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Trump promised Bob Woodward he would pay off the national debt in two terms.

LibDave said:
President Clinton did not pay down the debt by taxing the rich. When Clinton came into office he was the first president EVER to have a retroactive tax increase. He increased the taxes to be paid on the previous years income. He did this almost his first day in office (violating one of his most basic campaign promises) claiming he didn't realize the state of the economy was so desperate. This retroactive tax increase was the largest in history at the time. After the 1994 midterm bloodbath Clinton stated, "Quite frankly I think I made a mistake raising taxes so much".

It is important to understand after the 1994 bloodbath The GOP was in COMPLETE control of the government with a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress. It has since been learned Clinton wasn't even calling the shots in the Executive branch for most part (Read Stephanopoulos "All Too Human" and Dick Morris and B. Clinton "My Life"). During this time Dick Morris was enacting his legendary triangulation strategy. Not just some, but ALL of credit for balancing the budget rests with the GOP under Newt Gingrich. Furthermore, the GOP didn't do it by raising taxes on the rich or anyone else.
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Note the portion in bold, above. Presidents cannot unilaterally raise taxes.

One only needs to go to Wiki to read the tax policies under Clinton.

Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 into law. This act created a 36 percent to 39.6 percent income tax for high-income individuals in the top 1.2% of wage earners. Businesses were given an income tax rate of 35%. The cap was repealed on Medicare. The taxes were raised 4.3 cents per gallon on transportation fuels and the taxable portion of Social Security benefits were increased.
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The rest is unsubstantiated right-wing folk-law. Newt Gingrich didn't want any tax-increases, which were responsible for balancing the budget.
 
marke said:
Again, Clinton may have presided over a balanced budget, but he did not pay down the debt. The deficit may have been lowered under Clinton just like it was under Obama, but the debt had to soar under Obama in order to lower the deficit. The deficit will never be the real problem but the debt will always be the problem that threatens to sink the US into bankruptcy hell.
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Keeping a deficit to near zero would make the debt irrelevant over time, as economic growth keeps lowering the debt:GDP ratio.
 
MTAtech said:
Keeping a deficit to near zero would make the debt irrelevant over time, as economic growth keeps lowering the debt:GDP ratio.
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No. If you stop spending more than you make personally, then you will stop going further into debt, but just because you slow your spending does not mean your accumulated debts will disappear. The same is true for national economies.
 
SmartCat said:
Obama was digging out of the Great Recession Bush II left him with. The time to borrow money is during a recession. The time to pay off the debt is during a recovery. During the 2016 primary Trump said he would raise taxes on the rich. What became of that promise?
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The Left claimed the recession was over by 2009. So that left him 7 years to improve things, and the results were anemic.
 
marke said:
Again, Clinton may have presided over a balanced budget, but he did not pay down the debt. The deficit may have been lowered under Clinton just like it was under Obama, but the debt had to soar under Obama in order to lower the deficit. The deficit will never be the real problem but the debt will always be the problem that threatens to sink the US into bankruptcy hell.
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Leftwingers don't seem to know what the debt is.
 
marke said:
No. If you stop spending more than you make personally, then you will stop going further into debt, but just because you slow your spending does not mean your accumulated debts will disappear. The same is true for national economies.
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That is a really bad analogy in at least two ways.

First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t -- all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation. Essentially, the U.S. never paid-off the World War II debt, of about $220 billion or 120% of GDP. The economy grew faster than deficits, so debt:GDP shrank to negligible levels.

Second --and this is the point almost nobody seems to get -- an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves.

This was clearly true of the debt incurred to win World War II. Taxpayers were on the hook for a debt that was significantly bigger, as a percentage of GDP, than debt today; but that debt was also owned by taxpayers, such as all the people who bought savings bonds. So the debt didn’t make postwar America poorer. In particular, the debt didn’t prevent the postwar generation from experiencing the biggest rise in incomes and living standards in our nation’s history.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
So you agree with the numbers posted by me right, from 2009 to 2016 the debt went up by 7.66billion
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Presidents get spending authority from Congress. The fiscal year is Oct-Sept show us the Bush spending authority for 2009?

