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conservatives can no longer deny they've been lied to about deficits.

Vern

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Sure, there was indisputable proof that republicans and the conservative media was lying to them about deficits. But like a love struck girl, conservatives continually denied the facts. they always had their debt hero Paul Ryan there to keep the fantasy going. here's what he had to say Tuesday

“One of the things that we’re focusing on is getting people back to work, is economic growth,” Ryan told reporters Tuesday. “You can’t ever balance the budget if you don’t get this economy growing.”

GOP concerns about deficits, debt disappear in Trump era | The Seattle Times

mmmm, what was wrong with that focus when 600,000 people were losing their jobs each month at the peak of the Great Bush Recession? oh yea, the President was a democrat. Just more proof republicans put their political agenda ahead of the American people.
 
Republicans didn't want to get the economy going again back in 2008?
 
Sure, there was indisputable proof that republicans and the conservative media was lying to them about deficits. But like a love struck girl, conservatives continually denied the facts. they always had their debt hero Paul Ryan there to keep the fantasy going. here's what he had to say Tuesday

“One of the things that we’re focusing on is getting people back to work, is economic growth,” Ryan told reporters Tuesday. “You can’t ever balance the budget if you don’t get this economy growing.”

GOP concerns about deficits, debt disappear in Trump era | The Seattle Times

mmmm, what was wrong with that focus when 600,000 people were losing their jobs each month at the peak of the Great Bush Recession? oh yea, the President was a democrat. Just more proof republicans put their political agenda ahead of the American people.

The GOP lied about the Deficit? Are you F**king kidding?

The Deficit is the annual budget shortfall that creates the National Debt, and Obama has increased the National Debt more than all the prior 43 Presidents combined.

Yet Dems use phony numbers to claim he cut the deficit in half, leaving out that he quadrupled it just before that.
 
Republicans didn't want to get the economy going again back in 2008?
Republicans are dead set against deficits... when a Democrat is the President.

We're already seeing, both in word and deed, that most Republican elected officials don't care about deficits when a Republican (even a nominal Republican) is in office.

Some do still care, so we will see some resistance from those Republican deficit hawks. But the leadership? Nope.

It's not clear yet how the Republican voters feel. We'll have to wait a few years, and watch deficits go into the stratosphere, to see what the public thinks.
 
Republicans didn't want to get the economy going again back in 2008?

More than that, liberal luminaries such as Paul Krugman were urging that "debt scolds" be ignored, and that there should be deficit spending for years to come in the Hillary administration:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/prudential-macro-policy/

That was this past August; he re-affirmed by tweet in Ocotober:

C1v7TSTXcAAuwNg.jpg

But within the last few days, now that there's going to be a Republican administration, in his own words, "deficits matter again."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/...gain.html?rref=collection/column/paul-krugman

There's hardly a shred of difference between the economic conditions of late October and today, so the only explanation for the about-face is abject, slobbering hackery.
 
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Sure, there was indisputable proof that republicans and the conservative media was lying to them about deficits. But like a love struck girl, conservatives continually denied the facts. they always had their debt hero Paul Ryan there to keep the fantasy going. here's what he had to say Tuesday

“One of the things that we’re focusing on is getting people back to work, is economic growth,” Ryan told reporters Tuesday. “You can’t ever balance the budget if you don’t get this economy growing.”

GOP concerns about deficits, debt disappear in Trump era | The Seattle Times

mmmm, what was wrong with that focus when 600,000 people were losing their jobs each month at the peak of the Great Bush Recession? oh yea, the President was a democrat. Just more proof republicans put their political agenda ahead of the American people.

..and once again, a liberal ignores the FACT that it was a response to a DEM. Congress that triggered the last recession. But that's just truth and if the truth doesn't match the narrative, go with the narrative - right???
 
Sure, there was indisputable proof that republicans and the conservative media was lying to them about deficits. But like a love struck girl, conservatives continually denied the facts. they always had their debt hero Paul Ryan there to keep the fantasy going. here's what he had to say Tuesday

“One of the things that we’re focusing on is getting people back to work, is economic growth,” Ryan told reporters Tuesday. “You can’t ever balance the budget if you don’t get this economy growing.”

GOP concerns about deficits, debt disappear in Trump era | The Seattle Times

mmmm, what was wrong with that focus when 600,000 people were losing their jobs each month at the peak of the Great Bush Recession? oh yea, the President was a democrat. Just more proof republicans put their political agenda ahead of the American people.

