The Trump Deficit

[lomiller]

True. It's sometimes difficult to express things in short sentences when you can't be perfectly, 100% accurate, without much longer descriptions.


My point is that since the end of the Clinton administration, we have been on an unsustainable path. One way or another, it will stop. I prefer an attempt to get the situation under control and manage a soft landing.

Unfortunately, the politicians involved have a very weak incentive to make that happen. If the electorate doesn't care, then it doesn't matter. Better yet, if they can successfully blame the other party, it's actually a win for them. They can't be expected to do the right thing if the voters don't demand it.

We have met the enemy, and they are us.

The major contributions to the structural deficit (The part that is transient responses to economic conditions) are as follows:
- Medicaid part D was never funded
- The Bush 43 stimulus tax cuts were not allowed to expire as originally called for. (they were proposed as economic stimulus to the 2003 recession. They were not neither needed or well implemented, but nominally at least they were short term stimulus not structural until they were made permanent.)
- The Trump tax cuts

The following added a lot to the total US debt, even if they were transient.
- Bush tax cuts before they were made permanent. Bad idea or not they nominally temporary
- Stimulus for the 2008 recession. Mostly tax cuts, IIRC mainly a suspension of FICA payments.
- Extended UI benefits following the 2008 recession.
- Operational cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These were never funded, and indeed under Bush were not even included in the budget so they went right to the national debt without even showing up as a budget deficit.


"Us" in this case seems to mostly mean "Republicans"

 

[ServiceSoon]

Is your concern that the 2018 deficit / GDP data will change?
If so, do you think the actual deficit is higher or lower?
And what reason do you have to doubt the completeness of the Fed's data?

I'm not questioning the fairness of the Fed's data, nor do I believe the figures will change.

I am questioning how you are framing the data. I suggested comparing the increase in debt as a rate to make any comparison practical. If you prefer to engage in blaming Trump and showing contempt, then I will see myself elsewhere.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I'm not questioning the fairness of the Fed's data, nor do I believe the figures will change.

I am questioning how you are framing the data. I suggested comparing the increase in debt as a rate to make any comparison practical. If you prefer to engage in blaming Trump and showing contempt, then I will see myself elsewhere.

Debt per GDP: as I said in the OP, under Trump, the total and relative GDP is increasing.

2014 2.7%
2015 2.4%
2016 3.1%
2017 3.4%
2018 4.0%

2019 projected to exceed 4%

 

[CapelDodger]

So, what they are saying is, "We will spend money on a new program, but we will pay for it by increasing taxes."

They are saying "We will implement this new program, paid for by these new taxes".

Awesome, but unless you increase taxes by more than you increase spending, more debt still accumulates.

They're not saying "These new taxes will only pay for that program." They're simply anticipating the obvious question "How will you pay for it?"

You haven't done anything to solve the current problem. All you have done is not make it any worse.

If the proposed program attracts votes despite the associated tax increase and that tax increase more than pays for the program then they have achieved something. They have sold a tax increase to the general electorate.

It's important that politicians actually acknowledge that current levels of taxation are inadequate to cover current levels of spending.

Tackling the deficit won't attract votes in itself. Consider the fate of George HW Bush.

 

[Trebuchet]

The last honest Republican.

 

[Meadmaker]

Tackling the deficit won't attract votes in itself. Consider the fate of George HW Bush.

Aye, there's the rub.


That's why I blame the voters instead of the politicians. The politicians are just a symptom.

 

[Molinaro]

Is it Trump's fault? Yes, because he has more power to influence US spending and tax policy than any other man on the planet. However, in my opinion, if Clinton had been elected, it would be her fault, because I don't think she would have done what was needed to get it under control. It might not be as bad, but it would still be huge.

That does not make any sense. When Obama took office, the deficit was at 1.4 trillion. He got it to a low of 438 billion in 2015, and it climbed back up to 665 billion in his last year in office.

It is on pace to nearly double over Trump's first 2 years.

Exactly how do you see that rapid growth as being inevitable if Clinton had won the election?

 

[ServiceSoon]

Debt per GDP: as I said in the OP, under Trump, the total and relative GDP is increasing.

