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

marke said:

I think you are wrong. If the US does not pay its debts then social security, Medicare, welfare, and hundreds of other expenses will not be getting paid.

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I guess I'm not being clear again. I am not suggesting that the U.S. default on its obligations. I'm saying that it is not necessary to run a surplus to paydown the debt but merely run deficits that are smaller than GDP growth as a p% of GDP.

American said:

A BIG GIANT COUNTRY-WIDE expensive war will do that with massive social programs, that shortly end not long after.

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Military spending and employment is government spending and employment. If the Roosevelt administration had earlier spent and hired to the extent it did during the Second World War, the Depression would have ended sooner.

MTAtech said:

I guess I'm not being clear again. I am not suggesting that the U.S. default on its obligations. I'm saying that it is not necessary to run a surplus to paydown the debt but merely run deficits that are smaller than GDP growth as a p% of GDP.

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The debt keeps rising. It has been rising for decades, especially in the last two decades. When will it ever start going back down, if ever? What will happen to the US economy if it does not start going back down.

Media_Truth said:

Clinton/Gore achieved a budget surplus with Bipartisan spending cuts, and a raise of the top tier. The debt would have started going in the right direction, but it didn't last long, as GW Bush immediately led us into the worst recession since the Great Depression.

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So the debt keeps rising, especially in the last decade or so. What will that do to the US economy if the skyrocketing trend is not reversed soon?

marke said:

Taxes could not be raised enough to pay down the debt at current expense levels. We are currently spending more than a trillion dollars more than we take in in taxes and so raising taxes would have to bring in more than a trillion dollars than it does now just to break even, with no servicing of the debt.

A train wreck is coming but most politicians have refused to believe it. They have somehow allowed themselves to think that since the debt has never been lowered in the past it will never have to be in the future. When banks start closing they will be like Barney Frank, "I must have made a mistake."

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You have to start the way Clinton and Gore is. Balance the deficit first. Then the debt will start to reducellllll

Media_Truth said:

You have to start the way Clinton and Gore is. Balance the deficit first. Then the debt will start to reducellllll

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The debt was not reduced under Clinton.

Media_Truth said:

You have to start the way Clinton and Gore is. Balance the deficit first. Then the debt will start to reducellllll

Click to expand...

The last year the us DEBT was reduced from the previous year was under Eisenhower, when it fell to $270 billion from $272 billion in 1957. Under Kennedy the debt rose from $289 billion in 1961 to $298 billion in 1962.
Under Johnson the debt rose from $306 billion 1963 to $347 billion in 1968.
Under Nixon the debt rose from $353 billion in 1969 to $458 billion in 1973.
Under Ford the debt rose from $475 billion in 1974 to $620 billion in 1976.
Under Carter the debt rose from $698 billion in 1977 to $998 billion in 1980.
Under Reagan the debt rose from $997 billion in 1981 to $2.6 trillion in 1988.
Under G.H. Walker Bush the debt rose from $2.86 trillion in 1989 to $4.06 trillion in 1992.
Under Bill Clinton the debt rose from $4.41 trillion in 1993 to $5.67 trillion in 2000.
Under George Bush the debt rose from $5.81 trillion in 2001 to $10.02 trillion in 2008.
Under Obama the debt rose from $11.91 trillion in 2009 to $19.57 trillion in 2016.
Under Trump the debt rose from $20.24 trillion in 2017 to $22.03 trillion in 2019.

The debt has not gone down since 1957 when it fell 0.8%. Under Eisenhower the debt rose 0.1%.
Under Kennedy the debt rose 0.09%.
Under Johnson the debt rose 0.2%.
Under Nixon the debt rose 0.5%.
Under Ford the debt rose 0.7%.
Under Carter the debt rose 1.3%
Under Reagan the debt rose 7.7%.
Under G.H.W. Bush the debt rose 6.6%.
Under Clinton the debt rose 7.3%.
Under George Bush the debt rose 19.8%.
Under Obama the debt rose 43.3%.
Under Trump the debt has risen 11.1%.