The second wave of the great Clinton debacle, you mean. The main question now should be, whether we are facing the third wave.
 
More than that, liberal luminaries such as Paul Krugman were urging that "deficit scolds" be ignored, and that there should be deficit spending for years to come in the Hillary administration:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/prudential-macro-policy/

That was this past August; he re-affirmed by tweet in Ocotober:

View attachment 67212280

But within the last few days, now that there's going to be a Republican administration, in his own words, "deficits matter again."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/...gain.html?rref=collection/column/paul-krugman

There's hardly a shred of difference between the economic conditions of late October and today, so the only explanation for the about-face is abject, slobbering hackery.

He was an excellent economist. Now he is a predictable populist liberal.
 
The GOP lied about the Deficit? Are you F**king kidding?
Nope.

Clinton produced a surplus. Bush 43 burned right through it, and his policies -- namely, cutting taxes while waging two major wars (who does that?!?), adding Medicare Part D -- combined with revenue shortfalls caused by a major recession, produced record deficits.

As the economy recovered, and revenues got back to normal, and we could pull back on the stimulus and war spending, and with a tiny tax hike towards the end, yes deficits dropped to a more normal level.

Now, Trump's policies are set to send deficits rocketing back up again. He isn't going to cut Social Security or Medicare, two of the most expensive federal programs. He wants to increase defense spending, another huge program. He isn't going to cut VA spending, in fact he'll have to increase it if he wants to reduce wait times. Right off the bat, Trump refuses to cut or plans to increase spending for 70% of the federal budget.

Further, his plan is to slash income and corporate taxes, which will cause another drop in revenues. Based on his current plans, he could add $5 trillion or more to the current debt.

So. Can we put you down, on record, as someone who objects to high levels of both deficit spending and debt?
 
..and once again, a liberal ignores the FACT that it was a response to a DEM. Congress that triggered the last recession.
Egads. Not even close. The 2008 recession had a lot of contributors, including:

• Refusal by Clinton and Bush 43 administrations to regulate derivatives, CDOs, CDSs, and other new financial instruments
• Greenspan keeping interest rates very low, which made lending for mortgages cheap, which helped inflate the bubble
• Failure of the ratings agencies to properly identify risk
• Failure of bank VAR systems and other internal mechanisms to identify risk
• Mortgage originators, who had no skin in the game, and quickly sold off new mortgages with poor documentation
• Mortgage originators and banks who thought it'd be a good idea to increase the number of subprime and exotic loans
• Outright fraudulent mortgage originators and banks, who just wanted warm bodies to sign loans
• Mortgage risk evaluation software, which was using out-of-date and inaccurate risk models
• Investment banks, who also often had no skin in the game, and quickly sold off new mortgages with poor documentation
• Investment banks that did everything they could to make their offerings as obscure as possible, and sell them not just to financial actors who should have known better, but also to people who had no business buying financial instruments they didn't understand
• Aforementioned financial entities that bought total crap without looking into it enough
• Aforementioned clueless buyers who had no business buying MBSs and CDOs and derivatives
• Real estate speculators, who took advantage of and fed the bubble
• Much of the American public, who were buying properties they couldn't afford, with mortgages they should never have taken out in the first place
• Pretty much everyone, who did not realize that there was a huge bubble in real estate

Despite conservative screeching, Fannie & Freddie did very little. They were very late to the subprime market, and basically -- like Lehman -- were caught holding the bag.

The government is actually more responsible for inaction -- failure to oversee new markets, rein in banks, and pop the bubble early -- than for actions. But that's very typical in a bubble. No one is ever rewarded for causing a recession earlier, even if doing so would reduce its intensity.

And that's the truth. In a nutshell. A bit more complex than your narrative, but don't let that bother you.
 
Nope.

Clinton produced a surplus. Bush 43 burned right through it, and his policies -- namely, cutting taxes while waging two major wars (who does that?!?), adding Medicare Part D -- combined with revenue shortfalls caused by a major recession, produced record deficits.

As the economy recovered, and revenues got back to normal, and we could pull back on the stimulus and war spending, and with a tiny tax hike towards the end, yes deficits dropped to a more normal level.