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
 
Conservative said:
2009-2016. This is a game, right?
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Conservative said:
Presidents get spending authority from Congress. The fiscal year is Oct-Sept show us the Bush spending authority for 2009?

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
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Right, Obama is responsible for the increase from 2009 to 2016, Bush for 2001 to 2008, Trump for 2017 to the end of his time, Clinton for 1993 to 2000
 
American said:
Your numbers are off.

US Debt by President: By Dollar and Percent
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American said:
Obama doubled debt to $20T.
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For example, President Bush took office in January 2001. He submitted his first budget in February, but that covered Fiscal Year 2002, which didn't begin until October 1. For the first nine months of his new term, Bush had to live with President Clinton's last budget.

That was FY 2001, which continued until September 30, 2001. This timing difference explains why no new president is accountable for the budget deficit in his first year in office.


While the time lag makes it seem confusing, the federal fiscal year works that way to give the new president time to put together his budget during his first month in office.

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Barack Obama: Under President Obama, the national debt grew the most dollar-wise. He added $8.588 trillion. This 74 percent increase was the fifth-largest. Obama's budgets included the economic stimulus package. It added $831 billion by cutting taxes, extending unemployment benefits, and funding public works projects
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My numbers are based on the fiscal year reports and can easily be researched in official US government records based on the years the president was in office.

You will note that my number of 64% is much closer to the number in the article you posted of 74% than the number you provided of doubling the debt which equates to 100%. 10% is much less than 26%

Note that your articles states that Obama was the 5 worst when it comes to increasing the debt. That I wont argue against, Reagan and Bush II were worse then Obama as reported by the article you posted.
 
marke said:
Again, Clinton may have presided over a balanced budget, but he did not pay down the debt. The deficit may have been lowered under Clinton just like it was under Obama, but the debt had to soar under Obama in order to lower the deficit. The deficit will never be the real problem but the debt will always be the problem that threatens to sink the US into bankruptcy hell.
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Look at the diagram that I posted. For four years the federal budget had a surplus.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
My numbers are based on the fiscal year reports and can easily be researched in official US government records based on the years the president was in office.

You will note that my number of 64% is much closer to the number in the article you posted of 74% than the number you provided of doubling the debt which equates to 100%. 10% is much less than 26%

Note that your articles states that Obama was the 5 worst when it comes to increasing the debt. That I wont argue against, Reagan and Bush II were worse then Obama as reported by the article you posted.
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Overall it would appear that starting with Nixon, the growth in debt for the US government started to expand dramatically. That makes sense as Nixon took the US off the gold standard, allowing for a massive increase in US dollar money supply
 
American said:
The Left claimed the recession was over by 2009. So that left him 7 years to improve things, and the results were anemic.
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I am disappointed in Obama, but not sorry that he was president rather than a Republican. When he was inaugurated Gallup gave him a 65% approval rating. He had Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress. For years public opinion surveys indicated popular support for a more progressive tax system. That was time for a big tax increase on rich people, and a policy by the government to hire people directly. Instead he gave bailouts to banks and corporations.
 
SmartCat said:
Look at the diagram that I posted. For four years the federal budget had a surplus.
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The US did have a budge surplus, but still borrowed money during those years. US government debt went up by if I recall correctly about 58 billion at least each year in the clinton admin
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Overall it would appear that starting with Nixon, the growth in debt for the US government started to expand dramatically. That makes sense as Nixon took the US off the gold standard, allowing for a massive increase in US dollar money supply
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The increase in the national debt really began with Ronald Reagan and the squalid scam of "supply side economics."
 