2014 2.7%
2015 2.4%
2016 3.1%
2017 3.4%
2018 4.0%

2019 projected to exceed 4%

I'm not sure where you obtained those figures. Or what 'Debt per GDP' means exactly. Are your figures about the deficit? The deficit is an important contributor to the long-term financial viability of a nation, however, it does not reliably capture the final financial picture. The deficit is but one variable in a complex formula.

Eventually, any deficit is added to the national debt. As a citizen concerned with the financial vitality of the US, that is what I am personally concerned with.

I found this authoritative and complete reference for Total Federal Public Debt as a Percent of GDP. This source uses the data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis for 1966 Q1 through 2019 Q1. You can even download the raw data if you want to verify it's accuracy. As a bonus, they present a different way to consider the public debt. This is a perspective that I have never considered; how much that debt costs tax payers after it has been added to the balance sheet.

At that link, the Total Public Debt as a Percent of GDP indicates that figure was 104.56% for 2016 Q1, and 104.40% for 2019 Q1. I anchored our analysis to the Trump term, because in your OP you claimed Trump has increased this figure more than others, and that was your cause for concern.

The total public debt as a percent of GDP during the Trump Presidency (The years 2016 to 2019) has been flat. Any thoughts on the information I have presented?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Sorry, it is deficit per GDP - my bad.
And it is the official numbers.

 

[Cabbage]

I'm not sure where you obtained those figures. Or what 'Debt per GDP' means exactly. Are your figures about the deficit? The deficit is an important contributor to the long-term financial viability of a nation, however, it does not reliably capture the final financial picture. The deficit is but one variable in a complex formula.

Eventually, any deficit is added to the national debt. As a citizen concerned with the financial vitality of the US, that is what I am personally concerned with.

I found this authoritative and complete reference for Total Federal Public Debt as a Percent of GDP. This source uses the data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis for 1966 Q1 through 2019 Q1. You can even download the raw data if you want to verify it's accuracy. As a bonus, they present a different way to consider the public debt. This is a perspective that I have never considered; how much that debt costs tax payers after it has been added to the balance sheet.

At that link, the Total Public Debt as a Percent of GDP indicates that figure was 104.56% for 2016 Q1, and 104.40% for 2019 Q1. I anchored our analysis to the Trump term, because in your OP you claimed Trump has increased this figure more than others, and that was your cause for concern.

The total public debt as a percent of GDP during the Trump Presidency (The years 2016 to 2019) has been flat. Any thoughts on the information I have presented?

Looks to me like it should decrease when the economy is strong. Why isn't it decreasing??? The economy is growing....great! Why is the deficit increasing, too?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The total public debt as a percent of GDP during the Trump Presidency (The years 2016 to 2019) has been flat. Any thoughts on the information I have presented?

Yeah.
For starters, how would Debt to GDP matter in any sane way?
In a recession, GDP falls but debt does not.

What is relevant is GDP vs. deficit.

 

[Segnosaur]

The total public debt as a percent of GDP during the Trump Presidency (The years 2016 to 2019) has been flat. Any thoughts on the information I have presented?

Looks to me like it should decrease when the economy is strong. Why isn't it decreasing??? The economy is growing....great! Why is the deficit increasing, too?

Exactly.

If you look at the graphs in the reference provided, the Debt to GDP ratio decreased during the 1990s (when Clinton was president and the economy was strong), from 65 down to 57.

We are supposedly in an economic boom period. Low unemployment. Expanding economy. Yet we aren't seeing the same decrease that we saw in the 1990s.

 

[lomiller]

I found this authoritative and complete reference for Total Federal Public Debt as a Percent of GDP.

Do you not understand the difference between debt and deficit?

It's also worth nothing that the timeframe includes only a singe Trump budget, how on earth are you expecting meaningful view of the debt Trump is creating with only a single data point? What we can see clearly is the fallout from the Bush period and 2008 recession followed by US debt vs GDP stabilizing under Obama. Look at the same data 5 years from now and you will see another spike in debt arising from the Trump deficits.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The major contributions to the structural deficit (The part that is transient responses to economic conditions) are as follows:
- Medicaid part D was never funded
- The Bush 43 stimulus tax cuts were not allowed to expire as originally called for. (they were proposed as economic stimulus to the 2003 recession. They were not neither needed or well implemented, but nominally at least they were short term stimulus not structural until they were made permanent.)
- The Trump tax cuts

The following added a lot to the total US debt, even if they were transient.
- Bush tax cuts before they were made permanent. Bad idea or not they nominally temporary
- Stimulus for the 2008 recession. Mostly tax cuts, IIRC mainly a suspension of FICA payments.
- Extended UI benefits following the 2008 recession.
- Operational cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These were never funded, and indeed under Bush were not even included in the budget so they went right to the national debt without even showing up as a budget deficit.


