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Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Sure. Right. And the reason we could afford the Bush tax cuts was because of the massive surplus that was predicted.
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You may disagree with how they were distributed but they did pull us out of the recessoin.
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Originally posted by Sidd Finch
*Well, with the exception of at least three times during the Vietnam War, when the deficit 'started to drop' (and in some cases continued to drop) from one year to the next.
But I guess those don't count.
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I left out one salient fact. Tax increases. The amazing thing was that Bush cut taxes, took us through a war and a recession and still the deficit is only 67% of GNP. When Kennedy took over in 1960 defense spending was 75% of the budget. We may have reduced the deficit but it was on the back of the taxpayer.
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Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Of course, Reagan had a much greater challenge -- after all, his predecessor had left him with a legacy of deficits approaching something like $40 billion, whereas Clinton's prede..... um, never mind.
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When Reagain took over in 1980 the economy was shot. Slowgrowth, high unemployment and high inflation. He turned all those three things around. I wish he had cut spending more but we really need that growth.
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Originally posted by Sidd Finch Incidentally, I suspect you are comparing apples and oranges here. It took 7 years for Clinton to balance the budget including eliminating borrowing from Social Security. Are you predicting the same thing will happen by 2009? Or just the "on budget" deficit will be reduced to zero?
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Just the budget deficit. Just in case you forgot, the Bush administration tried to do something about the Social Security problem, but the Democrats said there really wasn't a problem.
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Originally posted by Sidd Finch
If pigs had wings they would be pigeons.
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Those would have to be some big wings.
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Originally posted by Sidd Finch
I'm not sure what your point is, assuming there is one, but I guess I'm not worried -- after all, by 2045 none of that will matter, right?
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The amount of our growth now will matter in 2045. It will determine to a large degree how much government revenue will will have in 2045. The deficits we incur now will not matter much in 2045. So the important thing is that the economy is growing. In the last year of Bush I presidency the economy was growing, so Clinton inherited a growing economy. In the last year of Clinton's presidency the economy did not grow. So Bush II inherited a contracting economy. He took that contracting economy and turned it into a growing economy. That was what was important.
