# Trump has added $4 Trillion to the National Debt. Where is the Tea Party?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-has-added-4-trillion-to-the-national-debt-where-is-the-tea-party/838665>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [August 14, 2019, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-has-added-4-trillion-to-the-national-debt-where-is-the-tea-party/838665 "2019-08-14T17:43:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 97

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**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2019, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-has-added-4-trillion-to-the-national-debt-where-is-the-tea-party/838665/97 "2019-08-18T20:12:21Z")

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> [@WillFarnaby](#):
>
> No. Look at the chart again and this time cross-reference it with the chart I posted showing control of government. There is no such correlation between Dem congresses and increased tax revenues.

Because the correlation between Democratic Congress and higher tax rates is weak, as you ignored in my last post.

> [@](#):
>
> When I say the marginal rates are irrelevant, those that are following would realize that I mean high marginal rates do not correlate with higher taxes as a percentage of GDP. Look at the chart please. There were high marginal rates in the 50s and 60s, and low marginal rates in the 2000s and today, yet the taxes as a percentage of GDP remains bebopping and scatting around the same level.

First, talk about cherry picking a bad argument. You pick and choose whether high marginal rates correlate with anything, then you say high marginal rates didn’t produce higher taxes during the period before the AMT. Talk about a gaping hole in your argument.

> [@](#):
>
> Please look at the chart and point to a period where the Dems were able to raise taxes significantly and sustainably.

The 1991 and 1993 tax increases started off a decade of prosperity and deficit elimination. That ended with the tax cuts and recession of 2001. The tax cuts of the early 2000s led to an okay economy that crashed, and the recent tax cut happened during an economic boom and tax receipts have tanked.

Let me just point out two things you can’t explain away:

1. Variations between 15-ish percent of the economy and 20-ish percent of the economy aren’t trifling differences, they are HUGE swings to our deficit. We are currently in the 16.5%-ish range for receipts, meaning that if receipts were actually in the 19% range you keep babbling about, that would be half a trillion dollars more in receipts. That’s a big deal, and would cut out deficit in half! No serious person could dismiss such a huge swing in our deficit.

2. If you want to chalk things up to economic realities rather than fiscal policies, we are currently in a very strong economy and revenues by this measure are falling. That’s because of fiscal policies.

And a bonus number three: this silly 19% figure has about the same amount of analytic basis as horoscopes. Some investment banker - not even an economist - noticed a chart one day and started yammering about it, and the discredited fringes of some political/economic cults decided to back into an explanation of the significance of this guy’s observations. It’s a total joke.

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