Paul Ryan and GOP fiscal hypocrisy

Don't confuse the National Debt with an annual budget deficit. The debt has always existed and keeps rising because of interest and annual deficit spending causing us to borrow money. We can't pay the debt down if we've spent all of the annual income and had to borrow more cash. The only way to pay down the deficit is to run annual budget surpluses (as in Clintons last three years) and use the surplus to pay down existing debts.

 

No, when the budget runs a surplus, all of its bills are paid and the rest automatically goes to paying off outstanding debts. That's what happened those three years. Unless we can produce budget surpluses again, we will NEVER be able to pay down the national debt. There is no money to pay down debt unless a surplus exists.

This is why we can never reduce the debt by spending cuts alone. Neither political party is willing to slash medicare, social security and defense deep enough to produce surpluses on the lower income we now take in. Unless tax increases are part of the mix we will simply never achieve a surplus again. The national debt will never go down.

We need to get this debt paid down to a reasonable amount ( a Trillion or less) and then start running Pay-as-we-go budgets and break the political addiction to borrow and just leave the debt for the next guys in office.

 

Dude, it is a fact that Clinton ran three budget surpluses, look it up. You are still confusing the annual budget deficit with the national debt. I've explained it three times. This is the last.

1. We have an Annual Budget. When we take in less income than the budget we have a budget deficit. When we take in more income than needed we have a budget surplus. Are you still with me?

2. We also have a National Debt. That is all the accumulated debts since 1776. Every year that we run a budget deficit, we add that deficit to the national debt by borrowing money to pay the bills. Every year that we run a budget surplus, we use the saved cash to pay off part of the debt. OK?

3. Clinton ran a budget surplus for three years and each year paid down the debt. The debt continued to rise because the 200-year-old National Debt is so huge that its interest payments exceeded the small surpluses of three years. Nevertheless the debt was lowered by the amount of the surplus.

 

How? if there were no surplus, where would the money come from to pay down the debt. How many year? Thousands?

Prove it. Theoretically it can be done by budget cuts alone, but as I stated already, neither party has shown the slightest inclination to cut the budget deep enough to reach that point. The publics would not stand for it. Therefore in practical terms, it cannot be done without raising taxes. The public and business will pay more before they will sustain cuts that dramatic. So, can you offer a realistic scenario where the debt can be paid without raising taxes?

Then WTF can't they compromise and make serious cuts to both? Because the political polarization has reached the point where gridlock is inevitable. We must eliminate the electoral college and extended primary elections and let more parties emerge, especially a third major party right in the pragmatic middle, where most people describe themselves standing.

It would be destructive if it happened instantly, which is impossible. And it need never be zero. But in the long run we are far better off with a lower debt than a higher one. The biggest waste on that budget chart is the $251 billion a year that we pay as interest on the debt. That is money thrown away that buys us nothing.

 

A portion of the interest must be paid each year, just like a mortgage. But there is still interest that grows until it is all paid. The key advantage is that in a budget surplus situation we don't add to the budget by borrowing new money to pay current bills as we have done since Bush was elected in 2000. And we have some extra money to pay down more debt.