Budget deficit jumps to $779 billion

[Bitek]

Repeat after me. SSI is not an entitlement. The program was designed to be self funding. If it can not be self funding then it needs to be stopped. SSI isn't something for nothing. Your pay out is based on what you pay in. Entitlement programs are something for nothing. SSI is one of the few social programs run by the government that everyone in the country is promised will pay out to them. It's a silly program with little purpose, but I payed into it. I want my money back out of it.

Haha. That's what you think.
Republicans see a fat pot of money to fund more tax cuts for their rich donors.

And you thought you were going to retire with it...

 

[Majes]

Yeah, I read the article and was capable of following along and understanding what was written. You apparently were unable to do that.

I get it though, you were a tea partier who was used and manipulated, it sucks. You thought you were fighting for a cause you believed in and it turned out you were a participant in something much less noble and maybe antithetical to what you believe. I'd probably be in denial too. The problem with denial is that it leads you to continue making the same mistake. Its why you parrot yet another Republican talking point, "both sides", you ignore reality and throw your hands up not because there really isn't a place for conservatives but rather because you are, once again, being manipulated and used.

Like I said though, keep voting third party, the Republican party thanks you. After all, if they can't get your vote and they can't suppress your vote then the next best thing is to make your vote useless.

I'll go back and read it again, but I haven't said anything about "both sides" in any of my posts here. So your reading skills may need work too.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Opinion piece on CNN.....

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/17/politics/paul-ryan-deficits-debt/index.html

Lyin Ryan plain as day.

Meanwhile, Trump's running the government just like any other business, he'll be filing for bankruptcy at some point.

 

[ivwshane]

I'll go back and read it again, but I haven't said anything about "both sides" in any of my posts here. So your reading skills may need work too.

My reading skills are just fine.

Most of you mocking conservatives don't realize how frustrating it is for us. Financial conservatives had the Tea Party movement years ago to try to get the budget balanced and to pay down the debt. That movement was murdered since it was seen as a threat to the two-party system.

That left financial conservatives with the following choice... We could throw our votes to the Democrats who have advocated spending for as long as I can remember or we could go back to the Republicans who run on conservative platforms but turn into spending frenzied neo-cons when they get to Washington.

What on earth do I vote for when both of my options run contrary to what I'd like?

The country's deficit is the fault of both parties. The current budget is mostly the fault of the Republicans. But honestly no "conservative" person would ever approve of these deficits...

Your whole fucking post is "both sides"!

Lol

 

[Engineer]

Lyin Ryan plain as day.

Meanwhile, Trump's running the government just like any other business, he'll be filing for bankruptcy at some point.

Can't be. He said during his campaign that he would grow the economy so much and bring in so much revenue over 8 years that not only would he eliminate the deficit, he would eliminate the debt. Just wait.....more winning is coming....he said so.

 

[Jhhnn]

I'll go back and read it again, but I haven't said anything about "both sides" in any of my posts here. So your reading skills may need work too.

McConnell is using the both sides routine, blaming Dems for deficits the GOP created in cutting taxes for the Rich & boosting military spending. The sad truth is that the people at the top paid astoundingly low taxes before the recent gratuitous cuts for GOP big money donors.

As the rich become super-rich, they pay lower taxes. For real. - The Washington Post

People making north of $5M/month paid about the same federal tax rate as those earning $85K/yr. Now they'll get even more because of corporate tax cuts & pay even less on it. If you want to change that then you have to vote for Dems. There is no other way.

 

[Majes]

My reading skills are just fine.



Your whole fucking post is "both sides"!

Lol

Oh my word... Saying both parties run deficits is now joining the "both sides" camp...? Apologies. I read the article again. It still jumps from the early 90's to 2009 without making any direct connections. As I said earlier the book might be better, but the article is pretty poor writing.

 

[greatnoob]

Consider the implications of this:

0. Republicans give permanent tax cuts for higher quintile income earners and a few (temporary) breadcrumbs to the middle income earners
1. Dems of course knew what these tax cuts did (tansferred wealth to the upper quintile income earners) and opposed it
2. Tax cuts passed in bill, budget explodes. Economically and financially illiterate Republicans (vast majority of them save for the top 1%) are happy to get their nominal $10 (or $2000 if you weren’t a peasant) per week
3. Republicans get voted out, Dems are in power.
4. In order to fund their policies for SS, healthcare and other social services, they need to budget and forecast a projection of costs + expected tax revenue for x number of years. Since the deficit exploded there is no way to responsibly fund these policies

4.a) either Dems repeal the tax cuts (and then increase taxes alongside it), resulting with Republicans starting their gaslighting campaign: “the Dems are going to increase taxes and look they can’t even get their policies funded. We have you the tax cuts and now they’re taking it away from you” missing of course the reasoning behind the tax increases — reckless spending from Republicans at a time when they should have been saving. Or,

4.b) The Dems can’t fund their policies knowing the outcome of increasing taxes and how the Republicans will use it as their usual propaganda talking points. Lose-lose.