Now, Trump's policies are set to send deficits rocketing back up again. He isn't going to cut Social Security or Medicare, two of the most expensive federal programs. He wants to increase defense spending, another huge program. He isn't going to cut VA spending, in fact he'll have to increase it if he wants to reduce wait times. Right off the bat, Trump refuses to cut or plans to increase spending for 70% of the federal budget.

Further, his plan is to slash income and corporate taxes, which will cause another drop in revenues. Based on his current plans, he could add $5 trillion or more to the current debt.

So. Can we put you down, on record, as someone who objects to high levels of both deficit spending and debt?
There was no surplus under Clinton. The debt continued to rise every year under him as it has for every other president since Eisenhower.
 
He was an excellent economist. Now he is a predictable populist liberal.
Or, he's both an excellent economist and a populist liberal.

Not much different than Milton Friedman, who was a brilliant in his economic insights, and kind of an idiot when it came to his libertarian fetish.

Meanwhile, Krugman's comments are consistent. When unemployment is too high (and we're in a liquidity trap), deficits are not a problem. We're stimulating and lending our way out of a recession, and thus getting the economy back on track faster. But when you're at full employment, as we probably are now, then running huge deficits for stimulus programs (such as a big infrastructure program) doesn't offer economic benefits. Further, much of the increase in deficits will not be spent fixing problems, but will go to tax cuts for the wealthy -- and that does very little for the economy.

Krugman's major objection is that Trump et al are basically taking advice from people who have been consistently wrong for decades -- Laffer, supply siders and the like. Even if we can handle bigger deficits and debts (which we can), that doesn't mean that increasing our liabilities without any benefits to the economy is a good idea.

Figuring that out actually requires reading what he has to say, with an open mind. Who has time for that, amirite? :mrgreen:
 
Egads. Not even close. The 2008 recession had a lot of contributors, including:

• Refusal by Clinton and Bush 43 administrations to regulate derivatives, CDOs, CDSs, and other new financial instruments
• Greenspan keeping interest rates very low, which made lending for mortgages cheap, which helped inflate the bubble
• Failure of the ratings agencies to properly identify risk
• Failure of bank VAR systems and other internal mechanisms to identify risk
• Mortgage originators, who had no skin in the game, and quickly sold off new mortgages with poor documentation
• Mortgage originators and banks who thought it'd be a good idea to increase the number of subprime and exotic loans
• Outright fraudulent mortgage originators and banks, who just wanted warm bodies to sign loans
• Mortgage risk evaluation software, which was using out-of-date and inaccurate risk models
• Investment banks, who also often had no skin in the game, and quickly sold off new mortgages with poor documentation
• Investment banks that did everything they could to make their offerings as obscure as possible, and sell them not just to financial actors who should have known better, but also to people who had no business buying financial instruments they didn't understand
• Aforementioned financial entities that bought total crap without looking into it enough
• Aforementioned clueless buyers who had no business buying MBSs and CDOs and derivatives
• Real estate speculators, who took advantage of and fed the bubble
• Much of the American public, who were buying properties they couldn't afford, with mortgages they should never have taken out in the first place
• Pretty much everyone, who did not realize that there was a huge bubble in real estate

Despite conservative screeching, Fannie & Freddie did very little. They were very late to the subprime market, and basically -- like Lehman -- were caught holding the bag.

The government is actually more responsible for inaction -- failure to oversee new markets, rein in banks, and pop the bubble early -- than for actions. But that's very typical in a bubble. No one is ever rewarded for causing a recession earlier, even if doing so would reduce its intensity.

And that's the truth. In a nutshell. A bit more complex than your narrative, but don't let that bother you.

Yes, there were a lot of causes, but the post I was replying to tried to lay the responsibility at the Fed. leadership level at the feet of the President, when the TRUTH is that level of responsibility gets laid at the feet of Congress. The market constricting part of the equation was triggered in part by the impending election of a Dem controlled Congress. That's the part that the post I was responding to tried to lay at Pres. Bush's feet when it should be laid at the feet of the anti-business Dem. congresscritters coming into office. Sorry if I didn't offer up a full analysis of every little detail to satisfy you, but I was addressing just the one piece of this large pie.
 
