Which, in the context of the entire history of federal deficit spending, is "a few years".

The reason it won't happen is not pure economics, it's pure politics. Republicans would never stand for it, in their zeal to cut taxes. And that's exactly what happened to that debt curve, staring in 2001.

 

I've been looking for a reason to show this little chart, pay particular attention to who controls which branch of government on each bar, the debt as a percentage of GDP declined or stayed steady during the times when the Republicans controled the Congress, no matter who was in the White House, the opposite was true when the Congress was mixed or in Democrats hands.:

*not_secure_link*upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/US_Federal_Debt_as_Percent_of_GDP_Color_Coded_Congress_Control_and_Presidents_Highlighted.png/800px-US_Federal_Debt_as_Percent_of_GDP_Color_Coded_Congress_Control_and_Presidents_Highlighted.png

 

So you do believe in all of those fantasies I laid out there Pure silliness!

I'd suggest it is a combination of the two - but I'll concede it leans in the direction of politics. Having said that - why would you even want to promote the idea of a totally debt-free economy? The only folks I've seen who champion such a thing are the shiny money people trying to avoid being recorded by the Illuminati during their basement meetings. :lol:

There is good debt, and there is bad debt - this latest discussion about the debt ceiling has demonized debt to an erroneous degree.

 

I will only comment that the appearance of that graph is heavily skewed by the economic meltdown visited upon the U.S. beginning in 2008, and which necessitated large-scale stimulus spending. That was agreed upon by both Republicans and Democrats.

 

So I take it you have no problem with borrowing to pay back what you have already borrowed. Or borrowing to pay the interest on what you have already borrowed. Or borrowing to pay the debt created by waste in government.

To me good debt is used to build tangible long lasting things, such as bridges, highways, aircraft carriers and school buildings.

 

Look, nobody was more surprised than I was that the government had a surplus in the last few years of the Clinton administration. But there's no denying that it happened, and the trend was very favorable, however sustainable or unsustainable.

Bush made sure it wasn't sustained.

 

Budget surpluses are one thing - total debt is another. I think you're making the same error baller16 did when comparing the two numbers.

If what you propose was acheivable - even in the fantasyland scenario I laid out - why did our total federal debt rise each and every year Clinton authorized a budget?

Also - what is the value of a totally debt-free economy?

 

Okay what about 1981 to 1994? Who was in control of the budget?

 

What is the value of an overburdened economy riding on debt? And then the obvious question, how much debt is okay?

 

I've never suggested our current path of acquiring debt - and what we've used it on - is anything other than unadulterated folly. :-|

It would be hard to come up with a pure number - perhaps a ratio would be better. How about somewhere between 25%-33% of GDP? Then, you'd be leveraging a decent portion of your productivity, but still have room to move if an emergency struck.

I think you'd also want to pay close attention to how much of that debt is interest payments on old debt - currently that's the big, bad boogeyman that few average folk understand. That alone could bankrupt us in my lifetime.

 

I can't answer the question about a debt free economy or not, but from what I can see it seems as though its a far worse thing to take money out of this economy in the form of cuts than it would be to raise taxes right now. The Repubs have consistently said raises taxes is a job killer, well that might be the case but I think the drastic cuts that just took place will kill more jobs and kill them faster than raising taxes on those who earned more than 200k a year will.

 

Actually, I have a problem in thinking that the government needs to leverage our productivity, unless you mean to ease taxes (revenue) so that industry can build jobs. Thereby creating more tax payers to pay the difference.

 

I would agree, if there were any evidence whatsoever that easing taxes actually causes industry to build jobs. But there isn't.

 

I agree. It's exactly the wrong prescription, at least in the short term.

But they have the best of all worlds. When cutting spending doesn't have the desired effect, they can still blame the sagging economy on Barack Obama.

 

Hey, fairs fair, you had Bush.

 

This is the response you get when their own party could not would not pass a budget when they controlled both house and senate. The conservaties put their plan down.

 

What else would you do with a dormant, collective asset? "The government" isn't some enemy to be feared - it is our collective effort at building fundamental things on which enterprise can grow. Investing in the future in this way is prudent and wise.

There are a few things I would never want in the hands of private industry - there are a few things I'd like to see us work on collectively that may not be profitable over the near or long term. Infrastructure, education and safety come to mind. If we built the interstate freeway system with only the cash flow we had at the time, it still wouldn't be done

 

You could have fooled me, that the government has not become some enemy to be feared. I have lived through the times where it has become just that, counterproductive to honest entrepreneurial efforts.

Now could it be different, yes, the ways that you just described are some of what I posted earlier.

 

I am so sick and tired of "We cant do this because of the liberals" and "we cant do this because of the republicans"


Lets face the facts, the politicians, bankers, lawyers, and wall street are all corrupt ass cock sucking scum bags that are ruining this entire country, and every single one of those people are backing eachother up and are creating loopholes to fuck over the average middle class American.

No matter who you vote for, right or left, they truly do not give a fuck about you or anything that happens to you.

What needs to happen is a complete overhaul of government, the people need to take control, and we need to regulate, instead of having these old men who have personal agenda's conflicted with the way a country should be ran.

This shit is not acceptable, the plans they are coming up with suck, and nothing will change in this country because the United States does not generate any fucking revenue, and therefore we will never make more money. We just continue to loan out and print money, and this entire scheme will come crashing down.

SO WAKE THE FUCK UP


We are not the United States anymore...we are all fighting for nothing and it is starting to get bad. I mean do you guys NOT care food and gas is fucking expensive as shit? Do you not understand TODAY the stock market PLUNGED AGAIN? THIS IS NOT GOOD.

So whats going to happen? The same old shit just another day? Most likely, Nobody truly gives a fuck about this country anymore, the American spirit does not exist anymore. Everyone thinks they have "the right" to something when they fucking haven't earned shit.

So if you people are too lazy to fix the problem and just want to continue to argue about bullshit that in the end doesn't matter, then continue on. I am going to going to spread the word.

 

If you hope to be effective, you may want to work on your articulation. :?