US National Debt by Year – Polidiotic

marke said:

The last year the us DEBT was reduced from the previous year was under Eisenhower, when it fell to $270 billion from $272 billion in 1957. Under Kennedy the debt rose from $289 billion in 1961 to $298 billion in 1962.
Under Johnson the debt rose from $306 billion 1963 to $347 billion in 1968.
Under Nixon the debt rose from $353 billion in 1969 to $458 billion in 1973.
Under Ford the debt rose from $475 billion in 1974 to $620 billion in 1976.
Under Carter the debt rose from $698 billion in 1977 to $998 billion in 1980.
Under Reagan the debt rose from $997 billion in 1981 to $2.6 trillion in 1988.
Under G.H. Walker Bush the debt rose from $2.86 trillion in 1989 to $4.06 trillion in 1992.
Under Bill Clinton the debt rose from $4.41 trillion in 1993 to $5.67 trillion in 2000.
Under George Bush the debt rose from $5.81 trillion in 2001 to $10.02 trillion in 2008.
Under Obama the debt rose from $11.91 trillion in 2009 to $19.57 trillion in 2016.
Under Trump the debt rose from $20.24 trillion in 2017 to $22.03 trillion in 2019.

The debt has not gone down since 1957 when it fell 0.8%. Under Eisenhower the debt rose 0.1%.
Under Kennedy the debt rose 0.09%.
Under Johnson the debt rose 0.2%.
Under Nixon the debt rose 0.5%.
Under Ford the debt rose 0.7%.
Under Carter the debt rose 1.3%
Under Reagan the debt rose 7.7%.
Under G.H.W. Bush the debt rose 6.6%.
Under Clinton the debt rose 7.3%.
Under George Bush the debt rose 19.8%.
Under Obama the debt rose 43.3%.
Under Trump the debt has risen 11.1%.

US National Debt by Year – Polidiotic

Click to expand...

Nice chart
now go back and read it
The first part is accurate but your second part is misleading ,
Reagan increased the debt by a total of 186.7% not 7.7%
Bush II increased it by 76.7% not 19.8%
and Obama 95.3% not 43.3%
and by this article and the US Treasury site Bush II increased the debt by 101% not 76.7%
US Debt by President: By Dollar and Percent
Ronald Reagan: President Reagan increased the debt by 186 percent. Reaganomics added $1.86 trillion. Reagan's brand of supply-side economics didn't grow the economy enough to offset the lost revenue from its tax cuts. That was partly because Reagan increased the defense budget by 35 percent.
George W. Bush: President Bush added $5.849 trillion, the second-greatest dollar amount. It was the fourth-largest percentage increase. Bush increased the debt by 101 percent from where it started at $5.8 trillion on September 30, 2001. That's the end of FY 2001, which was President Clinton's last budget.

Debt to the Penny (Daily History Search Application)

Now according to what way you want to credit a President for his amount of the debt, by the day he took office or by His first day of his first fiscal year
any way on Jan 20, 2001 the debt was 5,727,776,738,304 and on Jan 20 2009 it was 10,626,877,048,913.08 an increase of 4,899,100,310,609
But if you take it from the first day of his first fiscal year it was ( 10/01/2001 ) 5,807,463,412,200.06 and on 10/01/2009 it was 11,920,519,164,319.42

an increase of 6,113,055,752,119.36
that is over 101% increase
Fact is there have only been two Presidents in the last 50 years to double the debt
Reagan almost tripled it and Bush II doubled it.

