NationStates Jolt Archive

In the final presidential debate, President Bush was asked about spending and the deficit.

His illuminating answer was "I send the budget guy to Congress".

The Budget Guy? No wonder this president can't lead us anywhere but into a hole.

Kerry, on the other hand, showed his grasp on economics by citing the Congressional Budget Office figures, and he has a detailed economic plan and a specific budget. His 'Pay as You Go' philosophy has been proven to work.

I wasn't entirely thrilled with Kerry, other than for the fact that he's NOT Bush, but the more I hear, the more impressed I am. This is a guy with more than ideology and clever sound byte answers. He has a real plan.

IMO, the only voters who still support Bush are homophobes and women haters who want to see discrimination written into the Constitution. (that, or wealthy americans with no compassion for others).

Uhh.. Okay.

Incoming flame!!!...

You obviously do not know what you are talking about. Bush believes in and adheres to Kensington economic theory. This is what Regan used to great effect. Also, just because Bush does not say OBM does not mean he has no idea about the budget. As to their stance on homosexuality. While Bush believes in an amendment to deal with this Kerry believes that gays should be granted civil unions. The funny thing about this is that, that is just what the constitutional amendment that Bush supports says. Increasingly though there is the military budget to worry about. If Kerry where in charge the best equipment we would have would be biplanes. For every new project that has any remote link to the project Kerry has always voted no. Our troops have a bad enough time as it is without a president who wants to take their guns away. Also Bush came into office at the start of a major recession. We are lucky he initiated such major tax cuts and used deficit spending otherwise there would have been a lot more problems. Moreover, most of the tax cuts Bush enacted did affect the middle and lower class Americans.

His illuminating answer was "I send the budget guy to Congress".

That'd be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. :(

He's such an idiot.

Our troops have a bad enough time as it is without a president who wants to take their guns away.

Isn't it their guns that get them into trouble in the first place?

Oh no, wait, it's their allies that get into trouble because of American guns.

It is kind of amusing him spouting off about where Kerry is supposed to get the money for his plans.

I so wanted Kerry to retort something like, "My distinguished opponent is doing his level best to plaster me with a lable of 'Tax and Spend Liberal', America. He is doing this because he is desperate to hide the fact that he is nothing more than a 'Spend and Spend (and spend and spend) Liberal' himself. He is so in the pocket of so many special interest groups and corporate cronyism that he doesn't even have a concept of the fact that he took the largest budget surplus in history and turned it into the largest deficit. He did this all the while doubling the amount of discretionary NON-defense spending. He wants you to believe it was the war, the recession, or some other poppy-cock. In truth it was his own failed fiscal policies. Look at both the plans, and tell me which is likelier to bankrupt us first."

You obviously do not know what you are talking about. Bush believes in and adheres to Kensington economic theory. This is what Regan used to great effect. oh, yes, Reaganomics. Put us into a huge hole, also, if i remember correctly. Also, just because Bush does not say OBM does not mean he has no idea about the budget. do you mean CBO? the point is that Bush has no ideas of his own. He has a Budget Guy :rolleyes: As to their stance on homosexuality. While Bush believes in an amendment to deal with this Kerry believes that gays should be granted civil unions. The funny thing about this is that, that is just what the constitutional amendment that Bush supports says. But Kerry wants to leave it to the States, not make an Amendment writing discrimination into the Constitution. Increasingly though there is the military budget to worry about. If Kerry where in charge the best equipment we would have would be biplanes. For every new project that has any remote link to the project Kerry has always voted no. Our troops have a bad enough time as it is without a president who wants to take their guns away. Kerry has NEVER claimed he wants to take military guns away. And you are completely off base saying all he would give the military is biplanes. This is pure ignorance. Also Bush came into office at the start of a major recession. We are lucky he initiated such major tax cuts and used deficit spending otherwise there would have been a lot more problems. Moreover, most of the tax cuts Bush enacted did affect the middle and lower class Americans.MOST of the tax cuts, if you count numbers of people. But comparing a $200 tax refund to a $136,000 refund doesn't quite cut it. Take the total number of DOLLARS given out in the tax cut, and the vast majority went to the wealthy.
Nice try, but completely lame and false arguments.

