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United States loses its AAA Credit rating from S & P

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AdamT said:
The recession ended when the economy started expanding in 1939. It's not debatable.
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The economy "expanded" in the production of bombs and tanks. Those goods only benefitted the war effort. You cannot eat a tank and living inside one would not likely to be very comfortable. In the real world, the war years saw some of the harshest times in the history of this nation as most goods were rationed, consumption was kept at very low levels and the living standard saw a dramatic decline.

War is not good for the economy. But you go ahead and keep spouting the same sort of nonsense Bush told us.
 
digsbe said:
Don't be so foolish. This cannot be blamed on the Tea Party. Yeah! Let's squeeze a few trillion dollars from the top 1%.... The problem is spending, spending what we don't have. Raising taxes may help (or hurt) but the main problem is spending largely done by Bush and Obama.
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Spending is not our biggest problem.

America's Problem is Low Taxes, Not Spending
It has quickly become a Republican talkling point that the US does not have a taxation problem; it has a spending problem. No need to raise taxes, they say. Just cut all that wasteful spending, and we will be all right. After all, teabaggers tell us we are Taxed Enough Already.

The reality is dramatically different. The chart below shows "general government expenditures as a percent of GDP". It is taken from the OECD "iLibrary" and can be found here. The bars represent each country's annual average for 2006-8. The blue bar is the average for all OECD countries combined.

The US is the seventh bar from the left, below the average and far below most of Europe's most developed states. Note also that the gray diamonds hovering above each bar represent that govenment's average expenditure for 1995-97. They show that the spending percentage for the US was virtually unchanged for the subsequent decade.

The reality is that US government expenditures are a relatively modest percentage of GDP. Needless to say, US expenditures would be even lower were it not for our monstrously expensive industrial-military complex.
BlueHawaii: America's Problem is Low Taxes, Not Spending


10-01-01-g3.gif
 
Thunder said:
S&P's made it clear: in order to prevent a credit-rating downgrade Congress would have to pass around $4 trillion in debt-reduction in 10 years with bi-partisan support.

the GOP chose to ignore this...so now we have lost our AAA rating.
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They used the debt ceiling as a leverage to get their demands met - and now they have the audacity to blame Obama. They are naive enough to believe that people aren't aware of what took place?
 
RStringfield said:
The economy "expanded" in the production of bombs and tanks. Those goods only benefitted the war effort. You cannot eat a tank and living inside one would not likely to be very comfortable. In the real world, the war years saw some of the harshest times in the history of this nation as most goods were rationed, consumption was kept at very low levels and the living standard saw a dramatic decline.

War is not good for the economy. But you go ahead and keep spouting the same sort of nonsense Bush told us.
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Nothing you have stated negates the fact that WWII spending ended the depression.
 
mertex said:
Spending is not our biggest problem.

America's Problem is Low Taxes, Not Spending
It has quickly become a Republican talkling point that the US does not have a taxation problem; it has a spending problem. No need to raise taxes, they say. Just cut all that wasteful spending, and we will be all right. After all, teabaggers tell us we are Taxed Enough Already.

The reality is dramatically different. The chart below shows "general government expenditures as a percent of GDP". It is taken from the OECD "iLibrary" and can be found here. The bars represent each country's annual average for 2006-8. The blue bar is the average for all OECD countries combined.

The US is the seventh bar from the left, below the average and far below most of Europe's most developed states. Note also that the gray diamonds hovering above each bar represent that govenment's average expenditure for 1995-97. They show that the spending percentage for the US was virtually unchanged for the subsequent decade.

The reality is that US government expenditures are a relatively modest percentage of GDP. Needless to say, US expenditures would be even lower were it not for our monstrously expensive industrial-military complex.
BlueHawaii: America's Problem is Low Taxes, Not Spending


10-01-01-g3.gif
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The chart fails to mention that the government has over stepped it enumerated powers from 18 to over 22,000, it has a spending problem and a constitutional problem.
 
RStringfield said:
The economy "expanded" in the production of bombs and tanks. Those goods only benefitted the war effort. You cannot eat a tank and living inside one would not likely to be very comfortable. In the real world, the war years saw some of the harshest times in the history of this nation as most goods were rationed, consumption was kept at very low levels and the living standard saw a dramatic decline.

War is not good for the economy. But you go ahead and keep spouting the same sort of nonsense Bush told us.
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I agree that war is not the most effective way to stimulate the economy (broken window problem), but even a stupid kind of stimulus can be effective in sufficient quantity.
 
mertex said:
Spending is not our biggest problem.
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Why is it that so many liberals manage to correctly assess the correct tax policy when it comes to reducing gasoline consumption and getting more people to take advantage of public transport and yet they lose all sense of the principles underlying that decision when it comes time to taxing income.