5. Republicans can blame the Democrats for their own doings and their economically and financially illiterate constituents will swallow it like the morons they are, not bothering thinking about the cause and effect of what has happened.
6. Republicans in power and now SS, etc. can be cut without backlash from their moronic, low income constituents because they’ve peddled the lie that this was the “Dems fault all along”. Again nobody can see the cause and effect because of their goldfish memory.

This is how they’ll starve the beast

 

[Jhhnn]

Oh my word... Saying both parties run deficits is now joining the "both sides" camp...? Apologies. I read the article again. It still jumps from the early 90's to 2009 without making any direct connections. As I said earlier the book might be better, but the article is pretty poor writing.

Please. Dems & Repubs run deficits at entirely different times & for entirely different reasons. The deficits of Obama's early years as president prevented collapse of the banking system & relieved a lot of suffering by people who got screwed by the machinations of Wall St. GWB's deficits came from tax cuts & disastrous military adventurism in the Middle East. The last round of GOP tax cuts & budget busting are merely gratuitous cuts for the Rich & pie sharing for the MIC.

Let's face it- business was great & rich people were doing fabulously before these cuts. The budget was obviously much closer to the balance you say you want. Other segments of the population weren't and aren't doing nearly so well, particularly conservatives in the Rust Belt, the land the job creators forgot about. They got dumped when the Job Creators moved on to greener pastures. Hedge fund managers are picking the meat off of what's left & it ain't much. Guys like Romney & Mnuchin. It's nothing personal. They don't give a fuck about what their dealings do to the little people. It's just Capitalism.

Figure it out, folks. Or vote for people who give tax cuts to the winners of class warfare.

Conservatives' heads are a mess at this point. When billionaire Trump boasted on national TV that he didn't pay federal income taxes because he was smart they admired him for it & elected him President. That's fucked up, people. It's crazy.

 

[ivwshane]

Oh my word... Saying both parties run deficits is now joining the "both sides" camp...? Apologies. I read the article again. It still jumps from the early 90's to 2009 without making any direct connections. As I said earlier the book might be better, but the article is pretty poor writing.

Intellectual laziness, the cancer of democracy.

 

[Bitek]

@Majes

So where did you guys go then?

Part of the reason you were strongly opposed was you advocated terrible policy.

Trying to cut the deficit during an economic collapse is bad policy and helped depress the recovery.

But where are you guys now?

Economy is strong, debt exploding, but the rage and protests has evaporated.

 

[Majes]

@Majes

So where did you guys go then?

Part of the reason you were strongly opposed was you advocated terrible policy.

Trying to cut the deficit during an economic collapse is bad policy and helped depress the recovery.

But where are you guys now?

Economy is strong, debt exploding, but the rage and protests has evaporated.

I think a lot of us just gave up. It's currently pretty tough to raise your hand and say "cut spending, balance the budget" when people just point to the huge deficits saving the economy.

I'm not going to lie... I struggle a lot trying to understand the economic realities of a global economy. It certainly looks like the bailouts and huge deficits saved us from another recession or depression. Isn't the thought process something like "as long as the economy keeps growing in proportion to the debt then we are in okay shape"?

But it feels to me like we are just pushing things off towards a bigger collapse later. This worries me greatly. We're at 21 trillion in debt right? I can't even wrap my head around how much a trillion is.

I find it somewhat similar to the current climate change discussion. I have a feeling that humans will look back one day, point to a year around this time and say "That's when they could have saved it."

 

[zinfamous]

Why not vote for Democrats though? Serious question. If fiscal responsibility is your thing it’s not hard to see which party has been more fiscally responsible.

You say that as if we have 5-6 decades of hard data to make such a claim! psssshhhhh!

 

[zinfamous]

I can't really say that you're wrong. There was plenty of anti-Obama sentiment out there at the time, and the Tea Party really didn't accomplish anything by itself or with the Republican party. Where we differ is that I think the majority of the people who identified with the Tea Party genuinely wanted to pay down the debt and balance the budget. I think the leadership wanted to as well. I just think there weren't enough of us, and there are a lot of current Republicans that aren't happy with the party but really don't want to vote Democrat either.

