What made the big disparity in wealth?

The 2nd longest peacetime economic expansion in US history is only an "epic failure" to the hyper partisan and/or uninformed.

He raised taxes several times but the net effect was drastically lower taxes compared to where they were in the 1970's.

What makes you think Clinton wanted to raise them back to 70+%? Produce a quote from him, or any proposed plan to raise taxes that high. Go ahead.

In fact, Clinton has apologized on at least one occassion for raising taxes in 1993, as this newspaper mentions. Why would he do that?

Actually, you'll never see those tax rates. You guys on the left need to get over your 1950's fantasy. The US was the only place in the world where an economy like ours could exist. Everywhere else was either undeveloped or rebuilding their countries after the war. They have since caught up and now offer an alternative. They have lower tax rates, so we either keep up or we lose our competitive edge. You try to raise taxes to 70-91% percent and you'll see just how fast the country sheds rich people and businesses. Then whose taxes will you vote to increase? Will you volunteer to fill the void? I doubt it.

Free trade agreements! Have you thanked Saint Clinton, today?

 

Who amongst them have lower tax rates. Few developed countries have lower overall effective tax rates that the US

 

Will that still be the case if we put rates back up to 70+% like many of you on the left want?

 

Absolutely, because he spent into oblivion and inherited one of the worst economic situations. His trickle down Reaganomics are what is crippling us today.

I didn't say raise them to 70%. I said raise them.. as in lower than the bull(*)(*)(*)(*) Reagan thought was a good idea. He apologized for raising taxes because of plutocratic pressure. The wealthy control everything, and they were pissed off at tax increases.

That is fine. However, lets not complain about income inequality then. As long as you support these wealthy beneficiary tax systems, the gap will continue to increase. Eventually the poor are going to get very pissed off and more violent... just look at how regimes go in the Middle East when you have 3 wealthy and millions of impoverished.

It would take a world movement. They would flee to the next tax haven and continue their path of corruption and dismantling of peaceful society. Income inequality is the leading cause of violence in the world. Let's just ignore it though, it will get better.

They all need to go... but there is no choice these days to remain globally competitive. Crony capitalism is a disease that has infected the world. We (the US) just happen to be better at it than every other country at the moment.

 

Those policies ended the stagflation that started under Saint Carter's Presidency, and helped end the Cold War. But I agree that his Administration did spend too much money. To be fair, he wanted to spend less, and negotiated tax increases for spending cuts, but those cuts never occurred.

I find it very ironic that the same progressives that give Obama a pass on getting us to 17 trillion in debt in less than 5 years will give absolutely no leeway at all to Reagan, who inherited a very nasty recession in the early 80's and had the Soviet Union to deal with. And by "ironic", I'm, of course, referring to completely predictable partisan hypocrisy.

No, you didn't say that. Here's what you actually said: "Clinton wasn't able to raise taxes to pre-Reagan levels.". That implies that he tried to raise them to at least 70%, where they were prior to Reagan's Presidency, but that he was unable to. Do you have anything at all to support this?

I'm sure they were. If you had a group constantly trying to raise your taxes for stuff that they want and you don't, you might feel the same way.

I'm not naive enough to believe that this wasn't done on purpose. Obama grew up among the far left. His family, friends, religious leaders, and school professors were largely comprised of Marxists, and a key concept in Marxism is the idea of the peasant's revolt. You're alluding to it in the above post. For that to happen, though, the Middle class has to be destroyed, which is what Obama's policies are doing. People won't be too interested in a peasant's revolt as long as they have a job and a family to think about. When they lose those and become impoverished, and they see the rich getting richer, they will be more receptive.

Good luck getting the "world" to go along with it. There will always be an incentive for one country to lower their tax rates so that businesses set up shop there instead of elsewhere. That's how competition works. Instead of attacking the rich, wouldn't it be a better way to help lift the poor and middle class up so that the gap is less wide? Is that even a possibility? Rising tide lifting all boats, kind of thing?

I don't disagree with you on crony capitalism. It's a problem, but the bigger problem lies with progressivism.

 

Nothing Obama did contributed to $17 trillion debt... which is insignificant anyway, considering it is not the highest in history or the highest debt burden in the world, by a longshot.

I don't know how high he wanted to raise them but one would assume it would be closer to pre-Reagan levels. I'll concede that was in assumption with no facts.

Catering to the rich?

