Now that the government has assumed the role of economic planner with various bailout packages and stimulus plans, experts are predicting a federal budget deficit of $1 trillion.
That much money may be difficult to comprehend, but former President Ronald Reagan put it in perspective with a 1981 analogy describing the federal debt: "And the best I could come up with is that if you had a stack of thousand-dollar bills in your hand only 4 inches high, you'd be a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of thousand-dollar bills 67 miles high."
But the huge number doesn't worry Mark Green, the president of the liberal talk radio network Air America. Green dismissed concerns about deficit spending in an interview on MSNBC's "Hardball" Nov. 25.
"Let's get where we at least agree," Green said. "One last thing, the conservative rhetoric about, ‘We don't want to spend too much and the deficit' is real, it's politically real. And Sen. and President-elect Obama responded today when he said we have to eventually balance the budget."
Green referred to former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Oct. 1, 1936 speech in Pittsburgh, where he promised to balance the budget, but later recanted on that promise in a serious way.
"And, Franklin Roosevelt as a candidate said in Pittsburgh, ‘We're going to cut spending by 25 percent," Green said. "When he got into office, he realized it was the exact wrong solution. So, the rhetoric of balanced budgeting is part of America. And, when Roosevelt said to an aide, ‘Oh my God, I said I would balance the budget. How can I spend more to get out of the Depression?' The aide famously said, ‘Deny you were in Pittsburgh.'"
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Obama needs to drastically cut spending AND cut taxes
November 26, 2008 - 11:31 ET by PopularTechI am all for balanced budgets but balanced via spending cuts not tax increases.
Obama's "pump priming" is delusionary nonsense that will do nothing but increase the deficit.
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Hey Jeff. Perhaps Reagan was onto something here
November 26, 2008 - 11:40 ET by Gary HallHey Jeff. Perhaps Reagan was onto something here:
A stack of bills 67 miles high wouldn't end up 67 miles high, as the lower miles of bills would crushed by the immense weight - so much weight, perhaps, that the mass created within such a small footprint just might create the required gravitational forces such that the escape velocity of light might exceed the speed of light; thus resulting in the time and space phenomenon we know as a black hole.
Whether or not this black hole will serve to merely make the deficit invisible to the Obama economic team, and likewise to the MSM; or whether it will actually suck up the entire deficit and produce the warm fuzzy bliss "He" is expected to deliver to the masses, will remain the burning question.
(;~> gary
That black hole is real and it exists
November 26, 2008 - 11:49 ET by c5thenWe named it Washington D.C.
Hey, I got the wrong "CHANGE"!
Alan Keyes / Sarah Palin - 2012
c5then.. perhaps Chris Matthews
November 26, 2008 - 12:18 ET by Gary Hallc5then.. perhaps Chris Matthews, Olbermann and a few others might peak into that black hole -- and get sucked innnnnnnnnnnnnn...
And it's that fatal conceit
November 26, 2008 - 11:40 ET by dscottAnd it's that fatal conceit that will justify printing money sparking inflation. Every dollar obtained by the federal government by borrowing or via taxes comes from the private economy. Corporate Bond rates are up thus making it expensive for private enterprise to maintain and create jobs. So now more money is taken from those who make good decisions to mitigate those who continue to make bad decisions. This is why Socialism ALWAYS fails.
Has anyone realized that the government issued bond interest rates are artifically low? Because private capital all around the world is flowing to the US Treasury since with all the US government guarantees they feel safe to park their money here even if it gets next to nothing. The result is this, siphoning off money from everyone else's economy to float ours. In the ending this is self defeating as foreign economies are starved for capital then go into a deeper recession and thus the downward spiral begins. Who needs the Taft Hartley act to initiate a trade war? The US Treasury just sucked the life out of the rest of the world's economies to temporarily prop up our economy.
The libs wail, "WE MUST DO SOMETHING!" But why must it be the wrong thing?
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, starving the poor one gallon of ethanol at a time. Fill your tank with E85 and cull a village.
Right, because now it's THEIR money
November 26, 2008 - 11:46 ET by c5thenNotice how liberals always refer to government spending as if the money didn't come from anywhere first and/or doesn't have to be re-paid by anyone?
If we had a ballanced budget, then any 'stimulus' would first have to be taken away from the people, the government bureaucrat's salaries paid with some, some squandered by 'red tape' and the rest put back into the economy to 'stimulate' it. How removing $1000 per person from the economy and putting $600 back is supposed to be a "stimulus" is beyond me.