You obviously do not know what you are talking about. Bush believes in and adheres to Kensington economic theory. This is what Regan used to great effect. Also, just because Bush does not say OBM does not mean he has no idea about the budget. As to their stance on homosexuality. While Bush believes in an amendment to deal with this Kerry believes that gays should be granted civil unions. The funny thing about this is that, that is just what the constitutional amendment that Bush supports says. Increasingly though there is the military budget to worry about. If Kerry where in charge the best equipment we would have would be biplanes. For every new project that has any remote link to the project Kerry has always voted no. Our troops have a bad enough time as it is without a president who wants to take their guns away. Also Bush came into office at the start of a major recession. We are lucky he initiated such major tax cuts and used deficit spending otherwise there would have been a lot more problems. Moreover, most of the tax cuts Bush enacted did affect the middle and lower class Americans.
you were going good ith only a slight ignorance, then you fly past that into bull blown partisan bullshit. congratulations, your not allowed to vote when i rule the country

You obviously do not know what you are talking about. Bush believes in and adheres to Kensington economic theory. This is what Regan used to great effect. Also, just because Bush does not say OBM does not mean he has no idea about the budget. As to their stance on homosexuality. While Bush believes in an amendment to deal with this Kerry believes that gays should be granted civil unions. The funny thing about this is that, that is just what the constitutional amendment that Bush supports says. Increasingly though there is the military budget to worry about. If Kerry where in charge the best equipment we would have would be biplanes. For every new project that has any remote link to the project Kerry has always voted no. Our troops have a bad enough time as it is without a president who wants to take their guns away. Also Bush came into office at the start of a major recession. We are lucky he initiated such major tax cuts and used deficit spending otherwise there would have been a lot more problems. Moreover, most of the tax cuts Bush enacted did affect the middle and lower class Americans.
No, YOU obviously have no idea what you're talking about. The sad thing is everything you said has been discussed thoroughly and ad nauseum through this site (and every other site) already.
Kerry has voted against every military budget? No he didn't. Read the following
http://slate.msn.com/id/2096127/
in 1991, Kerry opposed an amendment to impose an arbitrary 2 percent cut in the military budget. In 1992, he opposed an amendment to cut Pentagon intelligence programs by $1 billion. In 1994, he voted against a motion to cut $30.5 billion from the defense budget over the next five years and to redistribute the money to programs for education and the disabled. That same year, he opposed an amendment to postpone construction of a new aircraft carrier. In 1996, he opposed a motion to cut six F-18 jet fighters from the budget. In 1999, he voted against a motion to terminate the Trident II missile. (Interestingly, the F-18 and Trident II are among the weapons systems that the RNC claims Kerry opposed.)

The recession started 6 months after Bush took office.
Used deficit spending to prevent a recession? Fine, if it was aimed at stimulating the economy, but it wasn't. It was almost all aimed at upping the Military budget, a great proportion spent overseas, which helps the local economy not-at-all.

Please, do us all a favour and try reading and researching a little before you display your ignorance and foolishness to the world.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln

Incidently it's Keynesian economics, not Kensington. And Reagan left the US with a 2 trillion dollar deficit. So hardly what I'd call effective. Clinton on the other hand left the US with a $230 billion, the biggest in history.

im offended by that. Women haters? Trust me i LOVE women, homophobe? I got family members that are gay. Rich? IM MEXICAN, that should be a good enough explanation for you, i could move into a rich community and the white neighbors would call the cops on me all the time under suspicion that im casing my house.

We have a deficet because we are rebuilding from the ground up. Recovering from Clintons recession (that for some reason liberal weiners keep forgetting that), 9/11 which costed us 1 million jobs in a month, worst attack on US soil in history, including Pearl Harbor, and two wars, Afghanistan didnt cost us much but thanks to the UN security council being under Saddam Husseins payroll we had to go into iraq with the non-corrupted governments watching our backs.