More than that, liberal luminaries such as Paul Krugman were urging that "debt scolds" be ignored, and that there should be deficit spending for years to come in the Hillary administration:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/prudential-macro-policy/

That was this past August; he re-affirmed by tweet in Ocotober:

View attachment 67212280

But within the last few days, now that there's going to be a Republican administration, in his own words, "deficits matter again."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/...gain.html?rref=collection/column/paul-krugman

There's hardly a shred of difference between the economic conditions of late October and today, so the only explanation for the about-face is abject, slobbering hackery.

You seem incredibly confused, the left is not claiming that deficits matter, the left is condemning the abject hypocrisy of the right as they immediately flip flop on deficits based on the party of the president.
 
There was no surplus under Clinton. The debt continued to rise every year under him as it has for every other president since Eisenhower.
:roll:

Wrong. There were multiple years of genuine surpluses under Clinton. Revenues were greater than outlays. By any definition, that is a surplus.

The public debt -- the amount borrowed from the public, and the measure that pretty much everyone uses -- dropped slightly during those deficit years.

The gross debt -- which includes intergovernmental loans -- did continue to go up. However, that's because when payroll taxes run a surplus, the government is required by law to lend those funds to the rest of the government. I.e. when payroll taxes run a surplus, gross debt increases. Further, when we draw down from the Social Security trust fund, gross debt can shrink, even though Social Security is in a more precarious position.

Gross debt is a valid measure. However, a) only if you use it as a consistent measure, and b) only when you actually understand how it works. It's not valid when the only reason to cite it is to blast Democrats, and/or obscure how Republican political leaders don't actually give a crap about shrinking government or reducing debts.
 
Yes, there were a lot of causes, but the post I was replying to tried to lay the responsibility at the Fed. leadership level at the feet of the President, when the TRUTH is that level of responsibility gets laid at the feet of Congress. The market constricting part of the equation was triggered in part by the impending election of a Dem controlled Congress. That's the part that the post I was responding to tried to lay at Pres. Bush's feet when it should be laid at the feet of the anti-business Dem. congresscritters coming into office. Sorry if I didn't offer up a full analysis of every little detail to satisfy you, but I was addressing just the one piece of this large pie.

Well then your "TRUTH" is horse****. President Bush 2 forcibly removed the states mortgage underwriting standards. His own ****ing working group unequivocally blamed his own policies. No amount of willful ignorance can change those facts.
 
Or, he's both an excellent economist and a populist liberal.

Not much different than Milton Friedman, who was a brilliant in his economic insights, and kind of an idiot when it came to his libertarian fetish.

Meanwhile, Krugman's comments are consistent. When unemployment is too high (and we're in a liquidity trap), deficits are not a problem. We're stimulating and lending our way out of a recession, and thus getting the economy back on track faster. But when you're at full employment, as we probably are now, then running huge deficits for stimulus programs (such as a big infrastructure program) doesn't offer economic benefits. Further, much of the increase in deficits will not be spent fixing problems, but will go to tax cuts for the wealthy -- and that does very little for the economy.

Krugman's major objection is that Trump et al are basically taking advice from people who have been consistently wrong for decades -- Laffer, supply siders and the like. Even if we can handle bigger deficits and debts (which we can), that doesn't mean that increasing our liabilities without any benefits to the economy is a good idea.

Figuring that out actually requires reading what he has to say, with an open mind. Who has time for that, amirite? :mrgreen:

The economic indicators in late October were not appreciably different from today, and pointed to the conditions we have today, yet he prescribed years -- YEARS -- of deficit spending to come. He'd still be saying it right now if Hillary were the president-elect.

The only thing he's "consistent" in is that he does about-faces when the White House changes hands. THAT, he does shamelessly.
 
Yes, there were a lot of causes, but the post I was replying to tried to lay the responsibility at the Fed. leadership level at the feet of the President, when the TRUTH is that level of responsibility gets laid at the feet of Congress.
...and I just briefly explained how that isn't correct either. You're being equally inaccurate in your attempts to correct someone else.

Yes, Congress had a role -- I forgot to mention that the repeal of Glass-Steagall was a big factor. But Congress didn't act alone; someone had to sign those laws, let alone guide them through Congress.

Clinton, Bush 43, Greenspan also a variety of influences and responsibility. But overall, the government piece was relatively small. It was mostly market mechanisms, of capital looking for somewhere to go, then forming a bubble, then the private sector pumping it up to get their piece. Most of the government's responsibility is in a failure to regulate.
 