You, or any of the Obama naysayers have yet to point to a SINGLE policy instituted by our current president that has directly destroyed the Middle Class.

I don't have any ill will towards the rich so long as they pay taxes. My problem has been people who blindly cater to them (i.e. conservatism). Wealth is fixed; you cannot uplift the middle class without taking from the rich. The gap is what makes them rich! Why do you think $1,000, which was once "rich" now is a pittance? The $$$ value is irrelevant. The only thing that matters in wealth is the gap.

We will agree to disagree on this one.

 

LOL!!!! Nothing at all, huh? It was all the fault of George Bush, I guess, if the left-wing talking point still holds true after all this time. What about the trillion dollar stimulus?

And yes, 17 trillion is the highest the debt has ever gotten. No other President has engaged in this much deficit spending.

If there were no facts behind that assumption, why would anyone else besides you assume that it would be at "pre-Reagan levels"? That makes no sense.

Nope, just expressing contempt for people who vote themselves raises with other people's money.

Sure we have. What do you call Obamacare? Forcing the Middle class to overpay in order to subsidize the poor, all while giving insurance industry CEO's more revenue on their income statements.

Wealth isn't fixed. What a silly idea. You mean to tell me that if I dream of a new invention tonight and it catches on like the iPod, I won't become wealthy without taking from someone who is already rich? Again, this makes no sense at all

Because of inflation. Something those of you on the left embrace as a good thing.

Feel free to produce anything that states that the difference in wealth between the rich and the poor determines the purchasing power of money.

Ok.

 

I wish I'm, so nope. But unlike you, I don't hate rich kids who would get all the hot girls in the campus. You, on the other hand, very bitter and angry because what left for you were ugly and fat chics. Heh.

 

There are several reasons, the greatest being relatively low taxes on the wealthy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/28/income-inequality-study_n_3346073.html

Certainly, when one only pays a 13% effective tax rate on passive income, it's very easy for the rich to quickly accumulate a lot more wealth.

It began under Reagan, worsened under Bush, and was only recently (2013 tax law changes and ACA) rolled back to a small degree, but probably not enough to truly get us back to the days when the gap was much smaller.

Economic growth was also higher during the years where taxes on the wealthy were much higher (1933-1980 vs 1980-present) and the gap between rich and poor was small.

 

Not sure if you're serious. Middle class and the poor are barely making end meets let alone investing. Even when some of them are able to stack away some $$ to 401k accounts, they don't have the same advantage or privilege the wealthy has. The rich can access to cheaper cash a lot easier than the poor. I've never seen any rich folks have a credit score of less than 800, meaning, they're able to get cheaper mortgages, cheaper loans, cheaper credit cards....etc...you name it. For the poor, not that lucky.

But again, the end justifies the mean.

Thank you Bernanke.

 

The accumulated debt is a product of the deficit President Obama inherited ($1.67 trillion projected baseline deficit in early 2009), which are almost all attributed to Bush-era policies and the Great Recession that resulted from deregulation, and the annual accumulation of deficits and debt interest that resulted...but you already should know this and appear to be once again playing dumb. The deficit has fallen every year of the Obama Administration, and is on track to be around $600-$700 billion this year, a trillion-dollar drop, which is partially attributed to rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and the surge in revenues from a recovering economy. Now if President Obama had inherited a balanced budget, and the annul federal budget took the same fiscal path, debt would have actually been lowered, but he had no such luxury. If President Bush had inherited a $1.67 trillion deficit, and took the same fiscal path of increasing deficits, accumulated debt would have been even worse, perhaps catastrophic.

 

What other viable choice do we, as a people, have?

 

Again, the utter hypocrisy rears its head. The same people who blame Reagan for increasing the nation's debt despite inheriting a nasty recession in the early 80's are completely incapable of attributing any blame to Obama's record shattering deficit spending. It's got to be a thrill up the leg motivation in making the first non-white male president's legacy look good. Or simply typical progressive Democrat party cheerleading. Either way, it's laughable in its transparency, especially given how desperately they try and appear credible.

I see you are still using an exaggerated and inaccurate projected number to make your "Obama inherited a deficit" argument look stronger than it actually is. I've refuted you on this before, but clearly you prefer a more dishonest approach in making Obama look good. I get it, the ends justify the means. Unfortunately the facts are not on your side. Time to update your talking point.