Our economy is booming, we have the greatest GDP growth ever, 1.9 million jobs created in 13 months, more house ownership in the US then ever before. Now think about the house ownership part, average house costs 250,000, 300,000 dollars. The poor people cant pull up that kind of money, their arent enough rich people in the United States to support the house ownership statistics so take a wild guess and who can now afford good housing? The middle class, the middle class is mainly responsible for house sales in the US and if they can afford 300,000 dollar houses minimum and more people can afford them, that means the middle class is strong. Houses arent cheap, even after you buy them. Liberal weiners call Bush's tax cuts are for the rich and Kerry will get rid of those tax cuts and raise taxes on people who make 200,000 or more a year. Little economic lesson on small business. Small business owners have their business put under their name on there taxes so they dont have to pay corporate taxes which is expensive, a small business makes more then 200,000 a year. This 200,000 dollar a year income is under the owners name so it shows on his taxes that he personally makes 200,000 a year which in truth he doesnt, his business does. You make him pay a upper class taxes he will be paying more then he would corporate taxes, either tax will bankrupt many small businesses because they cant afford to pay corporate taxes and they cant afford to keep their business under their name because they will be paying the taxes of a man who in reality makes 10 times more then him.

How do you figure that a person with a small business that nets a profit of over $200,000 will go bankrupt if they pay more taxes? No one is proposing a 110% tax rate here.

And BOO HOO, "i make over $200,000 and i have to pay more taxes". Well, apparently, the American Dream has worked for you. Why should you be able to say 'tough luck' to those who are still struggling. I repeat, the only ones who object to this are uncompassionate rich people. If you take home $200,000/year (that's $4000 a WEEK) you're telling me you can't afford a few more bucks to make the US a better place for everyone? BOO HOO, i have no sympathy.

And that measly $200 most americans got was eaten up in short order by the increase in health care costs and gasoline costs. It didn't improve any middle class lives.

YOu can say that Bush created jobs all you want. The fact is he has a NET loss of jobs that is far greater than he can blame on 9/11. Can you say "outsourcing loophole"?

You can't control deficits with tax increases. Only through spending cuts. The economy is non-linear see?

Since both candidates have ambitious spending plans, either one will continue support deficit producing policies. The only way to reign it in is by having some mechanism that cuts the congress off when it overspends thus taking the decision out of everyones hands, and that will never happen because the power base of politicians depends on how much they can spend. Doubly so for the legislative side.

I don't think there has been a serious attempt to actually address this since Clinton shut down the govenrment when the congress refuse to pass an unbalanced budget. After that everyone lost interest.

You can't control deficits with tax increases. Only through spending cuts. The economy is non-linear see?

Since both candidates have ambitious spending plans, either one will continue support deficit producing policies. The only way to reign it in is by having some mechanism that cuts the congress off when it overspends thus taking the decision out of everyones hands, and that will never happen because the power base of politicians depends on how much they can spend. Doubly so for the legislative side.

I don't think there has been a serious attempt to actually address this since Clinton shut down the govenrment when the congress refuse to pass an unbalanced budget. After that everyone lost interest.

This is why i support a balanced budget--pay as you go--that Kerry firmly supports. If you go to his website, you can see detailed budget plans that show he can pull off his plans without increasing the deficit.

"It's clearly a budget, it has numbers in it" --GW Bush

Actually, back to the original point - do you expect the president to know everything? - he's only supposed to oversee, and to direct, not to get bogged down in too many details. Of course he has financial experts giving him advice and doing all the fiddly jobs for him!

And so what if he just uses everyday language to describe "the budget guy"? It doesn't make him a bad president. The fact that he is a bad president is pure coincidence.

We have a deficet because we are rebuilding from the ground up. Recovering from Clintons recession
you mean the one that started in march 2003?



Our economy is booming, we have the greatest GDP growth ever, 1.9 million jobs created in 13 months
with still over 1.6 million lost total.
their arent enough rich people in the United States to support the house ownership statistics so take a wild guess and who can now afford good housing?
you do realsie how many houses rich people buy dont you? at least 2, usually 3 or 4.