The Republican lie that Obama doubled it ( some say tripled it ) is just that a lie.
he did add the largest dollar amount but not the largest percentage amount
have a nice day

Tbird19482 said:

Nice chart
now go back and read it
The first part is accurate but your second part is misleading ,
Reagan increased the debt by a total of 186.7% not 7.7%
Bush II increased it by 76.7% not 19.8%
and Obama 95.3% not 43.3%
and by this article and the US Treasury site Bush II increased the debt by 101% not 76.7%
US Debt by President: By Dollar and Percent
Ronald Reagan: President Reagan increased the debt by 186 percent. Reaganomics added $1.86 trillion. Reagan's brand of supply-side economics didn't grow the economy enough to offset the lost revenue from its tax cuts. That was partly because Reagan increased the defense budget by 35 percent.
George W. Bush: President Bush added $5.849 trillion, the second-greatest dollar amount. It was the fourth-largest percentage increase. Bush increased the debt by 101 percent from where it started at $5.8 trillion on September 30, 2001. That's the end of FY 2001, which was President Clinton's last budget.

Debt to the Penny (Daily History Search Application)

Now according to what way you want to credit a President for his amount of the debt, by the day he took office or by His first day of his first fiscal year
any way on Jan 20, 2001 the debt was 5,727,776,738,304 and on Jan 20 2009 it was 10,626,877,048,913.08 an increase of 4,899,100,310,609
But if you take it from the first day of his first fiscal year it was ( 10/01/2001 ) 5,807,463,412,200.06 and on 10/01/2009 it was 11,920,519,164,319.42

an increase of 6,113,055,752,119.36
that is over 101% increase
Fact is there have only been two Presidents in the last 50 years to double the debt
Reagan almost tripled it and Bush II doubled it.

The Republican lie that Obama doubled it ( some say tripled it ) is just that a lie.
he did add the largest dollar amount but not the largest percentage amount
have a nice day

Click to expand...

I didn't invent the numbers. I just reported them.

marke said:

The debt was not reduced under Clinton.

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You've been watching too much FOX News. Any way they try to cook-the-books, the debt was slightly reduced. It would have continued that reduction, if GW Bush hadn't immediately reversed the sound fiscal policy.

The Budget and Deficit Under Clinton - FactCheck.org

But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.
...
The debt the government owes to the public decreased for a while under Clinton, but the debt was by no means erased.
...
Other readers have noted a USA Today story stating that, under an alternative type of accounting, the final four years of the Clinton administration taken together would have shown a deficit. This is based on an annual document called the "Financial Report of the U.S. Government," which reports what the governments books would look like if kept on an accrual basis like those of most corporations, rather than the cash basis that the government has always used. The principal difference is that under accrual accounting the government would book immediately the costs of promises made to pay future benefits to government workers and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. But even under accrual accounting, the annual reports showed surpluses of $69.2 billion in fiscal 1998, $76.9 billion in fiscal 1999, and $46 billion for fiscal year 2000. So even if the government had been using that form of accounting the deficit would have been erased for those three years.

Media_Truth said:

You've been watching too much FOX News. Any way they try to cook-the-books, the debt was slightly reduced. It would have continued that reduction, if GW Bush hadn't immediately reversed the sound fiscal policy.

The Budget and Deficit Under Clinton - FactCheck.org

But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.
...
The debt the government owes to the public decreased for a while under Clinton, but the debt was by no means erased.
...
Other readers have noted a USA Today story stating that, under an alternative type of accounting, the final four years of the Clinton administration taken together would have shown a deficit. This is based on an annual document called the "Financial Report of the U.S. Government," which reports what the governments books would look like if kept on an accrual basis like those of most corporations, rather than the cash basis that the government has always used. The principal difference is that under accrual accounting the government would book immediately the costs of promises made to pay future benefits to government workers and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. But even under accrual accounting, the annual reports showed surpluses of $69.2 billion in fiscal 1998, $76.9 billion in fiscal 1999, and $46 billion for fiscal year 2000. So even if the government had been using that form of accounting the deficit would have been erased for those three years.

Click to expand...

What is the narrow box you are referring to as "the debt the government owes to the public?" So now you claim Clinton lowered the debt so long as you only include certain items in the term "debt?"