So the CBO, which you list as your source, cites 1.2 trillion as its number. Obama himself cites 1.3 trillion. You're over 28% off your mark if you go by Obama's number and over 30% off if you go by the CBO's number. To further highlight the worthlessness of your estimated figure, the actual deficit in 2009 was 1.4 trillion, significantly lower than your estimate. So, once again to the honest members of the forum, there is only one reason why you would pick an inaccurate projected deficit number in 2009 and compare it to an actual figure from 2000, and it's not a reason based in honesty.

As for your hypothetical, there's no evidence for that. You're not a soothsayer, and you do not possess the ability to know what would have happened if Obama inherited a surplus. We do know that Obama voted for many of the things that accounted for the 2009 budget, like TARP and the auto bailouts, so it seems disingenuous to assume that those costs wouldn't have occurred anywhere besides a George Bush presidency. But this kind of eye-rollingly lame partisanship is par for the course, eh gmb?

 

A small correction to the above, you would actually be nearly 39% off the number cited by the CBO, not 30%.

 

It's no surprise that you continue to conflate deficits with debt, but you have no excuse at this point. To put it in simpler terms, we'll use a sports analogy.

Coach #1 inherits a 0-16 team, and gradually turns that record into 11-5 over 4 years,

Coach #2 inherits a 16-0 team and gradually turns that record into 5-11 over 4 years.

Coach #2 may in fact have accumulated more wins during his tenure, even as he was running the team into the ground while Coach #1 was generating a nice turn-around. Only a fool would say Coach #2 was the better coach, based on accumulated wins.

Republicans are simply fools or deliberately dishonest to use accumulated debt as a measure. They know deficits have fallen every year of the Obama Administration, and thus they focus accumulated debt, which is directly a results of the disastrous fiscal/economic policies of Obama's predecessor. President Obama has simply softened the blow.

What does your racism and partisanship have to do with the issue?

Your citation states:

Obama inherited deficits from Bush administration

rating that as Mostly True and concludes "Obama's numbers are fairly solid, so we rate his statement Mostly True."

Thanks for confirming. Perhaps there is hope for you.

Let's continue with your politifact citation:

"It does highlight, however, that when it comes to budget projections, people can have differences of opinion about what to include. In any budget projection there is room for interpretation, but it seems reasonable to assume for a baseline that the Bush tax cuts will continue. Obama's numbers are fairly solid, so we rate his statement Mostly True."

The CBO projection from that report was in fact from early Jan. 2009, based on economic numbers a few months old. Recall that the economy was falling off a cliff at that time,

"On Jan. 7, 2009, two weeks before Obama took office, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the deficit for fiscal year 2009 was projected to be $1.2 trillion."

which made CBO revise its numbers substantially in March of 2009:

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/fi...014/3-20-09_prelimanalysis_tables-for-web.pdf

I can only conclude you're intentionally lying or cannot read and note the obvious differences in what you're comparing.

If we instead used a 2001 projection rather than 2000's actuals, it looks even worse for Bush: $281 billion projected surplus for 2001, based on CBO's early 2001 projection. See Table 2:

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/27xx/doc2727/entire-report.pdf

Oops. You're flailing at this point, perhaps to cover up the lies you continue to spread here, or the catastrophic failures of the political party you shill for.

 

yeah, the middle class and poor are gong to invest their way making ends meet.
Milk, bread, meat, heating oil, car payment ? ...........nah, let's buy some stocks this month.

 

Maybe if the middle class were guaranteed to have their casino losses given back to them regardless, they'd be more likely to invest, huh? I'd certainly invest if I could get guaranteed bailouts.

 

As long as we play the lesser of two evils game, none.

 

I'm conflating nothing. Progressive Democrats slam Reagan for increasing the debt and running deficits yet give Obama a pass on doing the same thing, citing that he inherited a recession. The fact that Reagan inherited a recession seems to make no difference to your talking point. That's how we know how transparent your argument is.

That's not making it simpler, that's just a pathetic attempt at obfuscation. I guess in your mind throwing a few numbers around will distract people watching your argument go down in flames.

Disastrous, even though the major reasons the 2009 deficit looked the way it did was because of policies that the current President also supported. No explanation given for this lovely double standard, but of course, nobody expected you to give an honest explanation.

And it's not dishonest to focus on the accumulated debt, at all. The 2009 deficit contained large 1 time expenses, whereas the following deficits did not contain those expenses. Yet the deficit remained above 1 trillion for 4 straight years, and likely would have remained above 1 trillion this year if the sequestration cuts that Obama didn't want were not implemented.

