PF Exclusive: Debt increase in FY2015 lowest in 14 years

Not in the least and they had nothing to do with Gingrich and Kasich and their policies and legislation. You might have a case they influenced Clinton and Morris but only slightly.

The fact remains it was the Republicans who balances the budget over Clintions opposition to the measures that produced it but being the sleazbag he is the and the Democrats being duplicious as they are he fry's to take full credit and the MSM was perfectly willing to go along with it.

 

Wrong. Both GDP and Revenue growth were far stronger with the Clinton tax increase than the Bush tax cuts.


GDP
1992 6,337.7
2000 9,817.0
% Chng: 54.9%

Revenues
1992 1091.3
2000 2025.2
% Chng: 85.6%

GDP
2000 9,817.0
2008 14,264.6
% Chng: 45.3%

Revenues
2000 2025.2
2008 2523.6
% Chng: 24.6%

With the Clinton tax increase, not only did the economy do better (completely contrary to the predictions of conservatives, but revenues grew far faster than GDP.

With the Bush tax cuts, we did not get the promised growth, and revenues took a major hit, growing far slower than GDP.

Which surprises no one except for believers of partisan RW propaganda.

Absolutely false. Clinton's veto kept the Republicans from getting their tax huge tax cuts they wanted. Spending was very controlled under Clinton before the Republicans took Congress. The economy, revenues and deficit were all doing great before the miniscule 1997 tax cut compromise.

The Republicans didn't get the tax cuts they wanted till Bush took office. And we got the golden opportunity of a surplus squandered and new record deficits.

Oh you mean the slowdown the Republicans caused?

Until 2001, the deficit was reduced every year and we had a growing surplus. In 2001 revenues tanked, the economy soured, the surplus vanished and we got new record deficits.

Same Republicans in Congress. What happened in 2001 that caused such a dramatic change? Bush was selected.

Caused by the recession. Why didn't Bush veto that spending? Oh yeah, he was doing it.

What a hilariously hypocritical thing for you to write.

And you can address me directly next time.[/QUOTE]

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Clinton didn't oppose his 1993 tax increase at all. The Republicans did. Quit trying to re-write history.

GDP
1992 6,337.7
2000 9,817.0
% Chng: 54.9%

Revenues
1992 1091.3
2000 2025.2
% Chng: 85.6%

Without those revenues growing far faster than GDP, we don't get the surplus.

 

Funny how our conservative friends give all the credit to the Republican Congress for the Clinton years, but somehow its not the Republicans fault that the surplus was squandered and revenues tanked in 2001.

It's easy being a conservative when you regularly employ hypocritical double standards.

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Remind us how many Republicans voted in favor of the 1993 tax increase that flooded the Treasury with hundreds of billions in additional revenues?

Oh yeah. None.

 

Its is about way more than the R and D or conservative vs. liberal. Bill Clinton overall was a lot more conservative than G.W. Bush. Not in all things, but in some. Clinton governed as a centrist more akin to Eisenhower. But because of the D next to his name he is automatically labeled a liberal. Nixon the most liberal president since FDR at least domestically is always referred to as a conservative.

I think giving credit to both is right as neither could do it on their own. I never voted for Clinton, I voted for Perot twice. But nonetheless I think Bill was a good president and good for this country. I think Bill Clinton left this country in better shape after he left office than when he first entered it. I also think G.W. Bush left this country worst off when he departed from the White House than when he first entered. Obama will be in my opinion the second president in a row to leave this nation worst off than when he first entered.

I'll go back to the old adage, "Politics is the art of the possible." In this case the Republican congress had to write and pass the budget in the years after 1994 to the end of Bill Clinton's term in office and President Clinton had to agree with those budgets and sign them into law. Without one or the other, there would have been no tango.

 

Well, I agree with you in the traditional sense of the word "conservative", i.e. pre-Reagan era.

But today's conservative would never support the major tax increase Clinton passed with the Dems. There was not "conservative" about that in today's view of conservatives.

More accurately, Clinton got conservative results, but his policies weren't very conservative at all.

Tax increases is considered a pretty liberal thing nowdays, and then too.

In my view, you are making a false equivalency because you cannot accept that the liberal policies of Clinton were successful.

 

republicans had full control for 6 years under Bush and all but 2 of Congress under Obama

 

I believe in the more traditional conservative views when it comes to fiscal responsibility. Responsibility being the key word. I believe in order to have a balanced budget if it takes spending cuts, do it. If it takes tax increases, do it. The preferred method in my opinion is both. Fiscal responsibility is a lot more than just low taxes. I grew up under IKE, he raised taxes when necessary and lowered them when he thought he could. He was fiscal responsible.

