This Whole Debt Limit Thing

[BenBurch]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infographics/us-national-debt

 

[lomiller]

The graph in question showed total expenditures, not deficits.

Also, I would imagine that a graph showing historical deficit data would be more likely to use historical expenditures minus historical revenues than the calculation used to project future deficits.

-Bri

I was responding to this post

My understanding is that the change in procedures has to do with the way that projections of future deficits are calculated, and would have nothing to do with how actual deficits or debt are reported...

Nowhere in that post or any of the ones leading up to it do I see any reference to anything other than the budget or the deficits/expenses reported in it. Since supplemental appropriations and other tricks in question do not get reported in the budget these are subject to being skewed but the changes in accounting rules.

The essence of the issue is that there were expenditures under Bush that did no and do not show up in the budgeted expenditures and show up in historical numbers only in the increase in debt.

 

[mhaze]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infographics/us-national-debt

I can't figure out if a corporate CFO that produced a chart like that would just be fired, or be jailed, or both.

 

[Corsair 115]

The Office of Management and Budget currently has historical data through 2010 here. The CBO has the most recent estimates of the current fiscal year's outlays and receipts, issued June 22 as part of its 2011 long-term budget outlook here.

Just to add a retrospective document to the above list, here's a 268-page PDF file produced by the GAO which analyzes the 2010 fiscal year. One can then contrast that with the budget that was proposed for that same fiscal year.

 

[BeAChooser]

My understanding is that Supplemental appropriations don’t get included in the deficit numbers, irrespective of whether we are discussing projections or final numbers

LOL! There's no arguing that supplemental appropriations started being abused around 2000 and thereafter.

But you once again demonstrate how utterly clueless you are where economic history is concerned.

http://www.concordcoalition.org/iss...tion-weakens-budget-discipline-and-increases-

As supplemental appropriations have increased, they have had a significant effect on budget deficits. In a 2009 report, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) concluded that from 1981 to 1985, supplemental appropriations increased the deficit or decreased the surplus by an average of 7.6 percent a year. From 1986 to 1990, the average deficit increase or surplus reduction was only 3.5 percent. As supplemental appropriations have grown over the past ten years, the effect on the deficits/surpluses has also increased considerably. From 2003 to 2008, the estimated average annual deficit increase was 36.8 percent. In comparison, the average annual rate between 1981 and 2008 was only 12.1 percent.

Here might be the report mentioned above:

http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/contrib/wikileaks-crs/wikileaks-crs-reports/RL33134.pdf

Congressional Research Service Report RL33134

Supplemental Appropriations: Trends and Budgetary Impacts Since 1981

Thomas L. Hungerford, Specialist in Public Finance

January 2, 2009

... snip ...

Supplemental appropriations net of rescissions have usually increased the budget deficit, and federal debt held by the public is larger than it would have been had the supplemental appropriations been fully offset.

Now it's true that some forms of supplementary spending don't get added to the historical (actual) deficit numbers. Supplementary Social Security spending, for example.

But all military spending is included.

Oh and by the way ...

http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-new...s-promise-to-end-war-supplementals-again.html

31 July 2010

COMMENTARY: Obama breaks promise to end war supplementals... again

 

[johnny karate]

I can't figure out if a corporate CFO that produced a chart like that would just be fired, or be jailed, or both.

You do understand that running a corporation and running a country are two wholly separate things, right?

 

[BenBurch]

You do understand that running a corporation and running a country are two wholly separate things, right?

Generally, Republicans don't comprehend that.

 

[Biscuit]

You do understand that running a corporation and running a country are two wholly separate things, right?

That annoyed the heck out of me when rep. Bohner started his response by comparing government to business.

I am a (successful) business owner and I can assure you I do not want government run like a business. That would imply it was run for profit in all sectors. I do not want a for profit military.

 

[BeAChooser]

There is no evidence that anyone would actually choose not to earn as much money because their tax rates go up a few points.

Yes, there is.

In 65+ years (http://uselectionnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Outlays-vs-Revenues-Since-19301.png ), with taxes rates fluxuating all over the place, revenues have averaged 18% of GDP and have NEVER exceeded 20% of GDP for any degree of time (if at all).

And yet your so-called experts are claiming we can now rely on it to exceed 20% of GDP from about 2014 to 2035 (see the Extended Baseline Scenario in the CBO report you linked)? LOL!

These wouldn't happen to be the same experts who said the Stimulus would work … who by and large have all slunk back to academia after that failure to continue preaching their socialist economics?

And again, there are a LOT of experts (including conservatives) who come away with a completely different conclusion from the same data.

Only by ignoring the completely obvious. And I wouldn't presume to defend *all* conservative *experts* from stupidity.

 

[Bri]

In 65+ years (http://uselectionnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Outlays-vs-Revenues-Since-19301.png ), with taxes rates fluxuating all over the place, revenues have averaged 18% of GDP and have NEVER exceeded 20% of GDP for any degree of time (if at all).

And what was the overall effective tax rate during each of those years? I can only find data since 1979, and the overall effective tax rate has been fairly constant during that time (19.8 to 22.9).

-Bri

 

[johnny karate]

That annoyed the heck out of me when rep. Bohner started his response by comparing government to business.

I am a (successful) business owner and I can assure you I do not want government run like a business. That would imply it was run for profit in all sectors. I do not want a for profit military.