Liberal weiners call Bush's tax cuts are for the rich and Kerry will get rid of those tax cuts and raise taxes on people who make 200,000 or more a year. Little economic lesson on small business. Small business owners have their business put under their name on there taxes so they dont have to pay corporate taxes which is expensive,
which is why kerry ALSO plans to give tax benefits to businesses, maybe they will learn to file their fucking taxes right wont they?

It is kind of amusing him spouting off about where Kerry is supposed to get the money for his plans.

I so wanted Kerry to retort something like, "My distinguished opponent is doing his level best to plaster me with a lable of 'Tax and Spend Liberal', America. He is doing this because he is desperate to hide the fact that he is nothing more than a 'Spend and Spend (and spend and spend) Liberal' himself. He is so in the pocket of so many special interest groups and corporate cronyism that he doesn't even have a concept of the fact that he took the largest budget surplus in history and turned it into the largest deficit. He did this all the while doubling the amount of discretionary NON-defense spending. He wants you to believe it was the war, the recession, or some other poppy-cock. In truth it was his own failed fiscal policies. Look at both the plans, and tell me which is likelier to bankrupt us first."

If you've taken Macro Economics, you know that during a recession a government should make changes in its spending to slow the downturn and increase the amount of money in the economy. When the government runs a deficit, it means they're putting more money into the economy than they are taking out. This is a good thing, during a recession. If a government runs a surplus during a recession, as it was doing when W took office, it takes more out of the economy than it puts in which serves to exacerbate a recession. So all of you who argue that he must be a fiscal moron to go from the huge surplus to a huge deficit have it completely wrong. If he had kept the government running the surplus, we'd still be sinking deeper into a recession. As it is, the economy has rebounded and is on the rise again.

You obviously do not know what you are talking about. Bush believes in and adheres to Kensington economic theory. This is what Regan used to great effect. Also, just because Bush does not say OBM does not mean he has no idea about the budget. As to their stance on homosexuality. While Bush believes in an amendment to deal with this Kerry believes that gays should be granted civil unions. The funny thing about this is that, that is just what the constitutional amendment that Bush supports says. Increasingly though there is the military budget to worry about. If Kerry where in charge the best equipment we would have would be biplanes. For every new project that has any remote link to the project Kerry has always voted no. Our troops have a bad enough time as it is without a president who wants to take their guns away. Also Bush came into office at the start of a major recession. We are lucky he initiated such major tax cuts and used deficit spending otherwise there would have been a lot more problems. Moreover, most of the tax cuts Bush enacted did affect the middle and lower class Americans.If by "Kensington" economic theory you mean "Keynesian"then you are speaking from your behind. The only aspect of Keynesian economics Bush has figured out even partially is defecit spending, and even that he uses in the wrong way.

This is why i support a balanced budget--pay as you go--that Kerry firmly supports. If you go to his website, you can see detailed budget plans that show he can pull off his plans without increasing the deficit.

"It's clearly a budget, it has numbers in it" --GW Bush

Pay as you go is a good idea, unfortunately Kerry is paying for some of it with tax increases, so it won't work. If he's serious he'll have to scale back a lot of his plans, which he won't.

The only way to get a balanced budget is a law that stops overspending. Unfortunately, Gramm-Rudman-Hollings that tried to approach that was declared unconstitutional. So we either start to pay more attention to our congressmen and vote a hell of a lot of them out and continuing to do so until we finally get some who can stick to non-defecit spending, or we get a constitutional amendment.

I just don't really think that anyone is that interested in budget defecits per se, other than to lambaste the other side for being "spendthrift".

If by "Kensington" economic theory you mean "Keynesian"then you are speaking from your behind. The only aspect of Keynesian economics Bush has figured out even partially is defecit spending, and even that he uses in the wrong way.

All keynesian theory requires is that the government runs a defecit. The "pump" can be "primed" either through tax cuts or through undertaking new public projects. Either method is equally valid. Keynes preffered the latter becuase he was a socialist.

As a larger point there is no evidence that Kenysian economics actually works. And some considerable evidence to the contrary. (Don't cite WWII because it is inapposite given how the war effort really ran).

In the final presidential debate, President Bush was asked about spending and the deficit.