Today, fiscal responsibility has been replaced with fiscal conservatism which basically as you state means low taxes. There are times when lowering taxes is part of being fiscal responsible and there are times when raising taxes is fiscal responsible. Nixon raised taxes to help pay for the Vietnam war, Nixon imposed wage and price freeze. Nixon did a lot that would be deemed ultra liberal on the domestic side of things. Yet because of the R, he is viewed or said to be a conservative. Sometime the mantle does not fit the R and D concept. JFK lowered taxes when he first came into office.
Does that make him a neo-con? I would say no.

Traditional conservatives believe in small government. Sometimes when talking about traditional conservatism or even perhaps classic Liberalism as at times they are interchangeable. Small government simple means keeping government out of a citizens private business and lives. A classic liberal also believed in that as in fiscal responsibility.

In my opinion progressives, those who think government holds every solution has replaced limited government classic liberals and neo-conservatism has replaced traditional conservatism in today's world of politics. Both Classic Liberalism and traditional conservatism would place individual liberty or freedoms over group security and safety. Our founding fathers were the ideal classic liberals. From them came limited government with maximum individual liberty.

From them they specified the powers of the central or federal government. Then said whatever power is not specified or listed is reserved to the states or the people. That is not true today as the 10th amendment has become meaningless. The specified powers have been multiplied by a hundred fold. People today seek security and safety over liberty. Progressivism reigns. But it reigns because most Americans were willing to give up a lot of their liberty, freedoms in return for the security progressivism provides.

There is no returning to the very small limited government of our founding fathers. Heck, there is no returning to the limited government that was under Eisenhower or even JFK. There is no going back because most Americans have become reliant upon the federal government as never envisioned by our founding fathers. But it is a reliantcy that is wanted.

Sorry for the tangent. But I just got going.

 

Well said. I agree.

No problem

 

Your point being what? When the Republican s had control they got us through the slowdown/recession with just a one year peak deficit of $400B, then as their tax policy was accelerated the economy room off and we had 52 months of full employment, rising middle class incomes, soaring tax revenues and a rapidly falling deficit to a paltry $161B.

Then yes the Democrats room control and we see the resulting mess.

 

Spot on.

 

Wrong and once again the phony numbers where you do not even factor in the interim policies and and slowdown in revenue growth and economic growth.

The economy was doing better before just tax rate cut and even better after the Gingrich/Kaisch tax rate cuts got it back in track.

What promised growth, we had 52 months of solid economic growth and full employment. When you have full employment you cannot expand the economy as fast as everyone is already working and revenues soared after the pause in was accelerated ans they were fully imllimented.

 

Wrong again my numbers are from the CBO and anyone can verifying it for themselves, proving how Bush and the Republicans squandered the Clinton surplus with tax cuts that mostly benefited billionaires but the economy sucked under them.

I understand why you deny the truth. You just can stand that it was a Democrat with his liberal tax increase policies that gave us the best economy and turned Reagan/Bush record deficits into a surplus, can you? Kind of cuts your tax cuts for the rich ideology, doesn't it?

 

When we begin to see consecutive year debt decreases a turnaround will have occurred. Imagine what the deficit would be if interest rates weren't being held to near zero? Why do we seem to have come to accept the GDP as the Federal governments income?

 

So Clinton's 1993 tax increase caused the 2001 "recession," but not the Republican Congress which had been in power since 1995, and Bush and the Republican Congress saved us from the "recession" in 2001 (when the economy grew 3.3%) with their tax cuts in 2001-03, and Clinton's 1993 tax increase had nothing to do with revenues skyrocketing and the record deficit dropping each year and turning in to a surplus in 1993-2000 because it was the little Republican capital gains tax cut in 1997 that did it, but it was Clinton's fault revenues tanked hundreds of billions of dollars in 2001-2004 squandering the surplus, but the Republican Congress which controlled Congress from 1995-2007 had nothing to do with the Great Recession which started in 2007, and Bush, who was president from 2001 to 2009, had nothing to do with it because it was all the Dems and Obaaaaaamaaaa's faaaaaault.

Thanks for the explanation. Conservative logic at its finest.

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The deficit was $1.4 trillion when Obama got into office and it stopped growing, turned around, and is not dropped by 2/3.

Why isn't that a turnaround in your view?

 

Then you're saying it will continue to decrease?

 

101.0% of GDP is good news?

 

101% dropping from 102% is bad news?

Only to those invested in failure for political purposes.

 

The deficit was $1.4 trillion when Obama got into office and it stopped growing, turned around, and is not dropped by 2/3.

Why isn't that a turnaround in your view?

 

Correct me If I'm wrong, but doesn't the house of representatives make the budgets? The president send in what he wants and the house hashes it out.
Also correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the GOP control both the house and Senate the last time a balanced budget was reached? Also weren't democrats in control of both houses in 2007-2009 the years that saw the deficit explode due to 1.5 trillion dollars in bail outs and stimulus? Neither were necessary. And since 2011 the house has been controlled b the GOP and the last 2 years which has seen the deficit shrink to now the lowest since 2001 GOP has controlled both houses.
I agree lots is left to be done, there is a ton of fat that needs to be trimmed

 

Actually GOP controlled only 4 years of both houses under Bush and 6 under Clinton (the last time there was a balanced budget). The last 2 years GOP has had full control and the deficits have now shrunk to the lowest levels since 2001. Only time in the last 15 years when GOP controlled both houses the deficit has risen was during the 2001-2005 time when the afghan and iraq wars started and huge spending was needed to ramp up the military. I will take my chances with the GOP being able to control spending over the democrats. I'm not happy with either party though. I don't think they are doing enough to control spending, cut the fat and defenately are not working together for the common good.