There is a national debt clock, but that clock does not include the tiotal US debt either, which is far worse than is commonly reported. Some conservative estimates claim the unfunded liabilities and other government liabilities mean the US debt is closer to $100 trillion than it is to $22 trillion, but what can we know for sure if our fiscal leaders lie to us for their own good?

marke said:

What is the narrow box you are referring to as "the debt the government owes to the public?" So now you claim Clinton lowered the debt so long as you only include certain items in the term "debt?"

There is a national debt clock, but that clock does not include the tiotal US debt either, which is far worse than is commonly reported. Some conservative estimates claim the unfunded liabilities and other government liabilities mean the US debt is closer to $100 trillion than it is to $22 trillion, but what can we know for sure if our fiscal leaders lie to us for their own good?

Click to expand...

Why do you Republicans lie about facts? I even acknowledge the bipartisan methods that Clinton and Gore used to balance the budget. You just can't stand the FACTS - that all Republican presidents are skyrocketing the deficit, and the DEMs are the fiscal Party of responsiblity.

marke said:

I didn't invent the numbers. I just reported them.

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You reported them incorrectly. End of term % of total debt works backwards from the end. It doesn't really tell us much as the debt accumulated at the end, e.g. Obama and Trump, are composed of more inflated dollars. One trillion dollars in 2019 has way less value than one trillion dollars in 1969.

Media_Truth said:

You've been watching too much FOX News. Any way they try to cook-the-books, the debt was slightly reduced. It would have continued that reduction, if GW Bush hadn't immediately reversed the sound fiscal policy.

The Budget and Deficit Under Clinton - FactCheck.org

But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.
...
The debt the government owes to the public decreased for a while under Clinton, but the debt was by no means erased.
...
Other readers have noted a USA Today story stating that, under an alternative type of accounting, the final four years of the Clinton administration taken together would have shown a deficit. This is based on an annual document called the "Financial Report of the U.S. Government," which reports what the governments books would look like if kept on an accrual basis like those of most corporations, rather than the cash basis that the government has always used. The principal difference is that under accrual accounting the government would book immediately the costs of promises made to pay future benefits to government workers and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. But even under accrual accounting, the annual reports showed surpluses of $69.2 billion in fiscal 1998, $76.9 billion in fiscal 1999, and $46 billion for fiscal year 2000. So even if the government had been using that form of accounting the deficit would have been erased for those three years.

Click to expand...

There are two parts to the deficit and debt PUBLIC and INTER-GOVERNMENT HOLDINGS. When you take money out of SS and Medicare and apply it to the budget you make the budget deficit look better but that creates a deficit in long term liabilities, SS and Medicare thus still increasing the debt. Keep making that mistake over and over again, Clinton added 1.4 trillion to the debt

MTAtech said:

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.



The rest is unsubstantiated right-wing folk-law. Newt Gingrich didn't want any tax-increases, which were responsible for balancing the budget.

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Clinton and the DNC had complete control of both houses of Congress when he first came to office. So while you are correct he couldn't do it unilaterally, at the time he entered office there was no bilateral control. The Dems unilaterally passed a retroactive tax increase. Essentially you are arguing semantics here. Clinton was able to get whatever he wanted at that time... until 1994.

As to the rest of it being "right-wing-folk-law" (sic) you couldn't be more ill-informed. "Triangulation" is now a well known political strategy and studied in the political science curriculum. Stephanopoulos and Dick Morris are hardly right-wing and Clinton himself has written on the political strategy utilized during this time. So it is hardly folk-lore. Tax increases did not occur under the Republican controlled government from 1994-1998. Taxes were reduced and spending was held fixed. The Gingrich government balanced the budget (not really balanced if you include SS) by holding spending fixed, growing the economy, and slowly eroding away the deficit by 1998 with increased revenues and low levels of inflation.