When you tax something you get less of it. Raise taxes on gas consumption and you get less usage of gas. Raise taxes on tobacco and people smoke less. However when it comes time to taxing income liberals seem to think that, unlike with gas and tobacco and the dynamic response, that behavior regarding income will remain static, that people won't change their behavior and the result would simply be a windfall of tax revenue for the treasury.

hauser.gif


Look at how the marginal tax rates have changed over the years and then take a look at the revenue. What you're seeing a dynamic effect, people change their behavior in response to a tax. There is no massive windfall from raising taxes, rather the economy slows so the result becomes a wash and tax revenue stays at about the same level.
 
I for one find issue with just how remarkably effective the GOP has become with talking points. People actually believe so many falsehoods that are spouted as talking points. I think the GOP could be one of the most effective minorities we've ever seen. Remember the health care debates? or Fox's famed "So called government option"? "obama care"?

A party that barely holds a majority of the House managed to out do the party that holds a large % of the house, the majority of the senate and the executive branches collectively?

Democrats are crappy politicians and Obama is a crappy President. Obama receives the blame for this Credit Problem, not because of his policy but because of his lack theirof ability to actually lead his own party, who gets routinely destroyed by the GOP every debate.

the GOP in a superminority watered down Obamas HealthCare Bill, got their Tax Cuts and their version of this bill passed.

i'm no GOP supporter but i commend their excellence in influence.

AA+ is All obama's fault
 
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RiverDad said:
Why is it that so many liberals manage to correctly assess the correct tax policy when it comes to reducing gasoline consumption and getting more people to take advantage of public transport and yet they lose all sense of the principles underlying that decision when it comes time to taxing income.

When you tax something you get less of it. Raise taxes on gas consumption and you get less usage of gas. Raise taxes on tobacco and people smoke less. However when it comes time to taxing income liberals seem to think that, unlike with gas and tobacco and the dynamic response, that behavior regarding income will remain static, that people won't change their behavior and the result would simply be a windfall of tax revenue for the treasury.

hauser.gif


Look at how the marginal tax rates have changed over the years and then take a look at the revenue. What you're seeing a dynamic effect, people change their behavior in response to a tax. There is no massive windfall from raising taxes, rather the economy slows so the result becomes a wash and tax revenue stays at about the same level.
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This especially applies to over time at work, for every ten hours of overtime I work the next ten belongs to Uncle Sam, therefor I don't work more than ten hours of O/T.
 
Thunder said:
S&P's made it clear: in order to prevent a credit-rating downgrade Congress would have to pass around $4 trillion in debt-reduction in 10 years with bi-partisan support.

the GOP chose to ignore this...so now we have lost our AAA rating.
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You mean the Dems wanted to pass 4 trillion in debt reduction? How do you figger that one? :rofl
 
RiverDad said:
Why is it that so many liberals manage to correctly assess the correct tax policy when it comes to reducing gasoline consumption and getting more people to take advantage of public transport and yet they lose all sense of the principles underlying that decision when it comes time to taxing income.

When you tax something you get less of it. Raise taxes on gas consumption and you get less usage of gas. Raise taxes on tobacco and people smoke less. However when it comes time to taxing income liberals seem to think that, unlike with gas and tobacco and the dynamic response, that behavior regarding income will remain static, that people won't change their behavior and the result would simply be a windfall of tax revenue for the treasury.

hauser.gif


Look at how the marginal tax rates have changed over the years and then take a look at the revenue. What you're seeing a dynamic effect, people change their behavior in response to a tax. There is no massive windfall from raising taxes, rather the economy slows so the result becomes a wash and tax revenue stays at about the same level.
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Thus the saying that figures never lie, but liars figure. Hauser applies smoothing algorithms to mask vast changes. Due to the scale of your graph, changes as significant as 3% of GDP appear to be insignificant. But as we know, a 3% swing of GDP can have monumental conequences.

Hauser%2527s_Law_Figure_1.bmp
 
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deltabtry said:
The chart fails to mention that the government has over stepped it enumerated powers from 18 to over 22,000, it has a spending problem and a constitutional problem.
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Unfortunately the Republican Party wants to curb the spending by cutting the programs that benefit the middle-class and the poor, while extending tax cuts to the rich and corporations. Definitely cut back spending, but until the wealthy and corporations are made to pay their fair share, we will not end the problem, it is only going to get worse.

Many corporations have not paid one red cent in taxes for years, yet continue to receive refund checks based on dubious and illegal tax dodges they have devised.

The Tea Party and presidential hopefuls like Bachmann, have taken hold of an already conservative Republican party. They vowed to vote no on raising the debt ceiling, creating a crisis that put many companies on edge. Their ignorance will bring on the hidden tax of "higher interest rates" for everybody - a tax that will benefit only the wealthy and cause untold hardships for many here in the US and abroad.