Since we don't have a ballanced budget, the government now has to borrow that money, and then squander some of it on government salaries, red tape, etc. and then put it back into the economy. The interest on the borrowed funds will have to be repaid through higher taxes and so I fail to see how that is supposed to 'stimulate' the economy in any long-term sense either.
This is all just a big three-card monty game, or more appropriately, a ponsie scheme. But, regardles, the real goal will be met. Maintianing the poor's dependance on the government by stealing the wealth from some people to re-distribute it to others.
Hey, I got the wrong "CHANGE"!
Alan Keyes / Sarah Palin - 2012
Roll those presses! It
November 26, 2008 - 11:55 ET by HockeyKidRoll those presses! It won't hurt anything--In CASH We Trust!
Mark Green demonstrates why Air America is a dismal financial failure.
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
Both conservatives and liberals don't understand concept of debt
November 26, 2008 - 12:15 ET by shawn228Liberals don't seem to understand that all these social programs have to come somewhere.
When someone brings up the 10.5 trillion dollar national debt to a conservative?.....oh thats okay it is a small pecentage of our GDP, The Iraq war will cost an estimated 3 trillion ...oh thats okay it is a small percentage of our GDP.
If it was such a small speck of a problem, it would have not have almost doubled under the current President.
Liberals and Conservatives have to think of way to pay down our debt.
He had my vote
Shawn, Shawn, Shawn, you
November 26, 2008 - 12:48 ET by dscottShawn, Shawn, Shawn, you started off so good with the first sentence and then went off the cliff. I know Noel put the national debt in context on another thread, however you missed the point by straying from your thought of the first sentence. There is no moral equivalence here between liberals and conservatives.
The Iraq War, subsequent nation building and GWOT in Iraq DID NOT COST $3 trillion. That is just bogus. Secondly you are mixing two completely different issues, one of domestic entitlement spending and national defense.
Domestic spending as perpetrated by politicians is a VOTE BUYING SCAM. Since the days of LBJ to now, trillions of dollars have been wasted on social programs instead of promoting the economy which would have taken care of people at the bottom of the economic ladder. Politicians don't get votes for IBM, Ford or the small business operators employing people, they do get votes and cultivate a loyal constituency for handing out money.
This is in complete contrast to military defense spending, it doesn't get votes for Democrats, and is done as a necessary evil, if you will, to protect us from our enemies to secure the continued freedoms you enjoy whether you realize it or not. We did not pick this fight, they did and we intend to finish what we started otherwise they will win and that means you and your children will loose. It's called sacrifice which stands in stark contrast to bribing people to vote for a politician just so they can enjoy the perks of power.
Conservatives do have a way to first stop deficit spending and then pay down the debt. It starts with fiscal discipline and priorities, not emotionalism. It recognizes that all wealth creation is done private enterprise, not the government. The Tax Cuts under Bush have garnered an addition $1 trillion per year in revenue to the Treasury via increased GDP, this is an undeniable FACT. The point of taxation Shawn is to act as a BRAKE upon the economy. Unleash the oil and gas companies, end the drilling ban and dump all this silly talk of carbon offsets, caps and AGW. No more bailouts as they take investment capital from those who make good decisions in order to cover the incompetence of those who make bad decisions.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, starving the poor one gallon of ethanol at a time. Fill your tank with E85 and cull a village.
Dscott
November 26, 2008 - 13:12 ET by shawn228I will be the first to admit I do not know as much about economics as you or Noel.
I also admit that the Iraq tab is just a projected one, but currently it is very clost to one trillion we spend already right, close to 1/10th our national debt.
Now I am not saying it is not a necessary cost because it is, we should spare no expense in making sure the sacrifices or our country was not for naught.
I cannot explain the national debt in detail like you or Noel, but 10.5 trillion in national debt is mind blowing number, yes some of it we owe to ourselves, but much of it is to China and Japan and that makes me a little nervous knowing we must pay for it eventually.
Let me ask you this question, if the national debt is no big deal, why does it go up something a few thousand a second instead of going down?
He had my vote
The national debt is a big
November 26, 2008 - 15:05 ET by dscottThe national debt is a big deal, at least to me and probably to you. What it represents is a government that can not say NO, can not exercise fiscal discipline, a track record of arrogant meddling busybodies and has failed to see the devastating consequences of it's misallocation of taxpayer's money.
