Do we care about budget deficits / national debt anymore?

[RunInRed 16,370]

OR was that just when Obama was in charge?  Thanks, I'll hang up and listen ...
 

Quote

The era of trillion-dollar budget deficits is about to make a comeback — and a brewing budget deal could mean their return comes just next year. Talks on a budget-busting spending pact that would give whopping increases to both the Pentagon and domestic programs have been inching closer to an agreement, aides and lawmakers said.

Details are closely held and subject to change. But at issue is a two-year deal to increase crunching caps on spending set by a failed 2011 budget deal. Republicans have pushed for defense increases in the neighborhood of $80 billion a year and have offered Democrats nearly as much — $60 billion or so per year — for nondefense programs.

Add in $80 billion to $90 billion worth of hurricane aid for Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, health care funding and money for President Donald Trump's border security plan, and the final tally could total close to $400 billion. The potential cost, over the 2018-19 budget years, would rival the deficit impact of last year's tax measure over that period.

"Republicans for years have made all of these bold promises to rein in spending," said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Manhattan Institute. "And they're doing the opposite."

This year's looming deal is too big, however, to be fully offset with easy cuts elsewhere so Capitol Hill leaders would simply be adding much of its costs straight to the $20.6 trillion national debt.

In the wake of last year's tax bill, the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit for 2018 will hit about $700 billion — before any fresh increase. Next year's deficit is already estimated to reach $975 billion, so the brewing agreement would mean the first $1 trillion-plus deficit since Obama's first term.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/era-trillion-dollar-budget-deficits-054437221.html

 

[AUDub 11,137]

Give it another 3 years and it will be important again for some reason.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

1 hour ago, RunInRed said:

OR was that just when Obama was in charge?  Thanks, I'll hang up and listen ...
 

 

Rs are usually no better than the Dems in this regard. They all like to spend our money. But Obama was a champ.......added more than all the previous Presidents combined. Hope Trump don't break that record.

[homersapien 11,357]

9 minutes ago, Proud Tiger said:

Rs are usually no better than the Dems in this regard. They all like to spend our money. But Obama was a champ.......added more than all the previous Presidents combined. Hope Trump don't break that record.

Obama did what he had to do to address the economic conditions he inherited.  Republicans run up deficits for no good reason. 

[Grumps 3,704]

I thought is was stupid when the dems said that increasing the debt was a good thing. I think it is stupid if the repubs thing that increasing the dept is a good thing. I am somewhat consistent in my views. Do the dems still think that more debt is good now that it is the other party who is increasing the debt?

[Grumps 3,704]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Obama did what he had to do to address the economic conditions he inherited.  Republicans run up deficits for no good reason. 

Awesome! I don't think you believe what you posted. Would you say that the stimulus and all those shovel ready jobs did what they were supposed to do?

[RunInRed 16,370]

6 minutes ago, Grumps said:

I thought is was stupid when the dems said that increasing the debt was a good thing. I think it is stupid if the repubs thing that increasing the dept is a good thing. I am somewhat consistent in my views. Do the dems still think that more debt is good now that it is the other party who is increasing the debt?

The deficit was working its way back down under Obama ... what’s being enacted (tax cuts), proposed (spending) now is the complete opposite direction.

[WDavE 332]

11 minutes ago, RunInRed said:

The deficit was working its way back down under Obama ... what’s being enacted (tax cuts), proposed (spending) now is the complete opposite direction.

Not quite true...

 

• FY 2009 - Even though the budget had been approved, Congress added emergency funding to stop the Great Recession. It added the first year's worth of spending from Obama's Economic Stimulus Act to the FY 2009 budget. That $253 billion accrues to Obama.
• FY 2010 - Obama's first budget created a $1.294 trillion deficit.
• FY 2011 - This budget contributed $1.3 trillion to the debt.
• FY 2012 - The deficit was $1.087 trillion. 
• FY 2013 - This was the first Obama budget where the deficit, $679 billion, was less than $1 trillion. Thank sequestration, which forced a 10 percent cut in spending.
• FY 2014 - The deficit was $485 billion.
• FY 2015 - The deficit fell further, to $438 billion.
• FY 2016 - The deficit rose to $585 billion
• FY 2017 - The deficit is projected to be $666 billion.

[RunInRed 16,370]

So a $1T deficit is being projected for 2018 ... you cool with that?

[AUDub 11,137]

35 minutes ago, WDavE said:

Not quite true...

 

• FY 2009 - Even though the budget had been approved, Congress added emergency funding to stop the Great Recession. It added the first year's worth of spending from Obama's Economic Stimulus Act to the FY 2009 budget. That $253 billion accrues to Obama.
• FY 2010 - Obama's first budget created a $1.294 trillion deficit.
• FY 2011 - This budget contributed $1.3 trillion to the debt.
• FY 2012 - The deficit was $1.087 trillion. 
• FY 2013 - This was the first Obama budget where the deficit, $679 billion, was less than $1 trillion. Thank sequestration, which forced a 10 percent cut in spending.
• FY 2014 - The deficit was $485 billion.
• FY 2015 - The deficit fell further, to $438 billion.
• FY 2016 - The deficit rose to $585 billion
• FY 2017 - The deficit is projected to be $666 billion.

It's a small sample and there's some noise in there, but there's an easily discernible trend down. 

[homersapien 11,357]

8 hours ago, Grumps said:

I thought is was stupid when the dems said that increasing the debt was a good thing. I think it is stupid if the repubs thing that increasing the dept is a good thing. I am somewhat consistent in my views. Do the dems still think that more debt is good now that it is the other party who is increasing the debt?