His illuminating answer was "I send the budget guy to Congress".

The Budget Guy? No wonder this president can't lead us anywhere but into a hole.

Kerry, on the other hand, showed his grasp on economics by citing the Congressional Budget Office figures, and he has a detailed economic plan and a specific budget. His 'Pay as You Go' philosophy has been proven to work.

I wasn't entirely thrilled with Kerry, other than for the fact that he's NOT Bush, but the more I hear, the more impressed I am. This is a guy with more than ideology and clever sound byte answers. He has a real plan.

IMO, the only voters who still support Bush are homophobes and women haters who want to see discrimination written into the Constitution. (that, or wealthy americans with no compassion for others).

So can someone shoot the Budget Guy? He's definitely not been doing his job :p

All keynesian theory requires is that the government runs a defecit. The "pump" can be "primed" either through tax cuts or through undertaking new public projects. Either method is equally valid. Keynes preffered the latter becuase he was a socialist.

As a larger point there is no evidence that Kenysian economics actually works. And some considerable evidence to the contrary. (Don't cite WWII because it is inapposite given how the war effort really ran).There is no evidence Gold Standard economies 'work' either, nor any evidence for classical or neo-classical economics. Saying "this type of economy 'works'" is plain silly, in my opinion. Gold standard economies worked for decades before 'failing', same with classical and same with keynesian.

And more than merely running a defecit is required. The extra government spending has to be spent inside the economy, not overseas.

"MOST of the tax cuts, if you count numbers of people. But comparing a $200 tax refund to a $136,000 refund doesn't quite cut it. Take the total number of DOLLARS given out in the tax cut, and the vast majority went to the wealthy."

Listen here you weiners, if you don't pay the government money you get no fucking tax cut. Simple as that. It's a tax CUT!! It's not free money, it's a change in the amount of your income that is taken. If you make 10k or 100k, it's the exact same percent, which is fair. If you don't pay taxes you get nothing, simple as that. How can you complain about a policy like this being unfair when it is the epitome of fair. There is absolutely no discrimination, no matter who you are or what you make, you get the same percentage cut off your taxes. And for you to support Kerry because Bush cut taxes...do you see Kerry giving his money to the poor? Does he say, well, I've got way more than everyone else, more than anyone could ever reasonably need, so I'll give it to the poor people so that they might be raised up? No, and he wouldn't be in support of the tax hikes he proposes except that most of his money is either already sitting in an account or portfolio, so that he'll only have to pay taxes on the minimal increases, or will be coming from the government itself. Now I'm not positive, but I kind of doubt that the government taxes itself. I doubt that the president has to pay taxes on his salary. I could be wrong, but that would just be ridiculus. So, Kerry is for a tax hike that won't affect him, but will tax everybody more and rich people a greater percent than the poor people. While everyone complains that Bush has cut taxes on everybody, but they were hoping that they'd get a greater tax cut than those people who make more than they do. Suck it up people, accept the break you're getting, and who gives a fuck if someone else is also getting a break just because he's rich?

There is no evidence Gold Standard economies 'work' either, nor any evidence for classical or neo-classical economics. Saying "this type of economy 'works'" is plain silly, in my opinion. Gold standard economies worked for decades before 'failing', same with classical and same with keynesian.

And more than merely running a defecit is required. The extra government spending has to be spent inside the economy, not overseas.

Where do our weapons come from? We make them don't we. Where does the ammo come from? Where do the soldiers live? And you seem to be focused only on spending, don't forget that the other part of running a deficit is lower tax revenues, which don't come from people overseas.

The 'Budget guy' isn't related to the 'Family guy' by any chance? It would explain the huge fuck-up that's occured with the budgets over the past 4 years. :p

If you make 10k or 100k, it's the exact same percent.

No it's not.

The 'Budget guy' isn't related to the 'Family guy' by any chance? It would explain the huge fuck-up that's occured with the budgets over the past 4 years. :p
the budget guy- max weinstein

How do you figure that a person with a small business that nets a profit of over $200,000 will go bankrupt if they pay more taxes? No one is proposing a 110% tax rate here.