For those unaware, Dick Morris' Triangulation theory went something like this. Clinton had lost control of both houses of Congress in the 1994 midterm. The Republicans have a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress. Quoting Clinton to Morris, "I haven't accomplished anything in my first 2 years in office and now I won't have the ability to do anything during the next 2 years of my first term. My popularity is at an all time low. I am a 1 term president". Morris reported Clinton was literally in tears and inconsolable after the 1994 bloodbath. Dick Morris told him, "I can't tell you I can get you reelected in 1996 if you let me run things. But I can guarantee you won't get reelected if you don't do what I tell you." Clinton agreed to let Dick Morris take the reigns for the next 2 years.

Morris' strategy was brilliant. Nothing Clinton did would matter. The Republicans could pass any legislation (contract with America) they wanted regardless of Clinton's objections. So if the Republicans are going to get what they want anyway, why not just go along with whatever they do. Not only that, get out in front of the GOP legislation and claim it as your own. If the GOP wants tax cuts, make speech after speech about how much Clinton wants tax cuts. GOP decides to cut spending publicly declare spending cuts are what Clinton wants. He even came out in front of converting Welfare to Work-fare (a cornerstone of the Democratic platform). He went even further. When the GOP pushed through the eradication of affirmative action Clinton came out in front of it claiming it as his own. Jesse Jackson was so angry about this double-cross the secret service had to restrain him for fear he was going to punch him out in the oval office when informed. Jesse Jackson was largely responsible for getting him elected in 1992 and rightly felt used.

The result was whoever the GOP nominated in 1996 wouldn't have anything to run on. When Bob Dole ran on cutting taxes in 1996 Clinton was able to say, I've already done that. When Dole ran on cutting spending and welfare, Clinton was able to claim I already did that. On issue after issue Clinton was able to take the credit. He literally became a conservative for 2 years. Of course Clinton became very unpopular among Democrats in Congress and the Democrat voters at this time. They considered Clinton a traitor. But Morris knew they would still vote for him in 1996. Who else were they going to vote for, Bob Dole? Dick Morris was calling him daily to tell him what to do. It was brilliant. The result was victory in 1996 for Clinton who got a large number of independent and cross-over voters. The Democratic voters were quite upset and had a low turnout. But it was enough to get Clinton reelected. The Dems in Congress took a beating in 1996 though. It wasn't until 1998 that Clinton was able to get substantial DNC support in Congress by taking credit for balancing the budget. As a lame duck and with all the scandals Clinton was largely prevented from having much impact during his final 2 years.

Incidentally, immediately following the 1996 election in which Morris' strategy had proved so successful, Clinton turned on Dick Morris and exposed him for releasing classified information. Morris had been visiting high priced Washington prostitutes between 1994 and 1996. In order to impress them he would call B. Clinton on his personal line and tell him things like, "Tomorrow I want you to bomb Kosovo." The next day when the news reported Clinton had indeed bombed Kosovo Morris felt he could impress his hookers (is it really necessary to impress hookers beyond paying them? lol). Anyway, when it became public Morris had been seeing prostitutes his marriage was ruined and he went through a very bad divorce. He never forgave Clinton for ruining his marriage. In 1996 Clinton took back the reigns of the Presidency from Morris.

The national debt is not simply the sum of all the deficits of the preceding years. It also takes into account the unfunded liabilities going forwards of promises the government has made. For example the promises implicit in Social Security and Medicare for the Baby Boomer population which are reaching the age of eligibility at the rate of about ten thousand new recipients each day! which will continue over the next ten or twelve or more years. Boston economist Lawrence Kotlikoff estimates the amount added to the federal budgets over those years to be $256 trillion dollars.

Of course that cannot be paid as is. The Congress can raise taxes, lower the payments to recipients and to doctors and hospitals, raise the age of eligibility and just let the Federal Reserve create more paper money by printing it causing a hyperinflation in the process.

The Libertarians would let younger people opt out of both systems, save money for themselves for retirement and ultimately repeal social security and medicare which are socialist schemes not authorized in our Constitution to begin with.

Not to mention to abolish the unconstitutional Federal Reserve system and restore Constitutional Money see Article 1 Section 10.