I'm not partisan. I think the Republicans are better than the Democrats for sure, but my purpose in this world isn't to be an apologist for one of the parties, unlike some people.

Deflection. I was taking issue with your grossly exaggerated number, not whether or not Obama inherited a deficit or not.

And then they drastically lowered their estimates months later. The real question is why would you compare a projected number to an actual? Why not use an actual deficit, instead? The real answer is that you're trying to paint a picture, and even though the projection is not as accurate as the actual, it's a bigger number, so it helps you paint your picture.

I shill for no party, unlike some people. If you can't even get that right, how can the rest of your argument be taken seriously?

I'm sorry the 2009 deficit was not as large as you wanted it to be, judging by your signature. I'm sorry it contained expenses that Obama supported, but that's no excuse to continuously throw out dishonest arguments simply to support the Democrat Party, is it?

 

then how would the big finance banks be able to take your money ? All that money we give them every month would go to waste.

 

...more flailing around in an effort to avoid your conflation of deficits and accumulated debt

Obfuscation is conflating deficits and accumulated debt. Your argument has morphed into a case of psychological projection.

Now you're trying to blame a Senator for the fiscal/economic Bush disaster, which began well before Obama became a U.S. Senator? Didn't realize a Senator had that much power. Too funny.

The sequestration cuts amounted to $42 billion for 2013.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43961

In order for the deficit to remain above $1 trillion, such cuts would have had to amount to $300-$400 billion, as the deficit estimates are in the $600-$700 billion range.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44923

Thus you're off by close to an order of magnitude (700% to 1000%), which is indicative of profoundly extreme dishonesty or incompetency. Not surprised.

In addition, the sequestration cuts have lowered economic growth, thus offsetting at least some of the deficit savings. Plenty of pain. Little gain.

The 2013 deficit drop was much more revenue-induced (tax increases, a better economy, etc.) than outlays-induced. Just like when Clinton hiked taxes on the wealthy, revenues began surging. Funny how that works.

Your entire argument is to point fingers away from the party you shill for.

You confirm, from your own link, that President Obama inherited a deficit of at least $1.2 trillion. That is remarkable progress, and that is indeed the heart of the matter. You see, "inherited" implies that it's something someone else passed down to him. As much as you want to blame President Obama for it, your own citation refutes you. All you're left with is to quibble with how precisely terrible the previous administration's numbers were.

The economy was taking a drastic turn for the worse in 2008.Q4 through early 2009, thus so did budget projections.

Your "real questions" are changing and morphing. 2009's actuals include budgetary decisions in 2008. 2008's actuals are thus also not the latest. Baseline projections from early 2009 are absent the new president's budget and are ideal for comparison.

Free or paid, you shill for the Republican party.

The 2009 deficit did indeed end up lower, thanks to an economy that began recovering (attributed in part to the stimulus), contrary to what Republicans shills claimed at the time.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB123604419092515347

 

Reagan inherited an economy growing at 7%+ real. But even after the recession, Reagan's tax cuts and military spending kept the deficits high.

That's not making it simpler, that's just a pathetic attempt at obfuscation. I guess in your mind throwing a few numbers around will distract people watching your argument go down in flames.

Obama certainly didn't support the Great Recession he inherited, the cause of the trillion dollar deficits he also inherited.

Nope. The deficit would have been larger without the sequester, but by far a bigger factor was the $320 billion increase in tax revenues after tax rates went up this year.

To the contrary, within a couple months of Obama taking office the deficit projection was increased to $1.9 trillion, a figure conservatives here bandied about endlessly.

 

Anyone can buy stocks. Cut your spending. GOSH I SOUND CONSERVATIVE.

Seriously... the Middle Class (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)es about having a car payment, enough cell phones and gadgets for the kids, etc. 99% of the people I know are middle class overspenders. I don't make much because I'm 24 and I find cash to invest. How does that happen?

Individual repsonsibility. I will not make up excuses for the Middle Class not investing. Anyone can get into a Mutual fund, ETF, 401k, or buy stocks. Save a bit of your cash and cut out the bull(*)(*)(*)(*).

 

So you're not a 1%, but you say "sugar daddy" Bernanke's on your side. Then how so?

 

I would agree but, that's the reality we have.