And BOO HOO, "i make over $200,000 and i have to pay more taxes". Well, apparently, the American Dream has worked for you. Why should you be able to say 'tough luck' to those who are still struggling. I repeat, the only ones who object to this are uncompassionate rich people. If you take home $200,000/year (that's $4000 a WEEK) you're telling me you can't afford a few more bucks to make the US a better place for everyone? BOO HOO, i have no sympathy.

And that measly $200 most americans got was eaten up in short order by the increase in health care costs and gasoline costs. It didn't improve any middle class lives.

YOu can say that Bush created jobs all you want. The fact is he has a NET loss of jobs that is far greater than he can blame on 9/11. Can you say "outsourcing loophole"?

The small business owners who put their businesses under their name so they dont have to pay corporate taxes DONT make 200,000 dollars a year, their business does, but they will be paying the upper class taxes because their business makes over 200,000 a year, they will no longer be paying middle class taxes. Lower class pays a certain tax, middle class pays a certain tax, and upper class pays a certain tax, Kerry has moved the bar into small business territory to tax them, THAT is the problem. To many small businesses that make 200k minimum will be affected by this. The small business owners have to put funds from their own pockets to develop their business, they have to buy products from suppliers, they have to pay wages for their employee's everything comes from their pocket. Its a small "developing" business, if you force them to pay upper class taxes with increase which is substantially more then what middle class people pay, they will go under, because they cannot pull up that kind of money based on their real yearly salary which is probably around 50k a year, which isnt bad, but it aint upper class. You bump them to the upper class to soon (which will happen with Kerry's tax increase) they wont be able to properly fund their business. If they have no money from the 50k yearly salary they really make, they got no money to fund their small business, but most importantly "their family". See, the business makes 200,000 a year, but you have to add to that business which costs at a minimum "half" of what your business makes, then you have to pay multiple taxes on your business, sales tax, business tax, income tax, all sorts of taxes on your business. A third of what the owner's business makes actually goes into his/her pocket, 50k a year salary paying a over 200k a year tax, thats harsh.

If you've taken Macro Economics, you know that during a recession a government should make changes in its spending to slow the downturn and increase the amount of money in the economy. When the government runs a deficit, it means they're putting more money into the economy than they are taking out. This is a good thing, during a recession. If a government runs a surplus during a recession, as it was doing when W took office, it takes more out of the economy than it puts in which serves to exacerbate a recession. So all of you who argue that he must be a fiscal moron to go from the huge surplus to a huge deficit have it completely wrong. If he had kept the government running the surplus, we'd still be sinking deeper into a recession. As it is, the economy has rebounded and is on the rise again.

Yes, I have taken Macro Economics. I am aware of how short-term deficit spending can prevent or bounce us out of a recession. That is not what the bush doctrine proposes. He is talking about another 4 years (and if the tax breaks become permanent and increasing the way he wants) another 10 years of multi-trillion dollar deficit spending. Much of which will not be going back into the economy, as it will be building stuff in Iraq.

That is not sustainable, nor is it even close to Reaganomics. It's absurd.

Add to that, the fact that the surplus was in place to protect Medicare and Social Security while we fix them, both of which are in jeapordy of increasing the tax gap over the next few years as the baby-boomers retire and there is a trillion+ difference in the amount going out to beneficiarys and those paying into it.

In addition we are sitting with huge trade deficits with several countries, and the outsourcing of our production is making that more severe. The only thing that has prevented our downfall so far is the fact that China continues to use bought debt from us to manipulate their own currency. Should this practice stop, or the deficits get too large, this alone could bankrupt us in a decade or two.

We are looking at a possible economic 'perfect storm'. While I don't feel that any president will be able to 'fix it'. The current one is running around willy-nilly with his fingers in his ears, singing while our children are being robbed of their future.

There is no evidence Gold Standard economies 'work' either, nor any evidence for classical or neo-classical economics. Saying "this type of economy 'works'" is plain silly, in my opinion. Gold standard economies worked for decades before 'failing', same with classical and same with keynesian.

And more than merely running a defecit is required. The extra government spending has to be spent inside the economy, not overseas.


