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This is something that has always bugged me. There are two obvious causes of our debt. By far and away, the number one cause is over spending. A secondary, lesser cause was the crash of 2008, which caused about a 10 percent drop in revenue. But that wouldn't have been a crisis except for the spending.
The Iraq war had almost nothing to do with the debt. The Afghan war had less, and in any case was strongly supported by most Democrats, including Pres. Obama. The Bush tax cuts had zero, zip, nada to do with it. When are we going to get some honesty about the national debt?
This is something that has always bugged me. There are two obvious causes of our debt. By far and away, the number one cause is over spending. A secondary, lesser cause was the crash of 2008, which caused about a 10 percent drop in revenue. But that wouldn't have been a crisis except for the spending.
The Iraq war had almost nothing to do with the debt. The Afghan war had less, and in any case was strongly supported by most Democrats, including Pres. Obama. The Bush tax cuts had zero, zip, nada to do with it. When are we going to get some honesty about the national debt?
Never. When have we ever gotten honesty from Democrats?
This is something that has always bugged me. There are two obvious causes of our debt. By far and away, the number one cause is over spending. A secondary, lesser cause was the crash of 2008, which caused about a 10 percent drop in revenue. But that wouldn't have been a crisis except for the spending.
The Iraq war had almost nothing to do with the debt. The Afghan war had less, and in any case was strongly supported by most Democrats, including Pres. Obama. The Bush tax cuts had zero, zip, nada to do with it. When are we going to get some honesty about the national debt?
We started two wars AND we cut taxes...
That has never been done in the history of the modern world. You pay for war by raising taxes. So not only did we not pay for one war, not only did we not pay for a second war, we went actually went into debt to not pay for two wars.
This is something that has always bugged me. There are two obvious causes of our debt. By far and away, the number one cause is over spending. A secondary, lesser cause was the crash of 2008, which caused about a 10 percent drop in revenue. But that wouldn't have been a crisis except for the spending.
The Iraq war had almost nothing to do with the debt. The Afghan war had less, and in any case was strongly supported by most Democrats, including Pres. Obama. The Bush tax cuts had zero, zip, nada to do with it. When are we going to get some honesty about the national debt?
FYI, there was roughly a $750 billion drop in actual FY2009 revenue vs the budget projection bush made before the crash. That is only one year of five years of reduced revenue caused by the recession.
Come on, you're just being silly. You trolling for a argument or would you like to have a serious discussion? You cannot argue that spending is THE problem and then dismiss the trillions of dollars wasted in the wars on Terra, the Medicare part D giveaway to insurance companies and the unfunded tax cut for the wealthy.
The election is over, time to stop the silly nonsense. Solutions, not excuses.
Last edited by buzzards27; 12-05-2012 at 08:04 PM..
The Iraq war had almost nothing to do with the debt.
That's simply not the case. The Iraq war required a boost in many categories of spending aside from the war appropriation itself, from increased payroll/pension spending to future VA costs. That ends up being a lot of money spread out over many years.
This is something that has always bugged me. There are two obvious causes of our debt. By far and away, the number one cause is over spending. A secondary, lesser cause was the crash of 2008, which caused about a 10 percent drop in revenue. But that wouldn't have been a crisis except for the spending.
The Iraq war had almost nothing to do with the debt. The Afghan war had less, and in any case was strongly supported by most Democrats, including Pres. Obama. The Bush tax cuts had zero, zip, nada to do with it. When are we going to get some honesty about the national debt?
A quick review of this piece reveals the crux of this author's fallacy.
Quote:
What both the statistical tables in the "Economic Report of the President" and the graphs in Investor's Business Daily show is that (1) tax revenues went up - not down - after tax rates were cut during the Bush administration, and (2) the budget deficit declined, year after year, after the cut in tax rates that have been blamed by Obama for increasing the deficit.
In fact, tax revenues fell immediately after the cuts but rebounded a few years later during the housing bubble.
I couldn't have asked for a better example of Mr. Sowell's slight of hand. Economists know to adjust revenue over time for inflation and population growth, both of which increase government revenue regardless of tax policy. The deficit did decline during the housing bubble, that is true.
However, the CBO forcasted that had taxes not been raised, the U.S. would have been running continuous surpluses -- paying off the entire debt by 2006.
The tax-cuts; the wars had much to do with the debt.
That has never been done in the history of the modern world. You pay for war by raising taxes. So not only did we not pay for one war, not only did we not pay for a second war, we went actually went into debt to not pay for two wars.
Oh please, it's been done like clockwork. We went into debt to pay for the American Revolution, the Civil War, WWII, and the Cold War.
The American Civil War resulted in dramatic debt growth. The debt was just $65 million in 1860, but passed $1 billion in 1863 and had reached $2.7 billion following the war. The debt grew steadily into the Twentieth Century and was roughly $22 billion as the country paid for involvement in World War I.
All for good cause. The Iraq war accounted for about 3 percent of federal spending while it lasted. Hardly a major cause of the national debt. We can debate whether it was justified or not, but it didn't affect the national debt much.
That has never been done in the history of the modern world. You pay for war by raising taxes. So not only did we not pay for one war, not only did we not pay for a second war, we went actually went into debt to not pay for two wars.
Here is a good chart that visually shows what cause the explosion of debt over the last 12 years. We should remember that the CBO projected that the debt would be nearly paid off by now.
Note that all of the new programs and changes in budget priorities occurred during Bush's eight years. Some were that occurred during Obama's four years but were the result off the 2008 meltdown that was occurring as he took office.
Last edited by buzzards27; 12-05-2012 at 07:38 PM..
Reason: wrong link
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