why worry about the deficit at all?

His first objective is to avoid a depression. He'll use deficit spending to try to jump start the economy even if it raises the deficit. Deficits should usually be avoided because the "loan" for the deficit competes with other loans and drives up interest rates.

Bush has put the U.S. and possibly the world in a desperate situation which requires desperate measures. When we begin to seriously talk about GM and Ford going bankrupt you know we're in deep trouble.

 

Sorry, I thought from the title the thread was about the deficit.

 

Correct, so it should be about Clinton's mortgage gaffe and the democratic control of the House and Senate

 

I'm always amazed at how folks will justify deficit spending for one president (Obama), and villify another for doing it (Reagan).

IMO, there should be a very short list of reasons to employ deficit spending. Defense against imminent danger is one. I think it's a bit fuzzier when one uses economic reasons for deficit spending. My default setting is "no."

I keep coming back to personal finance. Are there justifiable reasons for me to go into debt? Not many. Yet, on a national scale, I'm listening to the "experts," saying that we should borrow until our eyeballs bleed. In fact, we can borrow, change the plans for the borrowed money on the fly, run up our deficits into the trillions, and it's OK, because we're preventing a depression that no one can say for sure will or won't happen.

I'm probably an arrogant cuss, but years ago, we were thousands of dollars in debt, and were sinking. Through years of discipline, sacrifice, and delayed gratification (lots of it), we are debt free, except for the house (and there's equity in it).

So to eliminating the deficit, I say, "I did it, and am better off...so should the country." I also say, "let those who live beyond their means pay the price for it."

 

Give me a break. There is nothing that compares to the deficit of the last eight years for Mr. Bush and the Congress of both parties. They spent our money like the lunatics that they are.

I am certainly not happy with what is coming in January 20th, but if Bush were a true conservative like he campaigned as, we would resign now and do no more damage to this country. Although, I doubt much more damage can be done in the next 61 days.

He must be really proud of himself. A bigger national debt in his term than all the other Presidents combined and inept leadership which is why Obama was elected. Yeah, some conservative.

 

...yet you never state what "damage" he has done. Hmmm...

You don't think anything compared to the deficit of the last few years? Really? :laugh:

A HUGE reason we are in the boat we are in is due to the Clinton administration, plain and simple.

 

I'm worried about the deficit over here too - set to rise to £60 billion with the prospect of tax cuts next Monday. Now, normally I'm in favour of tax cuts, but I do worry that this latest round will simply put up government borrowing to - well, heading towards 60% of GDP if we're not careful. And borrowing now is just taxation deferred unless we're very lucky with a booming economy and lots of consequent nice fay tax receipts for the Treasury in say 3 years' time. OTOH, what other option is there - let Main Street go down and have us all laid off with no tax receipts at all??

 

It is obvious you are neither concerned with facts or conservative values. Just what we need, more Republican apologists to make liberals appear as conservatives at election time.

During the Clinton administration, the national debt increased by 1 trillion 263 billion dollars. During the Bush the Second administration, the debt increased by 4 trillion 350 billion dollars. George the First was not much better.


http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm

 

Triple post

 

Double post

 

First of all, not all debt is bad. If I couldn't borrow money, I could not buy a house. That's not true for all people but it is true for me. And the old wisdom says that a mortgage is good debt because property does not lose value but equity builds. However, people who bought property at the peak of the artificially bloated real estate market are going to suffer for quite a while. But that's really not a big deal - we buy houses to live in, not to sell. (BTW "house-flippers had a big part in driving the market up - should be illegal along with floating interest rates IMO).

Secondly, the FG (fedul guvment) is not going to get rid of deficits or the national debt. Why would you invent the Federal Reserve System and then not fund it? The FR is a debt-based system. There must be debt in order for it to survive.

The real question is whether the FG debt is returning a value. Defense is a good expenditure. Law enforcement is a good expenditure. Education is a good expenditure even though the FG has no constitutional role it.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is completely wasted money. Paying people to not work is wasted money. Repeatedly rescuing insolvent businesses is wasted money. Hiring contractors that repeatedly default on contracts is wasted money. Taking over small businesses and running the business for the incompetent owners is a waste of money. Giving money to other countries so they will like us is wasted money.

But, hay, what you gonna do? We live in a welfare world. Ever hear the story about how to tame wild pigs? They roam about freely until they get hooked on corn provided by their captors. Eventually they become perfectly happy inside fences and even stalls as long as the corn keeps coming. That's the kind of society we live in. Just keep the corn coming baby! Corn for the disenfranchised, corn for big business, corn for small business, corn for our neighbors, even corn for the rich, corn for everyone! And so we prosper and willingly surrender our individual rights, and I wonder sometimes if that is not the objective of the master plan anyway.

 

Just how did President Bush accomplish this?

 

Oh, didn't you know? Bush has some special magical powers. Don't you remember how he made that big hurricane attack New Orleans just because he wanted to hurt poor people? He's probably casting a spell on Ford/GM for some reason - maybe they didn't give enought to his campain.

 

Investors had no part in driving the market up. Maybe the relaxed loans given to investors contributed to the mortgage fall out, but buying a distressed property, rehabbing it, and listing it at the market value (which the REI's don't set) had nothing to do with the market prices.

 

I believe you said this.

and people complained about the deficit during the Bush presidency


What is this thread about? I thought it was about the economy and we're still under President Bush.

 

read my reply. I sincerely think there is a risk of a second great Depression. trying to prevent that justifies deficit spending to stimulate the economy.

 

The more we try and prevent it, the worse it will be when it hits.

The American economy needs to clear out the losers & suckers. It should be allowed to do so.

 

At some point a President has to take ownership of what happens on his watch. After 8 years of the Bush Presidency you'd have to say that the economic situation today is a result of what his administration did or did not do during that time. It's time for the current administration to step up and take some responsibility.