The GOP lied about the Deficit? Are you F**king kidding?

The Deficit is the annual budget shortfall that creates the National Debt, and Obama has increased the National Debt more than all the prior 43 Presidents combined.

Yet Dems use phony numbers to claim he cut the deficit in half, leaving out that he quadrupled it just before that.

I thank you for your prior military service... admire all Marines, and recognize your current work among psychopaths might warp your views. Please consider protecting your head better during your MMA workouts.
 
The economic indicators in late October were not appreciably different from today, and pointed to the conditions we have today, yet he prescribed years -- YEARS -- of deficit spending to come. He'd still be saying it right now if Hillary were the president-elect.

The only thing he's "consistent" in is that he does about-faces when the White House changes hands. THAT, he does shamelessly.

Oh, now i get it, you didn't read your own article, you just jumped to a desired conclusion. Well, here read this if you're willing to burst the bubble:

"Now, government borrowing can still be justified if it serves an important purpose: Interest rates are still very low, and borrowing at those low rates to invest in much-needed infrastructure is still a very good idea, both because it would raise productivity and because it would provide a bit of insurance against future downturns. But while candidate Trump talked about increasing public investment, there’s no sign at all that congressional Republicans are going to make such investment a priority.

No, they’re going to blow up the deficit mainly by cutting taxes on the wealthy. And that won’t do anything significant to boost the economy or create jobs. In fact, by crowding out investment it will somewhat reduce long-term economic growth. Meanwhile, it will make the rich richer, even as cuts in social spending make the poor poorer and undermine security for the middle class. But that, of course, is the intention."
 
Or, he's both an excellent economist and a populist liberal.

Not much different than Milton Friedman, who was a brilliant in his economic insights, and kind of an idiot when it came to his libertarian fetish.

Meanwhile, Krugman's comments are consistent. When unemployment is too high (and we're in a liquidity trap), deficits are not a problem. We're stimulating and lending our way out of a recession, and thus getting the economy back on track faster. But when you're at full employment, as we probably are now, then running huge deficits for stimulus programs (such as a big infrastructure program) doesn't offer economic benefits. Further, much of the increase in deficits will not be spent fixing problems, but will go to tax cuts for the wealthy -- and that does very little for the economy.

Krugman's major objection is that Trump et al are basically taking advice from people who have been consistently wrong for decades -- Laffer, supply siders and the like. Even if we can handle bigger deficits and debts (which we can), that doesn't mean that increasing our liabilities without any benefits to the economy is a good idea.

Figuring that out actually requires reading what he has to say, with an open mind. Who has time for that, amirite? :mrgreen:

Actually, there need be no liquidity trap for there to be unemployment. A sudden increase in the supply of labor will do the trick and you will face unemployment till the pile has found enough capital to make jobs. This is part of the travers we are in.
 
:roll:

Wrong. There were multiple years of genuine surpluses under Clinton. Revenues were greater than outlays. By any definition, that is a surplus.

The public debt -- the amount borrowed from the public, and the measure that pretty much everyone uses -- dropped slightly during those deficit years.

The gross debt -- which includes intergovernmental loans -- did continue to go up. However, that's because when payroll taxes run a surplus, the government is required by law to lend those funds to the rest of the government. I.e. when payroll taxes run a surplus, gross debt increases. Further, when we draw down from the Social Security trust fund, gross debt can shrink, even though Social Security is in a more precarious position.

Gross debt is a valid measure. However, a) only if you use it as a consistent measure, and b) only when you actually understand how it works. It's not valid when the only reason to cite it is to blast Democrats, and/or obscure how Republican political leaders don't actually give a crap about shrinking government or reducing debts.

those surpluses were the result of the trickle down economics and policies pushed by the REP. controlled Congress and prio radministrations, not by ANY effort of Bill Clinton. They happened in spite of him, not because of him.
 
They are soo evil!

Don't forget that they not only fight wars overseas but they fight wars against women, the poor, seniors, minorities, and they are racists and bigots too, among other things. How much more evil can they get? And yet their nominee still beat Hillary and they are in control of the House, the Senate, and most governorships and state houses.
 
You seem incredibly confused, the left is not claiming that deficits matter, the left is condemning the abject hypocrisy of the right as they immediately flip flop on deficits based on the party of the president.

Republicans have a very long way to go to catch up with the hypocrisy of the left.
 
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