Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
This graph is almost certainly wrong. If the current debt is around five trillion that means twenty percent is one trillion. We did not spend a trillion dollars on WWII. I don't think we even came close to spending a trillion dollars on WWII. I think I remember that the debt was 140% of GDP when the war finished. But whatever that number is today, it is not close to a trillion.
And like I said, if the graphs predictions of how much Bush will be spending up to 2009, I am pretty sure Bush IIs combined debt would greatly exceed all the debt that came before him. Either the graph is wrong, or we don't know whay it is trying to say.
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I didn't realize the graph would throw you so badly. Sorry. Balt is right that it is a snapshot of the national debt, and where it came from, as of a certain period in time (today, and projected as of the end of the Bush presidency).
I found it interesting because one of your side points was about the irrelevance of old debt, but let's not let your confusion take us away from my main question. Let's focus on the AGGREGATE DEBT.
Here, let's look at the background data to see if the graph is right. The
OMB's official data is presented in a nifty chart here ... let's see ... in 2005 the gross national debt is estimated to be, as a percentage of GDP, .... holy shit! 65.7 percent! And 2010 projections from the OMB? 70 percent!
The graph was
right. The horror. The fucking horror.
So. Anyway. Let's go back to my original question to you.
- We've discussed before the laughable notion that we'll start balancing budgets tomorrow (or in the near future) so that your enthusiastic economic argument will come to pass. In that light, please examine the above graph for me, which demonstrates that debt as a percentage of GDP is in the 60%+ range right now, and is expected to rise to about 70% before the end of Bush's term.
Even acknowledging that SOME debt is just dandy, what's your magical percentage of GDP where the debt just painlessly evaporates in the face of an ever-expanding economy? 60%? 80%? 20%?
If 70% evaporates in less than a generation, then Ty's original comment wouldn't seem to apply. If it takes more than that, please elaborate.
Gattigap
