Governance 101: Bad Economy - Deficit Spending. Good Economy - Pay Down The Debt.

Hi Jack,

Jack said:
The 'Rich' control the Government, so that is unlikely to happen.
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That is true but it doesn't mean it is impossible. Sure, it's a long shot, but sometimes long shots hit their target.

How do the rich control the government? They use big money, of course. What does that money do? In most cases, it is used for PR to convince the voters to align with what the rich want. It's either direct PR, or it's donated to a campaign which uses it for that.

What if the voters were better educated? What if the BS sound byte PR campaigns didn't work as well because the populace was already too well informed to fall for it?

If that happened, in large enough numbers, then the voters would vote in opposition to what the rich want. The rich could still spend all the money they want on PR, and even on campaign contributions, but if the votes weren't there, then suddenly all that money becomes powerless because the power of greater volume of opposition votes would exceed the power of big money. That happened to the Koch brothers in 2012. They tried really hard to prevent Obama from getting reelected. Spent millions on it. And lost it all without getting what they wanted.

Like I said it is a long shot. But it can happen.

And what else do we have?

We just have to talk it up, explain the truth to people, get them enthused enough to go out and do the same thing with others, and then it becomes self-replicating. It could happen. We have to keep trying. One thing is for sure. If we don't try it definitely won't happen.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hi Jack,



That is true but it doesn't mean it is impossible. Sure, it's a long shot, but sometimes long shots hit their target.

How do the rich control the government? They use big money, of course. What does that money do? In most cases, it is used for PR to convince the voters to align with what the rich want. It's either direct PR, or it's donated to a campaign which uses it for that.

What if the voters were better educated? What if the BS sound byte PR campaigns didn't work as well because the populace was already too well informed to fall for it?

If that happened, in large enough numbers, then the voters would vote in opposition to what the rich want. The rich could still spend all the money they want on PR, and even on campaign contributions, but if the votes weren't there, then suddenly all that money becomes powerless because the power of greater volume of opposition votes would exceed the power of big money. That happened to the Koch brothers in 2012. They tried really hard to prevent Obama from getting reelected. Spent millions on it. And lost it all without getting what they wanted.

Like I said it is a long shot. But it can happen.

And what else do we have?

We just have to talk it up, explain the truth to people, get them enthused enough to go out and do the same thing with others, and then it becomes self-replicating. It could happen. We have to keep trying. One thing is for sure. If we don't try it definitely won't happen.
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:thumbsup:
 
Hello evince,

evince said:
I have asked the right for years what level of debt is acceptable

THEY HAVE NEVER ASWERED ME

that one question kills their debate
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Even if one person from the right chooses to answer that question, that doesn't mean 'the right' has.

'The right' is not a person. It is merely a group of people who support similar positions. Just because people share a political position does not mean they think alike, or that one of them can speak for the others.

Stereotyping is a mistake. People are individuals.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello evince,



Even if one person from the right chooses to answer that question, that doesn't mean 'the right' has.

'The right' is not a person. It is merely a group of people who support similar positions. Just because people share a political position does not mean they think alike, or that one of them can speak for the others.

Stereotyping is a mistake. People are individuals.
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there are more than one person here who supports the republican partys take on the economy


in the entire time I have been on the internets, at all the sites I have been on


NOT ONE PERSON was willing to give me a level of debt that is acceptable to them



no one on the right KNOWS enough about the reality of the economy and debt to answer that question


what you seem to be claiming is it is useless to discuss anything with them here because they are meaningless


how so?
 
evince said:
there are more than one person here who supports the republican partys take on the economy


in the entire time I have been on the internets, at all the sites I have been on


NOT ONE PERSON was willing to give me a level of debt that is acceptable to them



no one on the right KNOWS enough about the reality of the economy and debt to answer that question


what you seem to be claiming is it is useless to discuss anything with them here because they are meaningless


how so?
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I don't 'seem to be claiming' anything. I said what I said.

Stereotyping is wrong. It will mess up critical thinking every time.

You have to let people be individuals.

You can't have a conversation with 'the right,' because 'the right' is not a person.

To pretend that a group of people should act as an individual is ridiculous.