I like Larry Hogan. I'm a despicable liberal, essentially voting as a referendum against Trump and the GOP, (not that much of that matters here in MD), but I'm voting for Hogan. I think the national GOP would consider him a RINO, anyway, being that he seems to have actual principles, and is both interested in and effective at actual, positive leadership and serving his people.

I also think that if there is any hope for the GOP to become a tolerable organization to regain the respect of adult humans and some sort of functional leadership, then they need members of their tribe that are worthy of that mantle--examples to work from. Larry Hogan is one of them.

 

[fskimospy]

You say that as if we have 5-6 decades of hard data to make such a claim! psssshhhhh!

I blame the media as much as anyone for pretending to believe Republicans when they make these lies. Paul Ryan got an award, *an AWARD* for fiscal responsibility by making up a fake budget where he hugely cut revenues and then just declared unspecified, magical savings would happen. This is all despite having voted for fiscally irresponsible legislation at every opportunity when Republicans were in power.

If Democrats pass legislation with an identical effect on the deficit but spend it on poor people instead of giving money to the rich just watch the deficit hysteria explode again with the media claiming Republicans really learned their lesson and this time they mean it.

 

[Majes]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the last balanced budget proposed by a republican congress? Or do we give President Clinton credit for that?

 

[fskimospy]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the last balanced budget proposed by a republican congress? Or do we give President Clinton credit for that?

The last balanced budget was the result of an agreement between a Republican Congress and a Democratic President, yes. Personally if you are into balanced budgets (I’m not) I think they should both get equal credit because it wasn’t happening without both agreeing.

Really if you want balanced budgets you should shoot for a Democratic President and a Republican Congress. Social spending is generally popular so Republicans try and deny the Democratic President popularity by limiting it. This way they get to cosplay as deficit hawks and still accomplish their political objectives. The second best case is Democrats controlling everything. As the ACA showed Democrats are acutely self conscious about being viewed as spendthrifts so they try pretty hard to make things deficit neutral. The absolute worst case is Republicans controlling everything as the last few times have showed.

 

[Majes]

The last balanced budget was the result of an agreement between a Republican Congress and a Democratic President, yes. Personally if you are into balanced budgets (I’m not) I think they should both get equal credit because it wasn’t happening without both agreeing.

Really if you want balanced budgets you should shoot for a Democratic President and a Republican Congress. Social spending is generally popular so Republicans try and deny the Democratic President popularity by limiting it. This way they get to cosplay as deficit hawks and still accomplish their political objectives. The second best case is Democrats controlling everything. As the ACA showed Democrats are acutely self conscious about being viewed as spendthrifts so they try pretty hard to make things deficit neutral. The absolute worst case is Republicans controlling everything as the last few times have showed.

Yeah that sounds about right. You'd prefer to run deficits even when the economy is running well? May I ask why?

 

[fskimospy]

Yeah that sounds about right. You'd prefer to run deficits even when the economy is running well? May I ask why?

I'm not, actually, I just don't think balanced budgets are virtues in and of themselves. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are bad. I also think debt is best understood as debt/GDP ratio so even with a deficit so long as it's smaller than GDP growth you're going the right way.

Personally I'm a big fan of running up debt in bad economic times and lowering our debt/GDP in good economic times. Unfortunately that is not what we are doing.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I think a lot of us just gave up.

This is the basic problem, you want quick fixes. Things like national economies work on decades long scales. We are never going to do things like 'balance the budget' or 'pay off the debt' in meaningful ways short time spans that feel rewarding to an individual. To make real differences in such things you need to create and follow a plan that takes 40 years or more to reach fruition.

I'm not going to lie... I struggle a lot trying to understand the economic realities of a global economy.

There is a lot of super complex detail, but the basic idea is not all that hard. Just like running any household, when times are bad and you are trying to hold it all together you use credit (deficit spending) to get by, when times are good and you have extra money rolling in you pay down those debts so that you are not spending your income on interest.

Isn't the thought process something like "as long as the economy keeps growing in proportion to the debt then we are in okay shape"?

Basically. We are saying that we are in debt but that we are actually using that debt to make more money then we could without it. So, while we pay a lot of interest we are still making more then if we didn't.

But it feels to me like we are just pushing things off towards a bigger collapse later. This worries me greatly. We're at 21 trillion in debt right? I can't even wrap my head around how much a trillion is.

Maybe, but it is worth remembering that a whole lot of those trillions we actually owe to our self. It is like if you started a business and decided to pay yourself a million dollar salary, then the business only makes $100,000 so you write in your books that you owe $900,000. Some of that money is probably real debt, you had to live after all, but it will probably not matter if you never pay off most of it because it is not really costing you anything.