"Us" in this case seems to mostly mean "Republicans"

Yea but that was the era of "Deficits Don't Matter" Cheney. What else does one expect from liberals like that?

 

[ServiceSoon]

Sorry, it is deficit per GDP - my bad.
And it is the official numbers.

No worries. I've discussed this before so it was an easy guess. I didn't question the authenticity of the figures you provided.

Looks to me like it should decrease when the economy is strong. Why isn't it decreasing??? The economy is growing....great! Why is the deficit increasing, too?

I'm not sure what you meant by saying it looks to you like the debt/GDP should be decreasing. I don't believe that it is a realistic expectation for the individual who is blamed for a recession, thus should consequently in this case be praised for a good economy, to save that growth for another day or President.

Yeah.
For starters, how would Debt to GDP matter in any sane way?
In a recession, GDP falls but debt does not.

What is relevant is GDP vs. deficit.

Debt/GDP matters to the credit rating agencies. It was one of the major contributing metrics that was mentioned during the Greece Financial Crisis. It is also one of the major reasons economist are convinced that Japan will have a financial crisis on their hands in 15 to 30 years. It matters to investors, accountants, economist, bankers, and should thus matter to ever citizen of their nation.

The only justification I've heard from you that the deficit/GDP is more important is that when there is a recession, the debt/GDP ratio increases. That sounds like a problem for the administration in power when that occurs. The US has had a deficit for all but a few years since 1970. What you are asking for does not bode well with precedence.

Do you not understand the difference between debt and deficit?

It's also worth nothing that the timeframe includes only a singe Trump budget, how on earth are you expecting meaningful view of the debt Trump is creating with only a single data point? What we can see clearly is the fallout from the Bush period and 2008 recession followed by US debt vs GDP stabilizing under Obama. Look at the same data 5 years from now and you will see another spike in debt arising from the Trump deficits.

Did you post that to invoke defensiveness from me? Please quote what I said in this thread that led you to believe that I don't know the different between deficit and debt.

I agree that it is difficult to make accurate judgments about any Trump Budgets that have not occurred. If I cannot make a positive meaningful view of the Trump budget from only a quarter of the time he will be in office, how can I make any negative meaningful views from the same time period? It sounds to me like you need to have a discussion with the OP.

Perhaps you want more 'time' and data points so that you can manipulate and distort the data to fit your world view. Unless I put on my partisan distorted glasses, I cannot see anything stabilizing under the Obama presidency. I do see that debt/GDP increased from 64% to 104% during the Obama Presidency. That qualifies for one of the largest, if not the largest, increases in national debt/GDP for any president.

 

[Cabbage]

I'm not sure what you meant by saying it looks to you like the debt/GDP should be decreasing. I don't believe that it is a realistic expectation for the individual who is blamed for a recession, thus should consequently in this case be praised for a good economy, to save that growth for another day or President.

I simply mean that when the economy is strong it is time to start paying off the debt, not cause the deficit to skyrocket.

And I have no idea what you're even trying to say with that second sentence. Who said anything about a recession, or blaming anyone for a recession or good economy??? And isn't the good of the COUNTRY important??

 

[lomiller]

I'm not sure what you meant by saying it looks to you like the debt/GDP should be decreasing.

What’s to understand? Year to year deficits depend heavily on economic conditions. The drop when conditions are good and go up when economic conditions are bad. When you see large and/or increasing deficits when conditions are good it means that has probably been an even larger increase in the underlying structural deficit.

When the next recession inevitably hits the US deficit could easily go up 50% - 100% which would out it in the $1.8 trillion - $2.4 trillion range and it’s all because of the mismanagement occurring right now.

Did you post that to invoke defensiveness from me? Please quote what I said in this thread that led you to believe that I don't know the different between deficit and debt.

