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Snopes agrees that Trump reduced debt

atheist4thecaus said:
I came across a Snopes article, which is a very leftist "fact-checking" source, and I was surprised to see they agree that President Trump had reduced the debt by the end of July: https://www.snopes.com/national-debt-trump/

I'm not sure what happened in the second half of the year, but that's pretty interesting.
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Reading is for the mental - I mean fundamental. Your own link explains the cause. Why don't you try reading it - slowly and carefully.
 
Sampson Simpson said:
Actually, he's so incompetent he hasn't filled so many positions in his government, plus his goal is to destroy government anyway, that's clear. So that likely saved a lot of money.

And that's not a good thing, something major is going to happen and there aren't going to be people to deal with it
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A hundred billion is a lot of money.
The government payroll was 15 billion in 2009. I'm not sure how that has dropped 100 billion since
 
atheist4thecaus said:
Wow. After 8 years of Obama you are still trying to blame Bush for Obama growing the debt. Unbelievable.
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I also said that it is easy to look up what parts of the debt ARE specifically traceable to the Obama administration and his sessions of Congress as well. So, now that I've busted you for putting words in my mouth and also leaving other words out, are you still intent on erecting your gigantic straw man?
I do have matches and gasoline, you know...
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
What is your point, beyond simply acknowledging that tons of conservatives write in to Snopes to complain?
What's next, demanding that I prove a negative?
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You falsely assume that it's conservatives who are writing in. As a Left of Center liberal, I have written in to complain myself. The fact that they get more complaints about left-bias than right-bias shows a lot. The fact that they are not transparent and seem willing to hire partisans within their hiring process shows more of a problem. I'm guessing you didn't actually read the Forbes article highlighting a lot of their problems.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Please show me where in my post that I mentioned Bush specifically.
I see what you're doing there but it's not going to work.
I could leave Bush out of this entirely and still make my points, because in the end, Bush still needed Congress, who controls the purse strings.

Is it disingenuous for me to put responsibility on Congress too?
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Was Bush not a part of it? Obviously, Congress matters, too, but the President also has veto power.
 
atheist4thecaus said:
I came across a Snopes article, which is a very leftist "fact-checking" source, and I was surprised to see they agree that President Trump had reduced the debt by the end of July: https://www.snopes.com/national-debt-trump/

I'm not sure what happened in the second half of the year, but that's pretty interesting.
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That's not true.

They do not attribute anything to Trump:

Instead, Bernstein told us, the cause of the drop in the debt is simple — the federal debt ceiling that has been in place since March 2017.
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and,

Whether or not any actions or decisions made by Donald Trump have caused or contributed to these historically remarkable declines in the debt is a question that goes beyond the scope of this particular fact check.
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ttwtt78640 said:
Reading is for the mental - I mean fundamental. Your own link explains the cause. Why don't you try reading it - slowly and carefully.
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I am no fan of Snopes, and so I do not trust the reasons they give, but I posted the article to show that if a left-leaning "fact checker" is calling the overall claim true that the debt went down then it is likely true. I know thinking is difficult for you, though.
 
Chomsky said:
That's not true.

They do not attribute anything to Trump:



and,
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You must not have read my previous comments. As I said, I don't trust Snopes and don't buy their reasoning. Obviously, no single person is responsible for debt. Even legislation that passes can't really be fully attributed to the President or Congress, but all of that is obvious. The reduction in debt happened under Trump, and Snopes agreed.
 
atheist4thecaus said:
I am no fan of Snopes, and so I do not trust the reasons they give, but I posted the article to show that if a left-leaning "fact checker" is calling the overall claim true that the debt went down then it is likely true. I know thinking is difficult for you, though.
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Simply because the debt went down, the sky got blue or the cows came home while Trump was POTUS does not mean Trump had anything more to do with it than Putin or, for that matter, you or I did.
 
atheist4thecaus said:
Was Bush not a part of it? Obviously, Congress matters, too, but the President also has veto power.
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I'm sticking with my premise that any attempt to pin the accumulated national debt on one president is myopic, simply due to the fact that it's a long term issue that outlives presidential administrations, sessions of Congress and even some of the financial institutions involved.
And also, the FACT that SOME of the national debt is a valuable financial instrument and is much NEEDED.
Large investors now depend on secondary markets of government debt for liquidity and other investment purposes.
Many private pension plans and insurance companies also use government debt for investments, so government debt interest subsidizes less wealthy indirect investors.

The dollar bill ITSELF is also a form of government debt.

With regard to the U.S. Treasury, all issues since 1985 have been non-callable. That is, the borrower cannot "call" the bond and redeem it for its principal amount before its stated maturity date.

There are even some financial experts who say that if we paid off all of the national debt, there would be no more money, because the national debt finances all of the other debt. When is a dollar "born?" A dollar is created in the moment that a loan is made at a bank. How is a loan made at a bank? Banks are able to loan based on their funds in deposit. Banks borrow funds from the Fed at the Fed window. The Fed is creating money based on debt issued by the Treasury - the national debt.

Thus, if we were to suddenly pay down all that debt the money that was "born" at the time the loans were made, "dies" or "evaporates" at the point in time when it is repaid, people would have to repay the loans that were made based on the dollars generated for deposit reserves and therefore, we would have no more money.
 
While I am by no means any kind of financial expert, to atheist4thecaus I can only say that your understanding of exactly what the national debt really is...needs work.

Just sitting around saying that "because a FAR LEFT fact checking site is admitting that Trump did something, it must be true" is a pretty weak foundation upon which to build a premise. That is not to say that you can't drop that in our lap at all, just that you cannot build your entire premise using that and only that as a foundation.

