PF Exclusive: Debt increase in FY2015 lowest in 14 years

This is curious so I went to the site as well. There was a huge jump on one day, Nov 2, about $339 billion so I went looking for a reason and found it. Congress had a debt limit in place since March so the Treasury Department was using extraordinary methods to hold the debt until the President signed a suspension of the debt limitation on Nov2. This has skewed the numbers somewhat. The link is below:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...r-debt-limit-suspension-becomes-law/75173708/

 

The budget is used to plan spending for certain, most, government spending primarily that of the various departments and is useful for measuring that spending. It is actually made up of 13 different spending bills. So yes there can be BUDGET surpluses and the debt increases, thereFriday could be a budget deficit and the debt go down. But certainly the best way to cut the debt is to first balance the budget.

I could for example purchase a new home increasing my debt but stay within my budget including servicing the debt, businesses do it all the time.

 

And it is often not worth the paper it is written upon and routinely DOA. Congress has no statutory requirement to even consider it. And the House and the Senate have equal say and power with the budget one can pass their spending bills before the other.

You see request when it comes to tje Presidents request because that is all it is a request, it has no force in law.

The Bush budget request for 2009 was a classic example A DOA budget request. It was not even considered by the Democrat congress. They held up the budget for President Obama who signed the omnibus bill into law in March of 2009.

I don't. The fact remains Bush held down some of the Democrats spending increase in 2008 and they only got 9%, he was powerless to do do in 2009 and they raised it 18%.

 

That's what Republicans always say when confronted by the FACT that the size of the debt increase has been shrinking under Obama for the first time in 14 years.

 

Sorry, I had to delete the post. I don't understand how to use the partial quote set up you folks know how to do - the post was a mess, LOL. I'll have to figure this out.

 

As you demonstrate, if a budget is done created responsibly and realistically then it is meaningless. Businesses and individuals go into debt all the time, but it is debt based on the lenders realistic expectations of the borrowers ability to repay the debt, there is collateral, and accountability. There is none of that with the govt.

 

Well the debt of the United States is based on the lenders realistic expectations of the borrowers ability to repay the debt and US Government Treasury bills are still considered the safest investment one can buy and why anytime they issue new ones they are picked up. The servicing of the debt is part of the budget.

That is one reason it is quite amusing to here people complain that the government "spent to surplus Social Security funds", and then ask them if not US T Bills in what should those surpluses have been invested.

They can't seem to come up with a better answer if they are on the left. Those on the right usually agree a broad based stock mutual fund would have been better as over time that is a safe investment and offers a better return. Tell that to the left and they mostly get dumbfounded as that would be investing in evil business.

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Seemed pretty clear to me and you are free to respond to what I posted.

 

Yes because he and his fellow Democrats RAN IT SO HIGH TO BEGIN WITH, and then only because of sequester, which the left opposes, and Republicans standing in the way of their desired spending increases so spare us the Democrats have cut the deficits and the debt nonsense.

 

Where does the cash come from when those treasury IOU's need to be cash in on the money taken from surpluses?

 

Where all money comes from when someone cashes in a US Treasury bond, they are cashed in everyday, millions worth of them.

The problem we have with the Federal debt is not how it is managed, it is that we keep increasing it to the point it can and will become unmanageable and that has particularly taken place and increased since the Democrats took control of the Congress in 2007. Bush and the Republicans had the deficit back down to just $161B when the Democrats took control, the next two years the Democrats raised spending 9% and then 18% and kept it at those levels while revenues fell and never recovered in part to their failed economic policies.

 

The US govt is borrowing to cover not just new spending but also service on the existing debt. Tax revenue only covers 1/2 to 2/3 of government spending. Globally, US Treasuries are simply IOU's that are passed around in hopes that you are not holding that hot potato when the Ponzi scheme ends. For US citizens, when the scheme ends a lot more than just T-bills will be worthless.

 

(Government owed debt -MINUS- cashed U.S. Treasury Bond amount) results in (Public owed debt -PLUS- cashed U.S. Treasury Bond amount).

Sadly, the Fed does not produce gold or silver, and while Congress was given the power "To coin Money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." by Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution, we now live in a paper world where the value of most of the coins we use as currency have greater intrinsic value than the higher face valued paper notes.

Kind of brings back childhood memories of the Disney character Scrooge McDuck, who as I remember kept all his wealth in gold coins, not paper bills.

In the past it was the people who created the money, through their labours which produced the gold and silver which could be purified and coined with a value attached based on the weight and purity content set by our Congress. Paper money was once able to be converted back into gold and/or silver coins having the same total face value as that of the paper money.

But, back to the OP topic, after lauding the $326.5 billion FY2015 debt increase, how should we view the $339,109,435,086.47 increase which took place on 2 November 2015? Note, that the debt increased more than the FY2015 debt on that day. Does that indicate a trend has been set as the OP also exclaimed we need to continue after implying that the growth of debt has been turned around which the 2 November 2015 debt increase appears to disprove?

 

Well of course T-Bills are IOU's ......DUH. and of course if the US economy and government collapses it will be the entire world not just US citizens who suffer. So the suggestion is to vote for conservatives who can turn things around and get us back to responsible fiscal policy.

 

it shows the fallacy of judging fiscal policy on month to month varancies instead of longer term patterns.

 

No, you don't.

 

Why would the Republicans intentionally hurting the economy for their political benefit be a good thing?

You didn't take a civics class did you?