You also gotta love the even more facile analogy Tea Partiers like Michele Bachmann make by comparing a government's economy to a family sitting around the dinner table balancing their checkbook.

 

[BenBurch]

Tom Toles nails it. Again: http://www.gocomics.com/tomtoles/2011/07/27

 

[BeAChooser]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infographics/us-national-debt

The Obama WhiteHouse is filled with nothing but LIARS. And that chart is an example of LYING BY OMISSION and LYING WITH STATISTICS.

The statistical lie is comparing dissimilar periods of time … Bush's entire 8 years in office to Obama's less than 3 years in office. Not Kosher.

The omitted lie is the fact that in March 2009, the CBO published the following linked report ... that the WhiteHouse accepted ... which stated the following on the very first page of the executive summary:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/100xx/doc10014/03-20-PresidentBudget.pdf

The cumulative deficit from 2010 to 2019 under the President's proposals would total $9.3 trillion, compared with a cumulative deficit of $4.4 trillion projected under the current-law assumptions embodied in CBO's baseline.

In short, the CBO clearly stated that Obama's legislation would increase the cumulative deficit (national debt) by nearly $5 trillion dollars over what it would have been in ten years under Bush's laws and spending programs.

And since that time the projected national debt in the 2010 to 2019 period has only gone up as Obama as added more and more spending. In fact, the CBO soon increased the estimate of the 10 year cumulative deficit under Obama programs to be $7-$8 trillion dollars over what it would have been had Bush's laws and spending programs remained in place. And that estimate assumed the economy would recover ... which it hasn't.

Thus, for the Obama Whitehouse to portray Bush as the big spender (increasing the debt by $7 trillion compared to Obama's $1.4 trillion) is utterly dishonest.

The Whitehouse chart is also dishonest because

(1) Obama as a senator voted for TARP,

(2) Obama as a senator and democrat approved of the noted domestic and defense spending … e.g. education , veterans benefits … enacted under Bush,

(3) Obama continued the Afghanistan and Iraq wars pretty much as Bush had planned, and only the Stuck On Stupid still then we shouldn't have invaded those two places,

and

(4) Obama and the congress left the Bush tax cuts in place, which he and the congress, which democrats controlled with fillibuster proof majority, could have removed any time over the objection of republicans. So they share the responsibility for those tax cuts remaining in place for two of the last 3 years.

There are none so gullible as liberals.

And none so dishonest. You should have known this chart of yours is a lie by omission since you participated recently in a thread where many of the above facts were presented (here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7399150&postcount=89 ).

 

[BeAChooser]

You do understand that running a corporation and running a country are two wholly separate things, right?

Yeah, one should be easier given the ability to tax and not having to accomplish anything versus the stated goals.

 

[mhaze]

You do understand that running a corporation and running a country are two wholly separate things, right?

No, I seriously do not think that the fiscal management issues are substantially different. That's the part we are talking about here. But what you are saying is that lying and flagrantly disregarding generally accepted accounting principles is okay if one is "running a country".

So you'd be jailed in private business for what you can get away with in political office.

Well, we already know that. So what do you have new to contribute?

 

[Dayan81]

When polls show that the great majority of Libertarians and even a majority of Republicans support a compromise solution to the debt-crisis, which includes spending-cuts and increased revenue from the wealthy, and yet the political party that controls the House of Representatives utterly ignores these sentiments, I fear the people are losing control of their government.

Representative Democracy is becoming more of a campaign slogan than an actual principle of our society.

 

[johnny karate]

No, I seriously do not think that the fiscal management issues are substantially different. That's the part we are talking about here. But what you are saying is that lying and flagrantly disregarding generally accepted accounting principles is okay if one is "running a country".

So you'd be jailed in private business for what you can get away with in political office.

Well, we already know that. So what do you have new to contribute?

You're quoting me, but clearly responding to some other - possibly imaginary - post.

In the future, try and stick to addressing things people actually say. That way your posts will seem less shrill and nonsensical.

 

[BenBurch]

When polls show that the great majority of Libertarians and even a majority of Republicans support a compromise solution to the debt-crisis, which includes spending-cuts and increased revenue from the wealthy, and yet the political party that controls the House of Representatives utterly ignores these sentiments, I fear the people are losing control of their government.

Representative Democracy is becoming more of a campaign slogan than an actual principle of our society.

We have the power to correct that in 15 months.

 

[mhaze]

That annoyed the heck out of me when rep. Bohner started his response by comparing government to business.

I am a (successful) business owner and I can assure you I do not want government run like a business. That would imply it was run for profit in all sectors. I do not want a for profit military.

Brilliant! Reframing the argument so as to respond to make the argument look silly.

Your first error was to not see that there are both for-profit and not-for-profit businesses.

Wait...why should I point out your errors? They were not errors, they were essential to enable reframing the argument. That would work if people overlooked your mistaken premises.

 

[mhaze]

But what you are saying is that lying and flagrantly disregarding generally accepted accounting principles is okay if one is "running a country".

So you'd be jailed in private business for what you can get away with in political office.

Well, we already know that. So what do you have new to contribute?

You're quoting me, but clearly responding to some other - possibly imaginary - post.

In the future, try and stick to addressing things people actually say. That way your posts will seem less shrill and nonsensical.

I'm quoting you and illustrating the rather clear implications of your viewpoint.

In the future try not to be so obtuse and nonsensical.