Even with your answer, Sam, I stand by what I wrote in my post.
“The deficit” is the total amount of national debt, isn’t it?
All you are talking about is the amount the deficit increases each year. But adding $412B one year and adding $333B the next year does not decrease the deficit. You are talking about a reduction in the increase of the overall deficit, not an actual reduction in the deficit.
Now, if one year we added $400B to the deficit and the next year we paid off $300B (or we added -$300B), that would be a reduction of the deficit.
No, the deficit is the difference between on-budget revenues and expenses in a given year. The debt is the result of accumulated deficits over history. You are correct that the debt will increase each year, but the deficit is decreasing.
Basically, you’re just mixing up terms. What you’re talking about is the debt, not the deficit. And it’s been increasing every year like, forever. Even during the best of the Clinton years.
Sam is correct in the usage of the terms debt and deficit in this case, but his numbers aren’t as rosy as he’s stating. If the projections come true, this will be the first time in the last three years that the deficit (as a percentage of GDP; as a dollar figure, Bush has set records) drops below that of the last two years of the Reagan administration. Even with this current “improvement”, the deficit is higher than any year of the Carter administration. Hardly the milestone of “good times” that some would like us to believe. As John Mace pointed out, Bush is the one who created the high deficit which we’re finally stating to see lower slightly. In the last three years of the Clinton presidency, there wasn’t a deficit. It even carried over to Bush’s first year in office, but dropped hard since then.
As for the debt increasing, even in the best Clinton years, he’s also correct, but barely. In Clinton’s final year, the actual debt increased about 18 billion dollars. Our debt this month alone (and the month isn’t over yet) is more than double that, to put things in perspective. The total debt increase during the Bush administration so far is absolutely staggering, and while the deficit is indeed dropping, it’s still nowhere near what I would consider a turnaround, and a complete turnaround is needed before the debt (and its corresponding interest) becomes an insurmountable burden on our future generations.
Yeah, Bo. You’re confusing the debt with a single-year deficit.
A couple of points, Sam…
I’d be wary of looking at leading indicators early on. I hate economists playing soothsayer. I realize that’s part of what they’re paid to do. But one that I know best in the world has a button up that says ‘If you lined up all the economists in the world they’d point in different directions’.
I realize you’re trying to use economic indicators to determine future benefits but I’m doubtful of the whole system’s ability to monitor fundamental change if such occurs.
I’m also a hardcore deficit hawk (none of you are harder, believe me) and it drives me to fits of anger when someone defends deficit spending with the old ‘well, it’s less of the total GDP than it was!’. What you’re assuming there is that an entity (person, corporation, government, Elvis) can continue to borrow indefinitely and that it’s a healthy thing. By defending ongoing and endless deficit spending you appear to be painting over a crack willfully instead of replastering. It makes you look less-than-on-target, if you get me.
Show me a budget that actually begins reducing the debt and I’ll be happy. Show me a debt continually growing and I’ll be unhappy.
Remember, if we’re going to grow ourselves out of fiscal trouble with supply-side or straightforward Keynesian solutions at some point the government should be running a true surplus and the national debt should be reduced by some amount.
Merely restraining the rate of debt increase isn’t enough.
Of course, if you pick and choose the way you want to measure it, you can always find a good indicator. The performance of the economy should be judged on what the numbers really mean, not how the government measures them. The total increase in debt is not something different, it is the very definition of deficit. It is how much money the U.S. Government is deficient from one year to the next.
Yes, he did. But he was trying…
The last year that he was in office, the debt rose by only $24 billion, which was .4% of total debt. Adjusted for inflation, you could say that there was a very small surplus.
After reading DMC’s post i realized i got the numbers slightly wrong. In Clinton’s last year, the debt rose $18B, not $24B, for an increase of about .3%.
I was using the fiscal year from end of September 1999 to end of September 2000. Either way, that year’s debt increase was the lowest since the 1968-1969 period, and back then the total debt was only about a third of a trillion dollars, which is less than the deficit has been during certain single years of the Bush administration (yes, different values of the dollar, etc., but it’s still telling).
Do you have any evidence that the increase in taxes paid by the wealthy is because there’s more wealthy people (i.e., that the economy is “producing wealthy people”), as opposed to people who are already wealthy becoming more so? Our increasing wealth gaps between social classes would lead me to believe that it’s because of the latter, but perhaps you have reason to believe it’s the former?
We actually do “produce” wealthy people (even though it’s a piss poor indicator of a healthy economy), but they are such a tiny minority of the country that it doesn’t really make a big difference to the average American. It’s not an indicator that we’re trending upwards. It’s merely an indicator that those near the top are actually reaching their destination.
Metacom, on rereading your post, I see where you’re coming from. The “production” of wealthy people I mentioned is indeed from one level of what we’d consider wealthy, to a higher level of wealth.
But don’t jump to conclusions about this being due to “Bushonomics” tax cut policies. Congressional Budget Office analysts and others say that there are a lot of different factors involved in the rise in 2005 tax revenues compared to 2004, including one-time effects such as expiration of some corporate tax breaks and a tax amnesty:
In other words, this sharp rise could be just a temporary blip rather than a genuine sign of a stronger economy.
Moreover, for tax revenues and deficit levels as well as for job creation, we need to look beyond the last couple of years in assessing this administration’s performance. Yes, we have stronger (i.e., non-negative) job creation and more tax revenue now than we did a couple of years ago, but we’re still not back up to pre-Bush levels, and the deficit is still, as other posters have pointed out, running amok. I’d like to see some serious, sustained improvement on more economic indicators before I start cheering for Bushonomics.
I’m afraid that I don’t understand the whole wealth envy thing enough to grasp your question. Also, it’s confusing because I didn’t say anything about more wealthy people as opposed to the same number. I don’t know how many there are. It doesn’t bother me that they’re rich. I mean, we’re not dealing with a zero sum game where there’s X dollars in the pot, and if they take Y dollars, all that’s left for me is X - Y. So, what’s your problem with someone else being successful?
This is true of any economy. And besides, the ephemeral nature of leading indicators didn’t stop anti-bush types from posting dire threads every time an economic indicator declined before, did it?
There was a lot more reason to cut Bush slack on the economy in 2002 and 2003, what with the loss of the WTC, the collapse of the tourism industry, the popping of the tech bubble, the recession he inherited before he even took office, etc. But that didn’t stop people like Krugman from laying the blame for everything squarely at Bush’s feet. Now that the numbers are looking great, suddenly we need to do flips and twists to attribute it to anything but Bush’s policies.
Studies done by left-wing economists like DeLong and Krugman who have serious axes to grind. Somehow I think I’d get criticized if I posted studies by Larry Kudlow and Cato…
It’s been pointed out by many in this thread, using all sorts of impartial governmental cites, that the numbers aren’t looking great. The economy is still bleeding pretty badly, but at least we’ve slowed the hemorrhaging somewhat.
