Please explain how the US is so like Portugal and Greece that we are in danger of bankruptcy. I maintain that the U.S. economy is far larger and more productive than Greece, who has a deficit three times as large as the US as a percentage of GDP, an unemployment rate 2.5 times as high as the US, and a GDP per capita ranked #1 in the world (Greece is #47). The United States has many more tools in its macro-economic policy box than countries in the eurozone. And while calls for austerity have kept the United States from undertaking government spending and investment large enough to support a robust economic recovery, at least thus far, the United States hasn’t undertaken the same self-defeating austerity measures Europe has. We have a federal Reserve that acts. In the current crisis, the Fed did precisely that. By purchasing government bonds, the Fed financed public-sector spending, and by pushing down interest rates, it encouraged private-sector borrowing. In doing so, the Fed supported a market recovery, but also helped to keep unemployment from rising even higher than it did. The US has no trouble selling its bonds. Greece has immense trouble doing so. We have not engaged in the Eurozone experience. When Europe went to the Euro, it produced a situation with haves (Germany, France, etc) and have nots (Greece Portugal, etc.) where countries could not control their own money. The 17 countries in the eurozone relinquished their ability to print money, expand their money supplies, and lower interest rates when they adopted the euro as their common currency. Europe is in the position it is in because it has a central bank that is prohibited from financing government deficits and whose sole policy mandate is to limit inflation. Without the insistence on austerity, and without having relinquished these basic tools of economic policy—both of which the United States retains—the mess in Europe could never have happened. The United States is not and will never be Greece.
You know, I have this view of Red also. He will most certainly attack me for it, but the more I read his debates the more I understand he really doesn't care about the true topics, rather winning a game of debate. The chart in question is valid because it raises honest questions. If you take our shortfall in revenue + spending, any reasonable person can conclude that if spending levels just stayed the same, in which Obama has given no explanation to counter this, that of the new 1.6 trillion proposed, approximately 1.2 of that will go towards the spending gap we have and 400 billion towards true deficit reduction over 10 years. But Red is a smart fellow and playing a word game with everyone because in his mind, which is only determined by the popular thought of the day, any amount that would lower the growth of debt is in fact deficit reduction. In reality, both sides are right. It is just a matter of how you intellectually look at the situation. On one side, 1.2 of the new tax revenue would go to new spending, which is technically right. It is also right that in it would reduce the deficit, assuming spending levels stay the same.......... Though history tells that the chances of a spending increase exceed those of spending reductions. Red doesn't care what the number really is, he just wants to win the debate and rub one out over it.
You used faulty logic and your opinion to make your case. I have pointed this out, clearly. If you can't produce any evidence to support your claims just say as much. So are debt proceeds revenue or not? Do you understand how an OMB projection works? It convolutes the picture. Adjusting it is necessary and is done by both sides. How were Sessions adjustments inappropriate? That doesn't make them right, and you know it. The House passed a budget just last year. The Senate would not even pick it up. As flawed as that budget was, it was something, and it reduced the deficit by over a trillion dollars. It could Potentially, I don't know the validy of all the projections. It was at least a step in the right direction.
regardless of what you two think of Red or his style of debate, he is correct that the graph provided is vague and probably not intellectually honest. i get it that the republicans are trying to siphon off a few points during the course of a debate that they have already lost but this is a blatantly partisan attempt to do so. there is probably some shred of truth to it, most lies have a few truths or they do not seem believable at all. that said, Obama is not calling for more spending so this is just a political ploy to paint Obama as a tax and spend liberal but has little, if anything, to do with truth. If you disagree then show us the details. oh, and what is good for the goose is good for the gander. you have verbally noosed Red for not providing details yet you are defending a graph that lacks details. If you want to debate this issue then provide some details as to why you are correct. show me a report from the CBO or some other non-partisan group that agrees with Sessions math.
A) We have increased spending for some time and Obama has had 4 long years to pull things back and openly talk about cuts, he hasn't. Thus, talks of spending levels staying the same and/or increasing are valid. Again, until a party produces details any debate on assumptions are valid until disproved by either side with a real budget. Then again, producing a real budget is not an easy task for the chosen one. B) The main point is we are debating an assumption made from a proposal because we do not have details from either party. Is this really that hard to understand? I mean, if no side has details how can we provide them? This has become boring.
I didn't say we were like Spain or Portugal. Because we aren't. Not even close. But I have looked at the numbers and if we continue to run at expenses that are 50% higher than our revenue than I want you to explain to me how we won't become like Spain and Portugal in as soon as 20 years or so. Currency Manipulation and Capital Injections can't work forever. The point I was making is that if we as a nation have the attitude that we don't have to worry about our defecit and debt because we don't think it could happen to us, then we are doomed.
First, your chart is skewed. Obama's first budget was in 2010, Bush's last was 2009. All federal budget's are produced a year in advance so, for example, if Romney had won then he wouldn't have produced his first budget until 2014. As you will see the numbers have actually started heading in a better direction since he has taken office. Gradually albeit, but better nonethless. Second, it is no secret that Obama didn't have the luxury of simply "cutting spending" as many Conservatives like to say. Any serious economist will attest to the fact that if Obama and Congress had seriously pulled back the reigns our entire economic system would have spiraled down even more than it did. Frankly, that's hard to imagine but true. The Republicans have had the luxury for the past four years of knowing that Obama couldn't seriously cut spending or risk killing the economy while simultaneously getting in front of the cameras to bemoan the President's unwillingness to cut spending. It's the perfect scenario for them and they played it for everything it was worth. As you can see from your chart that reductions in spending have been made, however meager over the past three years.
Nothing you said had anything to do with what I addressed. Though from your own admission, it does show that we left taxes alone and cut spending and revenues increased. Interesting. More to the point of actually growing an economy rather than taxing the shit out of it, but that's another separate topic. Anyway.. Like I said before, debating assumptions on detail-less proposals are valid until proven otherwise with a real budget. Give us a real budget and we can talk facts. Give us a proposal, well, we can debate opinions.