 

No. The President proposes a budget, and it goes into committee in the House and Senate and they negotiate a compromise budget, if they can. Because the President has ultimate veto power, he has a huge say in the budget.

A good example was the 1990s, when the Republicans wanted a budget with massive tax cuts (mostly benefiting the rich, of course). Clinton knew that would blow upon the deficit that had been improving, so despite the fact that Republicans controlled Congress and wanted the massive tax cuts, they couldn't get them (there was a compromise in 1997 where the cap gains tax rate was cut.)

It wasn't until Bush took office in 2001 that the Republicans got the massive tax cuts they wanted. Along with the predictable results.

They did, but he surplus wasn't a result of anything they did. The 1993 tax increase flooded the Treasury with extra revenues, and the "peace dividend" kept spending growth moderate. As noted above, the Republicans essentially wanted to repeal that tax increase, but were unsuccessful because of Clinton's veto.

I used to give the Republicans some credit on the spending side. But when Clinton got out of office, spending skyrocketed, so I don't think they deserve a whole lot of credit.

And Bush was in the White House. But the deficit didn't explode because of anything the Dems did. It exploded because the housing market crashed like the house of cards it was, bringing down the whole economy. When that happens revenues fall and spending rapidly increases.

It was absolutely necessary. You can't force taxes out of folks who don't have a job. I guess you could cut their uenmployment benefits.

You mean the military, SS, or Medicare? Those are the drivers.

We've already cut spending faster and more deeply than any time since the end of WWII. The Govt is now spending less, relative to GDP, that every year Reagan and Bush1 were in office.

If we collected, relative to GDP, the same level of tax revenues that we did in 2000, the deficit would be virtually eliminated.

 

The Republicans seem to like to cut spending only when a Democrat is in the White House. The deficit was already falling before the Republicans took Congress, this was true in 1995 as well as 2011.

 

Absolutely not necessary. The financial bailout was a sham, the banks had multi billion dollar profits the next quarter. The financial/housing crisis was a direct result of policies put in place under Clinton, that Bush did zero favors as he sat on his thumbs and watched it tank out. The only part I halfway agree with is the 200 billion given to tax payers. Cutting SS tax to 4% only damaged the program further. The Auto bailouts was laughable. If companies can't run their business properly, maybe it needs to fail. Will it hurt employment? Sure for a short time, but in the long run those jobs will be absorbed. The government has zero business getting involved in saving corporations.
Tons of fat in defense spending that can be trimmed. SS and medicare I don't advocate cutting, I advocate getting rid of the cap on SS taxes. Also corporate subsidies can be cut. Yes spending less, but still spending too much. We don't need more taxes, we need less spending.

 

1995 was about the time the .com boom started I believe and a lot of false numbers and corruption led to a fake economic boom which crashed in 2000. 2011 was the time Iraq was winding down and the draw down in Afghanistan was beginning, naturally that will lead to decreased deficits.
Republicans are finally learning that they need to start doing what they promised and cut spending. I was very disappointed in Bush2 and his spending ways, especially the financial bailout with accounted for about a trillion of his 5 trillion in deficit spending. I also disagreed with the huge tax cuts they passed without cutting spending by the same amount. That's irresponsible and accounted for another trillion dollars. The wars accounted for most of the rest, which was supported overwhelmingly by both parties. If Obama had gotten all the spending he wanted the deficit would be about 100 billion more then it is.

 

Let me put it this way, Obamas first year budget was based on a very large deficit not intended to set a new normal for deficits, and was expected to get people back to work paying taxes and earning an income. Instead, we seem to have more people have been made dependent on government spending, and aided by the Fed keeping interest rates extremely low the debt has grown massively setting us up for even higher deficits once the Fed starts to increase interest rates, near the end of or after Obama leaves office.

You seem focused on the fact that the deficits are, as one would expect them to be decreasing, while ignoring the fact that the debt is continuing to increase, contented by the fact that it is diminishing relative to the GDP which is growing as a result of the diminishing value of our currency which is a form of tax that increases government spending and reduces the ability of the working class to become or remain independent from government. Are people more likely to vote for politicians who will give them something or take something from them?

A car is travelling 100 mph towards a cliff where the road ends, if the car reduces its speed to 80 mph, 60 mph or even 40 mph, has it turned around?

Recognize as fact, we can neither spend our way out of debt nor can we inflate our way out of debt.