The question worth asking is, how much of this is real debt, and how much is it really hurting us. Are we really still making more than it is costing us, and if so how much more can we take on before it is not? That is a real question that can be debated. If we really wanted to do something useful we would answer that question. But that is not something the politicians want to look at too closely.

 

[Jhhnn]

Gawd. The GOP lies. We can't cut taxes to raise revenues & balance the budget. The concept is absurd. Cutting taxes won't restore middle class prosperity, either, because families at the 75% & below already pay very low federal taxes. The only way to do that is to regain the % of national income lost to the 1%.

Trickle down is a lie & always has been but that's exactly the ideology the GOP is pursuing.

 

[Engineer]

Isn't the thought process something like "as long as the economy keeps growing in proportion to the debt then we are in okay shape"?

As long as the REVENUE generated by the economy keeps up with the debt. Throw in RISING interest rates which makes rolling over the debt more costly as we replace cheaper rates with new, higher rates, and you've got a situation that will require cutting spending or raising taxes at some point. Even Reagan realized that and had to raise taxes. New GOP has no idea how to do that.

Of course we CUT our REVENUE in HOPES (Laugher Curve) of getting some magical "trickle down" growth to replace and even surpass the last revenue. Of course, history has shown that the lost revenue is never replaced and deficits swell, especially over the short term.

Better hope not to get a recession any time soon.....**pop**

 

[VRAMdemon]

McConnell then:

Republicans also passed a 2017 tax overhaul projected to add more than $1 trillion to the debt over a decade after leaders gave up on creating a plan that wouldn’t increase the debt under the Senate’s scoring rules. However, McConnell, like many Republicans, has said growth will more than make up for the lost revenue.

And now :

"It’s disappointing but it’s not a Republican problem," McConnell said in an interview with Bloomberg News when asked about the rising deficits and debt.

Lol...

 

[Bitek]

I think a lot of us just gave up. It's currently pretty tough to raise your hand and say "cut spending, balance the budget" when people just point to the huge deficits saving the economy.

I'm not going to lie... I struggle a lot trying to understand the economic realities of a global economy. It certainly looks like the bailouts and huge deficits saved us from another recession or depression. Isn't the thought process something like "as long as the economy keeps growing in proportion to the debt then we are in okay shape"?

But it feels to me like we are just pushing things off towards a bigger collapse later. This worries me greatly. We're at 21 trillion in debt right? I can't even wrap my head around how much a trillion is.

I find it somewhat similar to the current climate change discussion. I have a feeling that humans will look back one day, point to a year around this time and say "That's when they could have saved it."

I think there is quite a bit of support for that on the left side of the aisle, although quite a number of us felt "wrong place, wrong time" and highly questioned the logic and motivations of those that pushed that at the time because it was counter to credible economic theory without a clear basis of intellectual support.

Look up "the paradox of thrift"

I'm not happy about a $21T debt and $800B (and growing) deficit.

However were are in a completely different place in 2018 than 2011.

Unemployment is v low, interest rates are rising, and the economy is self sustaining.

Why are we borrowing more money to stimulate an economy (in a very inefficient way though top end tax cuts) while we have the fed looking to pump the brakes?

Not only that, tax cuts are permanent. Yhey are not like an infrastructure project that you can place on hold if the economy takes a downturn and the budget suffers.
Trying to roll back tax cuts during it downturn is counterproductive and contractionary, on the other hand if not done we will absolutely crushed the budget next time we go into recession.

So all that leads me to wonder, why didn't the Tea Party show up when that tax bill was being debated? In fact the freedom caucus was the ones asking to push corporate tax rates even lower than what got approved.

It all looks like bullshit man. If they really cared about the budget and it wasn't about Obama or the left, or just general fear of the economy during the downturn, and what the hell is operating logic people are working under?
I can't make sense of it.

 

[Majes]

So all that leads me to wonder, why didn't the Tea Party show up when that tax bill was being debated? In fact the freedom caucus was the ones asking to push corporate tax rates even lower than what got approved.

It all looks like bullshit man. If they really cared about the budget and it wasn't about Obama or the left, or just general fear of the economy during the downturn, and what the hell is operating logic people are working under?
I can't make sense of it.

See that's the thing about being proven wrong. It makes you far less likely to speak up when something else happens. So as you guys have said... It turns out spending is the way to deal with an economic down-turn. (I'm still not 100% behind this but the results have been pretty convincing...)

So yeah, I'm concerned about continuing these deficits but I was pretty much proved wrong before so why would I speak up now? I clearly don't have the answers.

At least that's how it works for me. I'm sure some people just hated Obama and the left and oppose them no matter what. But they could have just stayed Republicans for that without all this Tea Party stuff... It's not like you needed to join the Tea Party to protest President Obama and the left.