If you don't have a good understanding of the national debt and how it works, just say so.
I don't have the world's best understanding of it myself but I know at least enough to not go running around with my hair on fire screaming that the sky is falling because "Obummer" put us at the $20 Tn mark and Trump is going to wave a magic wand and make it all disappear...because "FAR LEFT SNOPES said so".

Chillax dude.
 
atheist4thecaus said:
Right, I forgot, Trump never has anything to do with anything good, only the bad. :D
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If Trump does something good we will give him credit. This is not one of those things. We will be raising the debt ceiling soon and all these "savings" will poof away and more will be added. Trump's only passed and signed major legislation is guaranteed to raise the deficit and increase the debt at record levels.
 
iguanaman said:
If Trump does something good we will give him credit. This is not one of those things. We will be raising the debt ceiling soon and all these "savings" will poof away and more will be added. Trump's only passed and signed major legislation is guaranteed to raise the deficit and increase the debt at record levels.
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Here is one thing Trump did that I CAN honestly thank him for, and I DO NOT think that a Democratic administration would have EVER done it.
He got us OUT of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And that, of course, effectively SANK the stupid thing for all practical purposes.
Do we need such a thing? Sure, we could use some kind of an agreement. Could we BENEFIT from such an agreement?
MAYBE.
But the way it was structured, it was going to us harm, and it doesn't take Donald Trump to see that, a lot of people saw it.
So Trump killed the TPP and I thank him for it.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Here is one thing Trump did that I CAN honestly thank him for, and I DO NOT think that a Democratic administration would have EVER done it.
He got us OUT of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And that, of course, effectively SANK the stupid thing for all practical purposes.
Do we need such a thing? Sure, we could use some kind of an agreement. Could we BENEFIT from such an agreement?
MAYBE.
But the way it was structured, it was going to us harm, and it doesn't take Donald Trump to see that, a lot of people saw it.
So Trump killed the TPP and I thank him for it.
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Funny you should mention that because i just read an article that said the TPP is going ahead without us. I'm pretty certain that is not a good thing for the US. Putting up trade barriers has never worked for anyone....ever.



Japan, Canada and nine other Pacific Rim economies have offered a rebuke to Donald Trump, declaring they had solved their differences and would press on with an expansive new trade deal on the first anniversary of the US president’s withdrawal.

Mr Trump made pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated by the Obama administration one of his first official acts when he took office a year ago, a move that critics have called a strategic gift to China.*

But in a sign of how the rest of the world is ready to move on without the US, the 11 remaining countries announced on Tuesday that they would go ahead and sign the agreement in Chile on March 8 after overcoming last-minute objections from Canada.
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https://www.ft.com/content/7a10d70a-0031-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5
 
atheist4thecaus said:
Wikipedia for Snopes also claimes that the founder has said Snopes receives more complaints about liberal bias than conservative bias. Forbes highlighted the problems they have with transparency, and their willingness to hire partisans. The Snopes bias is pretty well-documented.
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They had 1 person on their payroll who had run for office before and they WOULD get more complaints about liberal bias because conservatives have been whining about bias for decades and seeing it everywhere.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
have gotten into dustups with some on the far left right here and elsewhere on current issues precisely because of those conservative views.
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Like what, being unable to process facts?
 
iliveonramen said:
Ok, so the deficit was reduced because we hired less people. I'm sorry for missing that.
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Which has, of course, left very important agencies severely understaffed. But hey, deficit.
 
atheist4thecaus said:
You falsely assume that it's conservatives who are writing in. As a Left of Center liberal, I have written in to complain myself. The fact that they get more complaints about left-bias than right-bias shows a lot. The fact that they are not transparent and seem willing to hire partisans within their hiring process shows more of a problem. I'm guessing you didn't actually read the Forbes article highlighting a lot of their problems.
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You are not even remotely liberal, and with that last piece of weak subterfuge on your part, I am withdrawing from this exercise in foolishness.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Simply because the debt went down, the sky got blue or the cows came home while Trump was POTUS does not mean Trump had anything more to do with it than Putin or, for that matter, you or I did.
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Yeah, right, because the President doesn't impact the economy. That's the go-to for Trump haters after they fearmongered electing him would crash the economy. His election increased the economy right after, and that alone helped to create more tax revenue.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
While I am by no means any kind of financial expert, to atheist4thecaus I can only say that your understanding of exactly what the national debt really is...needs work.

Just sitting around saying that "because a FAR LEFT fact checking site is admitting that Trump did something, it must be true" is a pretty weak foundation upon which to build a premise. That is not to say that you can't drop that in our lap at all, just that you cannot build your entire premise using that and only that as a foundation.

If you don't have a good understanding of the national debt and how it works, just say so.
I don't have the world's best understanding of it myself but I know at least enough to not go running around with my hair on fire screaming that the sky is falling because "Obummer" put us at the $20 Tn mark and Trump is going to wave a magic wand and make it all disappear...because "FAR LEFT SNOPES said so".

Chillax dude.
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Haha...you strawman me in order to tell me that my understanding is lacking. Talk about being dishonest.
 
iguanaman said:
If Trump does something good we will give him credit. This is not one of those things. We will be raising the debt ceiling soon and all these "savings" will poof away and more will be added. Trump's only passed and signed major legislation is guaranteed to raise the deficit and increase the debt at record levels.
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Speak for yourself, not others. If we apply the standard others have set, Trump can never get credit for anything, good or bad. Neither can Congress. Neither can anybody else, because the standard that has been set is that if someone is not solely responsible they cannot be given credit. I think that standard is ridiculous as it is obvious that no one person is every responsible for anything fully. So if anybody actually does ever give credit after setting this standard, they will merely be hypocritical.
 
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