22:48 GMT -5
I get why politicians argue about the deficit but I've never understood how some average Americans have been seduced by the rhetoric from whatever side they happen to favor.
Years ago I taught a class on finance for the American Bankers Association. I called one section "How to Go Broke While Making a Profit". It was an exercise in simple math. I presented my students with a set of financial facts about a hypothetical business and asked them to tell me how long it would take before the business ran out of cash, even though it was making a profit. I had already given the class half of the correct answer; the business was going to run out of cash. Despite the fact that they had a week between classes to work on the problem nobody got the rest of answer right. They were unable to imagine how a profitable business could run out of cash. So they ran the numbers for a couple of years and stopped. Is that how the average American looks at this issue?
The facts surrounding the budget, taxes, and the deficit aren't that difficult to grasp and getting the right answer isn't any more complicated than budgeting for the average family. The government collects income in the form of taxes. It spends that income on various things. If spending exceeds income, the government must borrow to cover the difference. If the borrowed funds aren't repaid in full and expenditures continue to exceed revenue borrowing in succeeding years causes the amount of borrowed funds to grow. As total borrowed funds grow, an increasing portion of the funds received from taxes must be used to repay debt and interest. That leaves less money for the government to spend on other things unless it increases borrowing.
None of the above is political in nature. It's just a set of facts. One of the facts in this case is that revenue has increased and so has the deficit. The answer ought to be obvious; spending increased more than the revenue increased. Most of the time the government spends more than it takes in. And most of the time the total federal debt increases year over year. The political debate seems mostly to consist of one party blaming the other. Much of the argument is about the deficit. The size of the federal debt isn't mentioned that often yet that's the more critical part of the issue. None of that is productive.
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Post by jdd2 on Aug 14, 2019 17:34:58 GMT -5
Once upon a time there was a group known as the tea party...
...then they seemingly disappeared without a trace.
(maybe it's obama's fault?)
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Post by casualplayerpaul on Aug 14, 2019 17:40:00 GMT -5
Once upon a time there was a group known as the tea party... ...then they seemingly disappeared without a trace. (maybe it's obama's fault?) Speaking of... starting to look like the steam has finally run out of Obama’s economy. Trump’s blaming the Fed, of course.
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Post by aquaduct on Aug 15, 2019 19:32:36 GMT -5
I’d be curious to hear where you think the end will end up. We might be discussing two things: the governing elite’s up-top conflict, and the general body politic’s ground-war dislike for the other half.. Or not, I’m not sure I’m following 100 percent. At any rate you and I are good. Alright. Just as long as everyone remembers you asked for it. The short version is that Congressional delegation of authority has been going on for decades. It's mostly unrecognized because most of the time there's enough wiggle room in the executive orders, etc. that usurp that authority that many look at it and say, "well, yeah, OK, I sorta get it" and there's never serious push back. Follow Obama's executive order to implement Net Neutrality (since cancelled by Trump, I believe) as an example of the process. After 3 or 4 failed attempts to get a bill through Congress to actually change the law, Obama issued an Executive Order that said the internet met the definition of a "common carrier" in a 1996 statute and therefore was grouped in with phone companies and other stuff not really, but acceptably sorta, like that. Of course, it's damn expensive and resource intensive to fight that, so everyone goes on without it ever being challenged. And besides, it's not like it's physically impossible. That all changed in 2007 with the Supreme Court decision EPA v. Massachusetts. In a stunning abandonment of rational thought, EPA lost (don't get upset for them, it's long been a tactic of theirs to get sued so it's not their fault that they have to do stupid shit) and was forced to regulate CO2 emissions (because there was nothing in the Clean Air Act that specifically said they couldn't). Now it's very important to understand something at this point. CO2 cannot be regulated without destroying economies and literal genocide. And no, that's physics, not political hyperbole. So the Bush administration wrestled mightily with what to do (issuing an unprecedented ANPRM with individual position papers from every cabinet member), but ultimately decided to punt to the next administration. Obama then did what you'd expect and signed on with zeal. However when it came to implementing the rules he was careless and let it slip until the end of his second term. One of the first things Trump did was cancel everything Obama had done (neat little procedural trick) and restart the process. This time he dialed EPA's free reign to arbitrarily be as strict as possible back several notches. The wailing and gnashing of teeth that you hear from the environmentalists and their republic of hard left states has set the trap and you can guarantee there will be another Supreme Court bite at that apple in the not too distant future. As for the rest of it, The New Yorker seemed to get wind of it a month or two back and reasonably cogently detailed what it means. KavanaughAgain, I see the current turmoil as the end. Mostly because Trump's getting ready to sink the ship. And it needs sinking. At some point we'll probably have to get back to legislating proper. And that requires a modicum of civility and working together. Been heading this way for far too long. Just wanted to bring this back up for Sidhe. This is a couple days old but I'm just now seeing it. As I mentioned, 21 states have now taken the bait and now sued the EPA over their recent coal CO2 rules (finalized what? 3 weeks ago?). There may be some lower court rulings on the way, but these rules were deliberately designed to be challenged in the Supreme Court. And with Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, EPA v. Mass. may just be overturned for good. And as a former government wonk and professional lobbyist it's epic political theater and amazingly entertaining to watch. This is the brilliance of Trump (confess, nobody here saw that coming). This article pretty much lays out the road map. Keep in mind EPA did exactly what it was required to do. They didn't eliminate CO2 rules, they just used their authority to back off the draconian wet dreams of the left. And it's 21 states. Versus the 29 others. Classic. 21 States SueGo Trump!
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