Logical rational thinking and accurate assessment of a situation does not involve emotion.

Hatred has no place in logical thinking or forming a realistic political view. It poisons it.
 
Our debt/GDP ratio is too high.

We need to collect more taxes and it has to come from the rich.

America can only be great if we tax the rich more.

Trump's inability to balance the budget like President Clinton did makes Trump bad for America.
 
PoliTalker said:
I don't 'seem to be claiming' anything. I said what I said.

Stereotyping is wrong. It will mess up critical thinking every time.

You have to let people be individuals.

You can't have a conversation with 'the right,' because 'the right' is not a person.

To pretend that a group of people should act as an individual is ridiculous.

Logical rational thinking and accurate assessment of a situation does not involve emotion.

Hatred has no place in logical thinking or forming a realistic political view. It poisons it.
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of all the right leanin g posters I have met in over a decade of posting


NOT ONE would give me a level of debt that their party would accept


that is a lot of republicans
 
evince said:
of all the right leanin g posters I have met in over a decade of posting


NOT ONE would give me a level of debt that their party would accept


that is a lot of republicans
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What percentage of right leaning posters in this entire nation do you believe you have personally queried?
 
PoliTalker said:
During a recession (and a recovery from one) deficit spending must be accepted in order to stimulate the economy. We don't like to do this, but we really have no choice. If we don't stimulate the economy, we don't get a recovery and the debt grows anyway. During a recession we have to prime the pump. We have to invest in America so we get the ROI of a good economy later.

This runs the debt up.

So we have to pay it down when the economy is good.

Deficit spending during a good economy is irresponsible. It is not needed, and that is the only condition which allows the debt generated by a recession to be paid back down.

Republicans need to take "Governance 101."

PoliTalker anti-troll thread thief disclaimer: If this thread is stolen, plagiarized, will the thief have the nerve to use the entire OP, word for word? Including this disclaimer? If you want my take on it, you'll have to post to this original PoliTalker thread. I refuse to be an enabler for online bullies, so I won't post to a stolen thread. I won't even read it. If you don't see me, PoliTalker, posting in this thread check the author. This might be a hijacked thread, not the original.
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Agreed. Unfortunately, we would be doing well to just reduce the deficit.

We never pay down any debt. When the debt comes due we just pay it through additional borrowing. Even when we had a balanced budget under Clinton the debt continued to increase.
 
Hello Flash,

Flash said:
Agreed. Unfortunately, we would be doing well to just reduce the deficit.

We never pay down any debt. When the debt comes due we just pay it through additional borrowing. Even when we had a balanced budget under Clinton the debt continued to increase.
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It seems to me that conservatives always want to do the exact opposite of what is needed, and do it at the wrong times. Back when we had to stimulate the economy to get out of the Great Recession, conservatives did not want to spend the money for the stimulus because they claimed it would run the debt up. Now that the economy is doing better and it's time to pay the debt back down, they take over and claim it's more important to have a big tax cut for the rich and less important to worry about paying the debt back down. I can't imagine how they ever expect to pay it down if they don't want to do it while we have the chance, while we have the strong economy that can do it.

We actually did pay the debt down for a little while under Bill Clinton, but it's true that we almost never do that. And actually, that can be OK as long as the economy grows faster than the debt. That has not been happening (debt/GDP ratio is 105%) because, as you say, the deficit between the expenditures and the revenue is too high. The spending is the spending. Talk is cheap but nobody has or can put forward a realistic plan to cut spending. That's about as easy as paying down the debt: nearly impossible! We are not cutting spending, so we need more revenue. Since we are not cutting spending, we cannot be cutting taxes. That tax cut for the rich was irresponsible.

We have no other choice but to raise taxes on the rich to reduce the deficit.

As long as we get the deficit real low, and the economy continues to do well, we can reduce the debt/GDP ratio. The debt/GDP ratio is like the indicator of how strong the financial position of the nation is. The higher the debt/GDP ratio, the weaker our financial position is, the less secure our economy is. We want a low debt/GDP ratio. Right now it is over 100%. That means we owe more than all the productivity the entire nation generates in one year. That's bad.