The rich get loopholes and we get collapsing bridges, decaying schools and potholes in our roads. CEO's being taxed at a rate that is half of what their secretaries make is unjustified.
 
mertex said:
Unfortunately the Republican Party wants to curb the spending by cutting the programs that benefit the middle-class and the poor, while extending tax cuts to the rich and corporations. Definitely cut back spending, but until the wealthy and corporations are made to pay their fair share, we will not end the problem, it is only going to get worse.

Many corporations have not paid one red cent in taxes for years, yet continue to receive refund checks based on dubious and illegal tax dodges they have devised.

The Tea Party and presidential hopefuls like Bachmann, have taken hold of an already conservative Republican party. They vowed to vote no on raising the debt ceiling, creating a crisis that put many companies on edge. Their ignorance will bring on the hidden tax of "higher interest rates" for everybody - a tax that will benefit only the wealthy and cause untold hardships for many here in the US and abroad.

The rich get loopholes and we get collapsing bridges, decaying schools and potholes in our roads. CEO's being taxed at a rate that is half of what their secretaries make is unjustified.
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You solve all this by returning to a government which operates within it's constitutional boundaries and the states reasserting it's states rights.
 
AdamT said:
Thus the saying that figures never lie, but liars figure. Hauser applies smoothing algorithms to mask vast changes. Due to the scale of your graph, changes as significant as 3% of GDP appear to be insignificant. But as we know, a 3% swing of GDP can have monumental conequences.
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Your "refutation" of Hauser's graph doesn't achieve it's aim for it confirms what Hauser's Law claims, that tax revenue as a percent of GDP moves within a very narrow range.

Looking at your graph, the average tax revenue as a percent of GDP is 19.3% with a fleeting blip up to 21% right at the end of the Dot-com bubble. This narrow range was maintained during a period which saw tax rates vary between 92% and 28%.

Liberals are contending that we don't have a spending problem, rather it's a lack of revenue problem. The Obama budget forecasts for the future are predicated on program spending hitting the 26% of GDP mark.

spendingbaseline.jpg


If we could only hit the 21% of GDP mark with the help of a dot-com asset bubble, and we couldn't do it with top marginal tax rates at 92%, then how on earth do you guys figure that we're going to be able to raise enough tax revenue to cover the increased program spending which is going to amount to 26% of GDP?

Are you guys planning on instituting taxes of 150% in order to find a stable relationship between revenue and spending?

We've got a huge spending problem.

You're take-down of Hauser is ineffective because the smoothing within the range of 19% was never the point. In a sense you've knocked down a strawman. Good job.
 
mertex said:
Definitely cut back spending, but until the wealthy and corporations are made to pay their fair share, we will not end the problem, it is only going to get worse.
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What is a fair share? The top 1% (those with taxable incomes of $380,354 or more) paid 38.02% of all income taxes. The top 5% (those with taxable incomes of $159,619 or more) paid 58.72% of all income taxes. The top 10% (those with taxable incomes of $113,799 or more) paid 69.94% of all income taxes. The top 25% (those with taxable incomes of $67,280) paid 86.34% of all incomes taxes.

That's more than a fair share that they're paying. The US already has the MOST Progressive tax system amongst the OECD countries. We take more from successful people than do the socialist wonderlands in Europe.

Look at this table:

Share of taxes of richest decile:

United States: 45.1%
Canada: 35.8%
France: 28%
Germany: 31.2%

Be careful what you ask for. If you want fairness, then if we go by international standards, and go for the OECD mean, we'd have to make our income tax system less progressive so that we got to the 31.6% level, meaning lower the taxes on the rich and increasing them on the middle class and poor. That would be fair because it would be what other countries are doing.

For god's sakes, the top 25% already pay 86% of all income taxes. Isn't that enough? Isn't that far more than fair?

Shouldn't you be saying thank you to all of them for doing more than their fair share?
 
RiverDad said:
Shouldn't you be saying thank you to all of them for doing more than their fair share?
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Uhmm no, the flip slid to that POV is how much do these people get to own. And it far out weighs merely the dollars.
 
winston53660 said:
Uhmm no, the flip slid to that POV is how much do these people get to own. And it far out weighs merely the dollars.
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This doesn't surprise me. Envious people are not really known for expressing gratitude.

Look, when someone builds a fortune, that fortune is earned, not gifted to them by society.