Imagine if you will how many jobs 10 trillion dollars would have created over the last some 40 years if left in the hands of private enterprise... How different the world would be??? And I'm not even touching upon the TRILLIONS of taxpayer funds misused by bureaucrats that actually did pay for government programs. It's mind boggling.
As far as China, Japan or anyone else who currently holds US obligations, they can exact no power over us and can't force the redemption of those instruments either, they quite frankly are at our mercy. The issue of foreign ownership of US debit has always been, WHAT IF THEY REFUSE TO BUY MORE. In other words, bureaucrats and politicians are in fear of the day when foreign buyers wise up and realize they would be doing themselves a favor and NOT buying said US bonds as they are depriving themselves of working capital to invest in their own countries. Working capital for private investment creates real jobs that are a NET positive to the tax base and the economy, not the faux jobs Obama is currently proposing which do not contribute to wealth creation. And that Shawn is the real DIRTY SECRET of the 10 trillion dollar debt the US has racked up (putting the taxpayer on the hook in the process), they in essense denied the entire world of working capital. Anyone can make themselves rich by borrowing, all it takes is enough fools to believe loaning you money is a good idea. We have all been swindled, the con artists are the politicians.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, starving the poor one gallon of ethanol at a time. Fill your tank with E85 and cull a village.
"I also admit that the Iraq
November 27, 2008 - 06:20 ET by ckc1227"I also admit that the Iraq tab is just a projected one, but currently
it is very clost to one trillion we spend already right, close to
1/10th our national debt. "
Very close to one trillion over 5 years, which comes to less than $200 billion per year. The government has taken in about $18 trillion over that same period.
Iraq spending isn't the problem. And, spending on national security is actually called for under the Constitution, unlike much of our spending.
Good morning Shawn
November 26, 2008 - 13:13 ET by cocodrieMost of our debt problem is caused by social programs.I realize there are some people who need the welfare programs but the abuse is the ruination of our federal budget.
what blew my hat in the creek for me was the woman who checked out ahead of me in the grocery. When the clerk told her she could not pay for dog food with food stamps she didn't say a word. She walked back to the meat department and came back with two large packs of ground sirloin. And yes, she did drive away in a brand new car.
These people are the ones who selected our new "president". Everything free for all who voted for him - that is what they expect.
If you think that savings from cutting the defense budget will be a cut in spending you are mistaken. Hussein and the other left-wing extremist democrats have a bill in the senate to give the U.N. almost one trillion dollars for world welfare. It is called the Global Poverty Act.
may God save America and Us.
Well Cocodrie
November 26, 2008 - 13:28 ET by shawn228The Republicans had control of the Presidency and both chambers for over 2 years and they spent like drunken sailors, so it is hardly fair to blame it on the Democrats.
Clinton did a decent job of controlling how fast the national debt added up and it doubled under the current administration.
He had my vote
Shawn
November 26, 2008 - 13:39 ET by cocodrieYou are right about recent spending, but these social giveaway programs all originated and expanded when democrats controlled the presidency and both houses of the legislature. Mostly under Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson and Clinton.
"The Republicans had
November 27, 2008 - 06:07 ET by ckc1227"The Republicans had control of the Presidency and both chambers for
over 2 years and they spent like drunken sailors, so it is hardly fair
to blame it on the Democrats."
I guess I missed something...does the minority party not have a vote? Of course they do. Did Dems vote against the increased spending? No, they didn't.
Having said that, I doubt you'll find many Republicans who support the party's recent spending ways. But, as is often the case, it's only bad if Republicans do it, as the piece here points out. For the past 6-8 years, the media and Democrats have been complaining about deficit spending. Now that Dems are back in power, ehh, deficit spending isn't such a big deal after all.
Typical.
"The Iraq war will cost an
November 26, 2008 - 15:27 ET by NL207"The Iraq war will cost an estimated 3 trillion "
This lie has been oft repeated. The Iraq war has cost something like $600 B to date.
Deficit Solution...
November 26, 2008 - 14:38 ET by CapeCodScottTake Money from the Boy's & Girls Club... That was the secret behind ScAIR America's "success"..
www.ScottOnCapeCod.com
"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation"... until they get fed-up enough to finally say something about it!