I don't recall anyone saying increasing the debt is a good thing in general.  It can certainly be the right thing to do in certain specific circumstances.

I do remember Dick Cheney saying the "deficits don't matter".  I suppose there's an argument that can be made for that, as long as the dollar is the world's reserve currency and you can print more at will.

[homersapien 11,357]

1 hour ago, Grumps said:

Awesome! I don't think you believe what you posted. Would you say that the stimulus and all those shovel ready jobs did what they were supposed to do?

Only partly.  The stimulus halted and reversed the collapse.

Unfortunately, the infrastructure investments didn't happen - along with a few other things like throwing some bankers in prison.

[DKW 86 7,419]

This is why I quit seeing any real difference in the parties. The Reps just talk about being fiscally Conservative. All they do is TALK about it.

This is one of many reasons I wont ever support the Rep Party. This is just plain and simple 30 years of talk..nothing more. They did not mean a word of it. And when as said above, they suddenly talk about being fiscally conservative again...in 2020..it will mean nothing then as well.

[RunInRed 16,370]

Both parties like to spend our money (plus a lot they borrow from the Chinese on our behalf), albeit on different things.

[RunInRed 16,370]

If only it wasn't all so predictable ...

Quote

The ballooning federal budget deficit under President Donald Trump will force the U.S. to borrow more than $1 trillion this year and risks worsening the frenzy behind the global sell-off in stock markets.

The budget deal Senate leaders reached late Wednesday would add nearly $300 billion in government spending over two years and push the deficit higher. Even beforehand, Bank of America Corp. senior U.S. economist Joseph Song warned in a report that the federal deficit was on track to exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product by 2019, by far the largest for the economy while at full employment since World War II.

That is “exactly the opposite of what the economic textbooks say lawmakers should be doing,” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics Inc., said in an email. “Deficit financed tax cuts and spending increases in a full-employment economy will result in more Fed tightening and higher interest rates.”

The combined impact on the deficit of the Republican tax cuts and the spending deal over the next two years will likely exceed the $580 billion President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus added in 2009 and 2010 during the depths of the recession.

...

“An increase in debt instruments, people dumping bonds and concerns about higher inflation -- that is a toxic combination,” said Alexis Crow, head of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s geopolitical investing group in New York. “Since the crisis, debt has not disappeared. It’s an unsustainable situation.”

...

“Some participants that I’ve talked to have said, look, you know, they’re suddenly realizing that Treasury is going to be doubling the amount of debt issuance,” Patrick Harker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, told reporters Thursday. “I think that was not fully baked into some people’s thinking.” [ya think?!]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-08/trump-s-soaring-budget-deficit-risks-intensifying-market-frenzy

[RunInRed 16,370]

Wasn't trump supposed to erase the debt in 8 years? 

[RunInRed 16,370]

Budget Deficit now projected to soar to $1.2 Trillion in FY 2019.  

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-08/bipartisan-budget-deal-sets-stage-for-rising-deficits-cbo-shows

[homersapien 11,357]

4 hours ago, RunInRed said:

Budget Deficit now projected to soar to $1.2 Trillion in FY 2019.  

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-08/bipartisan-budget-deal-sets-stage-for-rising-deficits-cbo-shows

You are correct.  It was predictable.  He's running the country like he ran his business.  No surprise here.

[DKW 86 7,419]

Rand Paul on Spending: "When Republicans Are In Power, There Is No Conservative Party"

[DKW 86 7,419]

84% ^^^ in borrowing from last year. It was bad last year, now it is horrible. If you support the Rep Party, just shut up about the Deficit. Just sthu.

It is just talk, lies, bs... The Republican Party does not and never has cared one bit about the debt.

 

[TexasTiger 12,828]

On 2/8/2018 at 3:28 PM, RunInRed said:

Wasn't trump supposed to erase the debt in 8 years? 

The plan is to default.

[TexasTiger 12,828]

On 2/5/2018 at 10:19 PM, DKW 86 said:

This is why I quit seeing any real difference in the parties. The Reps just talk about being fiscally Conservative. All they do is TALK about it.

This is one of many reasons I wont ever support the Rep Party. This is just plain and simple 30 years of talk..nothing more. They did not mean a word of it. And when as said above, they suddenly talk about being fiscally conservative again...in 2020..it will mean nothing then as well.

They will oppose spending people want— like Medicare and social security.

[DKW 86 7,419]

2 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

The plan is to default.

It is. We are going to default at some point down the road. I know people think we cant. It will be just too easy for the govt to do it.  When you see Wall Street start selling off T-Notes etc, watch it, we will default. It may be some kind of convoluted partial default or whatever, but there will be a write-off at some point.

2 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

They will oppose spending people want— like Medicare and social security.

I know. We need to fix the ACA/Medicare/SS  once and for all. It is the only way the American middle class will ever get the promises made to it fulfilled.

[TexasTiger 12,828]

27 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

It is. We are going to default at some point down the road. I know people think we cant. It will be just too easy for the govt to do it.  When you see Wall Street start selling off T-Notes etc, watch it, we will default. It may be some kind of convoluted partial default or whatever, but there will be a write-off at some point.

I know. We need to fix the ACA/Medicare/SS  once and for all. It is the only way the American middle class will ever get the promises made to it fulfilled.

They’ve broke the bank and will tell us we can’t afford these entitlement programs. Of course, we could fix SS by increasing the income levels the SS tax applies to.

[AUFAN78 3,892]

Reminders are good:

http://fortune.com/2017/01/20/barack-obama-donald-trump-country-moodys/