If I invent a widget which make your life easier, freeing up an hour of your day for you to do something else, and you buy it from me, then I've created new wealth that didn't exist in the world before. I've made you more productive when you use my widget. When I sell my widget to 100,000,000 people I've made those people more productive in their lives. I've created a whole lot of wealth and I've captured most of it because without me the widget wouldn't have been invented. You haven't done me any favors in helping me build a fortune. When you bought the widget for yourself you bought it because you thought the price I charged was fair and that by buying the widget you would be improving your own life. You bought the widget for selfish reasons, not to help me make a bundle.

Liberal envy must be one of the most horrible manifestations to ever be visited on the earth. It poisons people's souls worse than racism.
 
The federal government's financial condition deteriorated rapidly last year, far beyond the $1.5 trillion in new debt taken on to finance the budget deficit, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The government added $5.3 trillion in new financial obligations in 2010, largely for retirement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. That brings to a record $61.6 trillion the total of financial promises not paid for.

Medicare alone took on $1.8 trillion in new liabilities, more than the record deficit prompting heated debate between Congress and the White House over lifting the debt ceiling.

Social Security added $1.4 trillion in obligations, partly reflecting longer life expectancies. Federal and military retirement programs added more to the financial hole, too.
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U.S. funding for future promises lags by trillions - USATODAY.com

exactly what portion of the 5.3 trillion does the party in power intend to make good thru tax hikes?
 
The good news is that I have not been banned from this thread, yet. That will happen a few days into the future. :)
 
The Prof said:
if not for tea

Harry Reid calls for clean debt ceiling vote - Meredith Shiner - POLITICO.com
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Liberals love to talk about the mess that Obama inherited yet never talk about the AAA rating he inherited. He is the first President to oversea the decline in our credit rating. Most liberals don't seem to understand that spending as a percent of GDP is close to 100% due to the 4 trillion added to the debt during the Obama term yet they still want more tax revenue to fund the liberal spending appetite. That just shows how intellectually bankrupt liberals are.
 
Conservative said:
Liberals love to talk about the mess that Obama inherited yet never talk about the AAA rating he inherited. He is the first President to oversea the decline in our credit rating. Most liberals don't seem to understand that spending as a percent of GDP is close to 100% due to the 4 trillion added to the debt during the Obama term yet they still want more tax revenue to fund the liberal spending appetite. That just shows how intellectually bankrupt liberals are.
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If the boat is already sinking, you can't blame the new captain when it finally goes under because he didn't patch it fast enough.
 
Tettsuo said:
If the boat is already sinking, you can't blame the new captain when it finally goes under because he didn't patch it fast enough.
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So since deficits are yearly, it is all GW Bush's fault for the trillions added to the debt in 2010-2011? Do you ever accept responsibility for anything? It is amazing how Democrats controlled the entire Congress from 2007 until the end of the Bush term and the recession ended in June 2009 but it is Bush's fault for the results in 2011

Obama economic results in 2011, .4% GDP and 1.3% GDP growth in 2011, 24+ million unemployed or under employed Americans in 2011, 4 trillion added to the debt in less than 3 years, and a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating. Rising Misery index 7.83 to 12.67. First President in U.S. History to have our credit downgraded on his watch!
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What is it about liberalism that creates such loyalty to these results? How do you explain the 3.9 and 3.8% GDP growth in 2010 and then the .4 and 1.3% GDP growth in 2011. Did GW Bush suddenly return to the WH and implement economic policy?
 
apdst said:
If Keynesian economics had worked, the depression wouldn't have lasted as long as it did.
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...another case of the stimulus not being big enough in the circumstance (and the Republicans losing patience and messing with the formula in '36, but that is another discussion.) Seems like the war ended the depression. What is a war, but huge government spending; the ultimate Keynesian style stimulus.

One of the reasons Keynesian economics does not work is the politicians are never have the guts to be bold enough to deploy sufficient sufficient stimulus. Case in point: 2009... it was so watered down that is wasn't terribly effective. It should have been $2T on real infrastructure projects. A real Keynesian stimulus would take expenditures that had to happen anyway in the next 10 years and do them now, so that you really were not just spending money to spend money, but actually getting something worthwhile done.

That said, the results of the 2009 stimulus can be seen in the employment numbers in 2011. Private sector job growth has actually been ok, but total job numbers are being depressed by all of the government workers now being laid-off as 2009 stimulus money ended, along with the funding for their jobs.
 
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upsideguy said:
...another case of the stimulus not being big enough in the circumstance (and the Republicans losing patience and messing with the formula in '36, but that is another discussion.) Seems like the war ended the depression. What is a war, but huge government spending; the ultimate Keynesian style stimulus.
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Not big enough? How about spending it in the wrong areas? Did Reagan implement a 787 billion dollar stimulus plan to get us out of a worse recession than the Dec. 2007-June 2009 recession? NO, he implemented the right stimulus by putting money into the hands of the consumer.
 
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