Congress can't pass anything without presidential signature unless then have 2/3 majority and the President runs the administration.

You think?

The Presidency of Barack Obama began at noon EST on January 20, 2009
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Barack_Obama

The truth is that the nearly 18 percent spike in spending in fiscal 2009 — for which the president is sometimes blamed entirely — was mostly due to appropriations and policies that were already in place when Obama took office. ... Since pictures can convey information more efficiently than words, we’ll sum up the official spending figures in this chart. It also reflects our finding that Obama increased fiscal 2009 spending by at most $203 billion, accounting for well under half the huge increase that year. ... So by our calculations, Obama can fairly be assigned responsibility for — at most — 5.8 percent of the $3.5 trillion that the federal government actually spent in fiscal 2009, which was 17.9 percent higher than fiscal 2008.

http://www.factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-spending-inferno-or-not/

When Obama took the oath of office, the $789 billion bank bailout had already been approved. Federal spending on unemployment benefits, food stamps and Medicare was already surging to meet the dire unemployment crisis that was well underway. See the CBO’s January 2009 budget outlook.

Obama is not responsible for that increase, though he is responsible (along with the Congress) for about $140 billion in extra spending in the 2009 fiscal year from the stimulus bill, from the expansion of the children’s health-care program and from other appropriations bills passed in the spring of 2009.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-spending-binge-never-happened-2012-05-22?pagenumber=2

Listening to a talk radio program yesterday, the host asserted that Obama tripled the budget deficit in his first year. This assertion is understandable, since the deficit jumped from about $450 billion in 2008 to $1.4 trillion in 2009. As this chart illustrates, with the Bush years in green, it appears as if Obama’s policies have led to an explosion of debt. But there is one rather important detail that makes a big difference. The chart is based on the assumption that the current administration should be blamed for the 2009 fiscal year. While this makes sense to a casual observer, it is largely untrue. The 2009 fiscal year began October 1, 2008, nearly four months before Obama took office. The budget for the entire fiscal year was largely set in place while Bush was in the White House.

http://www.cato.org/blog/dont-blame-obama-bushs-2009-deficit


Having said that, it is impossible to look at the chart and not to see a large ramp up in outlays under George W. Bush — the president who reversed the direction of federal outlays, which had been falling. Indeed, it is perfectly reasonable to argue that much of the responsibility for 2009’s 25.2 percent rests with President Bush, and not with President Obama; in January 2009, before President Obama took office, the CBO released its forecast that fiscal year 2009 would see outlays of 24.9 percent of GDP based on pre-Obama policies.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/09/03/yep-obamas-a-big-spender-just-like-his-predecessors/

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.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...obama-inherited-deficits-bush-administration/

95% of FY2009 spending was locked in before Obama took office. See above.

 

Good news if true. According to your figures the national debt stood at 18,150,604,277,750.63 at the end of the fiscal year, 30 Sep. The national debt clock shows 18.663 trillion with plus or minus some change.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Again if accurate our national debt has risen approximately 513 billion since the kick off of the fiscal year on 1 Oct.

There seems to be a disconnect with these figures. Either that or a lot of spending was held off or over from September to October. Now that has been known to happen.

 

My guess is that there was some hold because Congress wouldn't pass a debt ceiling increase.

 

That makes sense. It makes me wonder just how much debt will accumulate in this FY? The CBO estimated 486 billion, but that has already been passed if the numbers are correct. We still have 10 months to go.

 

All you have to do is look at the numbers, my friend. And where were all those Reps forcing sequestration on Bush when he was blowing the budget to hell and he had the Congress? Not a peep out of any of 'em. Why don't we cut the crap, eh?

 

I think the $486 you are referring to is the estimate of the deficit, which is a related but different thing.

 

There are some things about the debt, CBO, the budget, surplus and deficit that is hard to understand or some under the counter compilations. I see the CBO listed 3 years of surpluses under Clinton, his last three years. Yet the national debt rose all three years. I think the only way to explain why the national debt rose is those three years there must have been a ton of stuff off budget. My way of figuring is if the debt goes up, there was no surplus.

 

There are some things that are off budget, to my understanding. But it is also a misconception, brought on by RW propaganda, to think that the surplus or deficit for any given year will match of up with the increase in the debt. They are two different things. The debt is how much the US has borrowed. The surplus or deficit is a measure of revenues compared to expenditures.

So, for example, while what you said about the debt rising in all "three years" of the Clinton surplus is not quite true. It is true the debt rose in fiscal years. However, the debt decreased by $114 billion in 2000.

So, even by your way of figuring, recognizing that it is the wrong way to measure a surplus or deficit, there was a surplus under Clinton.

There is also confusion for how the deficit or surplus is measured. It commonly includes things like the SS trust, which until recently ran large surpluses. Taking that out, there was actually a surplus of two years, one of $86 billion in FY 2000 and about $2 billion in FY 2001. The debt actually decreased more in 2000 that the sum of the surpluses in FY2001 and FY2001.

 

Strange, what I am looking at shows the debt increased 113.046 billion form 10/97 to 9/98.
It increased 130.077 billion from 10/98 to 9/99
and 17.907 billion from 10/99 to 9/00

Now that is fiscal years with still 3 months and 20 days left in the Clinton administration. Perhaps you are talking calendar years?

 

Yes, here is the total change in debt for 2000:


ftp://ftp.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opds122000.pdf

A surplus by your "figuring", even though that is not how surpluses or deficits are measured.