Read the post you quoted, it already explains why debt vs GDP isn’t very useful in the context of this thread.

I do see that debt/GDP increased from 64% to 104% during the Obama Presidency. That qualifies for one of the largest, if not the largest, increases in national debt/GDP for any president.

Again, this is because you are choosing an inappropriate metric. Debt vs GDP lags the actual fiscal irresponsibility, often by more than a decade.

The last Bush budged ended with a $1.4 trillion deficit. Even with much improved fiscal responsibility under Obama a massive debt explosion in Debt vs GDP was inevitable because of how large a deficit Bush left. Similarly, there is now another impending explosion in Debt vs GDP because of the deficits Trump is creating.

 

[lobosrul5]

And this is why I've made an effort to replace my traditionally used term "fiscal conservative" with "fiscal responsibility". Because those who today claim the "conservative" title have completely abandoned any pretense of being fiscally responsible.

The way I see it, being fiscally responsible isn't about supporting any one spending program or tax policy, it's about always asking the fundamental question, "so, how are we going to pay for that?", but not in the sarcastic way the current Republicans ask that question. Ask it in a serious manner that is actually looking for a real answer, that's based on the best evidence and analysis we can find.

Want a tax cut? Fine, how do we pay for that? "Trickle down" has been proven not to work, so what spending will you cut? Be specific. Own it if you want to cut some popular program.

Want a major new spending program? Fine, how do we pay for that? Are we going to raise taxes? Which ones, and by how much? Are you going to move money around? Which old programs get cut to pay for the new ones? Again, own it.

Want to pay for it all with an increased deficit? Again, own it. There are times when a deficit is needed, but is this one of those? Show your work. There will be a quiz later.

The underlined: thats the problem right there. Many many Trumpist's still believe that it does. My dad included... he's a financial consultant and should really really know better. But any argument and he basically sticks his fingers in his ears and "goes nuh-u The 80's were awesome, the 70's were terrible." We're in a post-facts world.

 

[lomiller]

I simply mean that when the economy is strong it is time to start paying off the debt, not cause the deficit to skyrocket.

And I have no idea what you're even trying to say with that second sentence. Who said anything about a recession, or blaming anyone for a recession or good economy??? And isn't the good of the COUNTRY important??

Yeah “blaming” the President for a recession is a little silly. The President doesn’t have much short term control over economic conditions and in fact modest recessions are a fairly normal and even healthy thing for an economy. When you get more serious events they are almost always caused by things that happened years earlier.

For example banking de-regulation that occurred under Clinton and Bush economic stimulus in 03/04 that mostly ended up being dumped into the housing market created a housing bubble than culminated in the financial crash back in 2008. In some ways the US economy has yet to fully recover from this, eg employment rates are still below where they were in the early 2000’s before the crash.

Depending on how it plays out Trump is setting an even bigger economic bomb for the US economy by attacking the independence of the Federal Reserve. If Fed independence is eroded expect not just one crash but a series of them and long term stagnation of the US economy. Political interference in central banks is an economy killer, it’s one of only few things that can truly destroy a countries economy.

 

[Segnosaur]

Looks to me like it should decrease when the economy is strong. Why isn't it decreasing??? The economy is growing....great! Why is the deficit increasing, too?

I'm not sure what you meant by saying it looks to you like the debt/GDP should be decreasing.

Not sure why that's such a difficult concept.

The economy is supposedly strong (meaning the GDP is rising). This should 1) bring in extra tax revenue, 2) decrease certain expenditures (such as welfare). This will decrease the deficit, and as a result, the debt grows more slowly, and the debt/GDP ratio should be decreasing. The fact that the ratio is remaining stable is a problem, because if/when the economy hits another recession, the debt/GDP ratio will become even worse.

I don't believe that it is a realistic expectation for the individual who is blamed for a recession, thus should consequently in this case be praised for a good economy, to save that growth for another day or President.

I don't really understand what you're trying to argue here. Seems your post may have been worded poorly.

We are talking specifically about Trump here, and today's economy. There is no recession. So why isn't it realistic to expect that the debt/GDP ratio to fall? It fell back when Bill Clinton was president.

It did rise under Obama, but Obama had to deal with a recession that started before he came to power..