Well I wasn't comparing it to the gold standard, I was more thinking of the experience of the EU-15 in the past thirty odd years where some countries have elected not to make fiscal adjustments based upon economic cycles and it has had little negative impact, that's all. I was just trying to point out that the whole keynesian proposition of increased spending and/or tax cuts does not necessarily inure to a nations benefit during a recession and should not be taken for granted as the optimum solution.

Your point about the spending being internal is well taken however. I was imprecise.

If you've taken Macro Economics, you know that during a recession a government should make changes in its spending to slow the downturn and increase the amount of money in the economy. When the government runs a deficit, it means they're putting more money into the economy than they are taking out. This is a good thing, during a recession. If a government runs a surplus during a recession, as it was doing when W took office, it takes more out of the economy than it puts in which serves to exacerbate a recession. So all of you who argue that he must be a fiscal moron to go from the huge surplus to a huge deficit have it completely wrong. If he had kept the government running the surplus, we'd still be sinking deeper into a recession. As it is, the economy has rebounded and is on the rise again.

According to Keynesian economics, which are somewhat but not absolutely outdated (their hayday being in the 1960's) you are correct. If the private sector won't spend enough, the public sector has to take up the slack.

So that is of course why Republicans oppose government subsidized healthcare, education, and Welfare, because all of those are examples of the government taking money from people and hoarding it to cause recessions.
That is why, now that the GDP is growing again, the Republicans want to increase deficit spending even more.

The Administration isn't a bunch of idiots for deficit spending to get us out of a recession, they're a bunch of idiots for

1. fighting two wars, one global
2. attempting to stop a recession
3. cutting taxes, especially on the uber rich, massively
4. titanically expanding the government

all at the same time, without a plan to pay for any one of those things, much less all of them.

Some deficit spending is acceptable; arguably even necessary. But on such scale, with no end in sight... that becomes dangerous.

According to Keynesian economics, which are somewhat but not absolutely outdated (their hayday being in the 1960's) you are correct. If the private sector won't spend enough, the public sector has to take up the slack.

So that is of course why Republicans oppose government subsidized healthcare, education, and Welfare, because all of those are examples of the government taking money from people and hoarding it to cause recessions.
That is why, now that the GDP is growing again, the Republicans want to increase deficit spending even more.

The Administration isn't a bunch of idiots for deficit spending to get us out of a recession, they're a bunch of idiots for

1. fighting two wars, one global
2. attempting to stop a recession
3. cutting taxes, especially on the uber rich, massively
4. titanically expanding the government

all at the same time, without a plan to pay for any one of those things, much less all of them.

Some deficit spending is acceptable; arguably even necessary. But on such scale, with no end in sight... that becomes dangerous.


Don't forget that the Peoples Republic of China is the number one purchaser of treasury notes to artificially keep the dollar high for their export market. With the trade deficit and the budget defecit are they going to be up sh*t creek when that one comes home to roost. If you were a real cynic, you could almost admire Bush (or more probably Cheney) for that plan.

OTOH, I'm not sure if plunging a nuclear armed china into massive economic crises is such a good idea.

Don't forget that the Peoples Republic of China is the number one purchaser of treasury notes to artificially keep the dollar high for their export market. With the trade deficit and the budget defecit are they going to be up sh*t creek when that one comes home to roost. If you were a real cynic, you could almost admire Bush (or more probably Cheney) for that plan.

OTOH, I'm not sure if plunging a nuclear armed china into massive economic crises is such a good idea.


Source?

China has their currency pegged to the dollar. So it doesn't matter.

Source?

China has their currency pegged to the dollar. So it doesn't matter.

What he means is, china is buying debt to keep the value of the (US) dollar high. This both increases their own export income, and inflates the value of thier own currency, which is pegged to the dollar.

What he means is, china is buying debt to keep the value of the (US) dollar high. This both increases their own export income, and inflates the value of thier own currency, which is pegged to the dollar.

How I read it: keeping dollar high, so Americans will buy more of their goods. But they already have their curreny pegged artificially low.

EDIT - of course, they do need the treasury securities to maintain the peg

And where is the source?