SmartCat said:
The increase in the national debt really began with Ronald Reagan and the squalid scam of "supply side economics."
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In the time period after WW2 to Nixon the largest increase by a president was 13 % by Johnson over 5 years, with Nixon it went to 34% over 5 years, Ford had 47 % in 3 years. Carter had 43% over 4 years. Nixon made it much easier to borrow money (the French wanted to get paid in gold for the US debt it had if I recall correctly. Had the US remained on the gold standard the ability to borrow would be limited by how much gold it had in reserve. Now their is no practical limit

But yes Reagan took full advantage of it and borrowed massively, in Clinton the debt increased by 34%, only to grow massively again after Clinton
 
SmartCat said:
I am disappointed in Obama, but not sorry that he was president rather than a Republican. When he was inaugurated Gallup gave him a 65% approval rating. He had Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress. For years public opinion surveys indicated popular support for a more progressive tax system. That was time for a big tax increase on rich people, and a policy by the government to hire people directly. Instead he gave bailouts to banks and corporations.
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It's really time for you people to get over the rich. I'm mean really, the hate, jealousy, envy, whatever needs to end. That is not going to solve our problems.
 
MTAtech said:
Keeping a deficit to near zero would make the debt irrelevant over time, as economic growth keeps lowering the debt:GDP ratio.
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Deficit near zero? How? By eliminating $500 billion from each year's budget? That has never happened in modern American history. But even if deficit spending is finally stopped, how are American workers going to pay the tens of trillions of dollars of debt already on the books?
 
marke said:
Deficit near zero? How? By eliminating $500 billion from each year's budget? That has never happened in modern American history. But even if deficit spending is finally stopped, how are American workers going to pay the tens of trillions of dollars of debt already on the books?
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I'll give you a hint - Tax cuts for billionaires is not going to reduce the deficit.
 
MTAtech said:
That is a really bad analogy in at least two ways.

First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t -- all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base.
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The US government owes money for thousands of things. Are you like AOC and many democrat candidates who think nothing of blowing tens of trillions of dollars at a pop because they think the government creates wealth on its own and has no.limitations as to how much wealth it can create in that manner?
 
marke said:
The US government owes money for thousands of things. Are you like AOC and many democrat candidates who think nothing of blowing tens of trillions of dollars at a pop because they think the government creates wealth on its own and has no.limitations as to how much wealth it can create in that manner?
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You must be confusing me with Republicans, who grant tax-cuts to corporations and billionaires without a care to how the revenue lost will be made up.

I am not going to get into "wealth creation" because that is out-of-scope of this discussion. What I will say is that debt is a tool of the government that can do great things if used intelligently and judiciously. On the topic, Trump promised he'd payoff the national debt in two terms. He was either being ignorant or untruthful or both.
 
SmartCat said:
Look at the diagram that I posted. For four years the federal budget had a surplus.
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Good. The budget has a surplus. How much of that excess money is going to be used toward paying down the debt? $15 dollars?
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Overall it would appear that starting with Nixon, the growth in debt for the US government started to expand dramatically. That makes sense as Nixon took the US off the gold standard, allowing for a massive increase in US dollar money supply
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The US government is printing its own endless supply of money to spend on itself and on big expensive government programs. But if the US debt no longer has to be paid then why are we American workers still paying taxes through the nose?
 
Media_Truth said:
I'll give you a hint - Tax cuts for billionaires is not going to reduce the deficit.
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Here's another hint. If the government can borrow an unlimited supply of money from itself which it will never have to pay back then Congress needs to borrow however much it needs every year to eliminate the deficit altogether. Why haven't the democrats figured that out yet?
 
marke said:
The US government is printing its own endless supply of money to spend on itself and on big expensive government programs. But if the US debt no longer has to be paid then why are we American workers still paying taxes through the nose?
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Fiat currency relies on the trust that the currency will maintain its value over time. So far the US government has not gone fully nuts and started printing money beyond which the economy can absorb.

Should the US government just print money to pay for its bills, then the USD would lose value and hyper inflation would be the result. So the US government can do it, but within limits before it becomes an issue
 
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