NeverTrump said:

Republicans do not care about the debt. They were just waiting for an insecure hypocritical asshole who could tell them it's OK to be insecure hypocritical assholes in public. That's why they are sticking w/Trump.

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Since when did dozens of $trillions$ in new wasteful government spending worry democrats?

SmartCat said:

MarketWatch Feb 9, 2018

What to do about all this debt? The fact is even if he cares, and I don't think he does, Trump hasn't a clue. He actually said back in 2016 that he could wipe out the debt simply by negotiating better trade deals. Here's an excerpt from a March 31, 2016 interview with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post:

Woodward: "Would you ever be open to tax increases as part of that, to solve the problem?"

Trump: "I don't think I'll need to. The power is trade. Our deals are so bad."

Woodward: "That would be $2 trillion a year."

Trump: "No, but I'm renegotiating all of our deals, Bob. The big trade deals that we're doing so badly on. With China, $505 billion this year in trade. We're losing with everybody."

It's impossible to overstate Trump's fiscal and economic ignorance here. The trade deficit with China when Trump spoke with Woodward was $366 billion, and the entire U.S. trade deficit with all countries, was $531 billion, according to Census Bureau data. That's a drop in the bucket compared to $20 trillion.

This was Trump’s craziest promise yet - MarketWatch

------------

Aol Jul 27th 2019

Once President Trump signs the budget deal that was passed by the House on Thursday and is expected to be approved by the Senate in a few days, he will have added $4.1 trillion to the national debt, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The total national debt surpassed $22 trillion in February...

U.S. GDP growth fell to 2.1% in the second quarter.

Trump adds $4.1 trillion to national debt. Here's where the money went - AOL Finance

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Please name one liberal that would have paid the debt off in two years.

President Trump did not realize how intensely the corporate super rich of the world are out to break the USA for a total world takeover including using the MSM, press and Internet they now completely control, nor how traitorous the Democratic Party would be against the USA.

Moderate Right said:

Please name one liberal that would have paid the debt off in two years.

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None said they could.

Trump's claim that he could pay off the national debt in two terms with better trade deals was either a preposterous lie, or evidence of his preposterous ignorance of economic realities.

joko104 said:

President Trump did not realize how intensely the corporate super rich of the world are out to break the USA for a total world takeover including using the MSM, press and Internet they now completely control, nor how traitorous the Democratic Party would be against the USA.

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Either you are being facetious, or you are giving Trump undeserved credit.

SmartCat said:

None said they could.

Trump's claim that he could pay off the national debt in two terms with better trade deals was either a preposterous lie, or evidence of his preposterous ignorance of economic realities.

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You can't criticize someone for not being able to pay off the debt in two years when you have no one who would have paid off the debt in two years. Hell, Democrats want reparations for slave descendants, MFA, the forgiving of student loans, free college, and want to spend 93 trillion dollars on the Green New Deal, saying that is only just the beginning. So don't go whining about Trump not being able to pay off the debt in two years.

Moderate Right said:

You can't criticize someone for not being able to pay off the debt in two years when you have no one who would have paid off the debt in two years. Hell, Democrats want reparations for slave descendants, MFA, the forgiving of student loans, free college, and want to spend 93 trillion dollars on the Green New Deal, saying that is only just the beginning. So don't go whining about Trump not being able to pay off the debt in two years.

Click to expand...

He was the one who promised to pay off the debt. He had control of both houses, and he didn't do jack.

Moderate Right said:

You can't criticize someone for not being able to pay off the debt in two years when you have no one who would have paid off the debt in two years. Hell, Democrats want reparations for slave descendants, MFA, the forgiving of student loans, free college, and want to spend 93 trillion dollars on the Green New Deal, saying that is only just the beginning. So don't go whining about Trump not being able to pay off the debt in two years.

Click to expand...

You're changing the subject. Trump is a flagrant liar and he is dangerously delusional.