That's the most important thing to understand. We have to reduce the debt to GDP ratio to make America great again, to make America strong again. Trump is making us weaker.

If we don't do that we are fooling ourselves. It's either do that, or watch American strength slip away. And if people don't trust America to be financially responsible, they stop investing in America, stop buying US Bonds. If that happens, we are screwed. That's our operating money. That's where we borrow from to run our country. No borrowing? We go bankrupt. We operate on borrowed money.
 
PoliTalker said:
As long as we get the deficit real low, and the economy continues to do well, we can reduce the debt/GDP ratio. The debt/GDP ratio is like the indicator of how strong the financial position of the nation is. The higher the debt/GDP ratio, the weaker our financial position is, the less secure our economy is. We want a low debt/GDP ratio. Right now it is over 100%. That means we owe more than all the productivity the entire nation generates in one year. That's bad.
Click to expand...

Some economic studies have actually determined (although I'm sure there is not universal agreement) on the debt/GDP ratio that is reached when economic growth begins to decline. I can't remember the exact figure but I'm sure it is less than 100%.

I'm not sure how we paid down some of the debt under Clinton since the debt actually increased each year:



Bill Clinton: Added $1.396 trillion, a 32 percent increase from the $4.4 trillion debt at the end of George H.W. Bush's last budget, FY 1993.

FY 2001 - $133 billion.
FY 2000 - $18 billion.
FY 1999 - $130 billion.
FY 1998 - $113 billion.
FY 1997 - $188 billion.
FY 1996 - $251 billion.
FY 1995 - $281 billion.
FY 1994 - $281 billion.

https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent-3306296
 
Nordberg said:
the Repubs are well aware of that. But their goal is to increase the debt. That includes constant tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy and cranking up the defense budget. The reds give lip service to the debt, but govern to increase it. They talk about starving the beast and ending social programs. They never waver from that goal.
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The repukes will once again send the country into a recession...and then blame the democrats for it. Remember how the repukes blamed President Obama for the recession that dubya caused? They bitched and moaned on President Obama's inauguration day that he hadn't fixed the fucking mess that dubya and the repukes caused. And instead of helping the President fix the problem, they spent EVERY FUCKING DAY attacking him, opposing him and disrespecting him. And now here we have a fucking corrupt lying piece of shit and the republicans are just clapping and giving him standing ovations every time he fucking farts.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Jack,



Ain't the truth. I contacted my representative to let him know exactly that. If there is any new spending on border security then taxes must be raised to pay for it. And the rich can afford it so raise their taxes.
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Raise the taxes on the people who want the wall. I am sure the trumptards who receive food stamps will be happy to starve to death as long as they get their fucking wall.
 
Hello Flash,

Flash said:
Some economic studies have actually determined (although I'm sure there is not universal agreement) on the debt/GDP ratio that is reached when economic growth begins to decline. I can't remember the exact figure but I'm sure it is less than 100%.

I'm not sure how we paid down some of the debt under Clinton since the debt actually increased each year:



Bill Clinton: Added $1.396 trillion, a 32 percent increase from the $4.4 trillion debt at the end of George H.W. Bush's last budget, FY 1993.

FY 2001 - $133 billion.
FY 2000 - $18 billion.
FY 1999 - $130 billion.
FY 1998 - $113 billion.
FY 1997 - $188 billion.
FY 1996 - $251 billion.
FY 1995 - $281 billion.
FY 1994 - $281 billion.

https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent-3306296
Click to expand...

I can understand why there is some confusion here. I do not understand why it is not listed on the page you visited, but the same website shows that Clinton balanced the budget and produced a budget SURPLUS:

"William Jefferson Clinton was the 42nd U.S. president, serving from 1993 to 2001. He was the first Democratic president to win re-election since Franklin Roosevelt. Clinton is the most admired president in the past 25 years. Why is he so popular, despite being impeached? Primarily because his economic policies created a decade of prosperity. During his presidency:

More than 18.6 million new jobs were created, more than any other president.
Unemployment dropped from 7.5 percent to 4 percent.
Home ownership was 67.7 percent, the highest rate ever recorded.
The budget deficit dropped from $290 billion to a budget surplus of $128 billion."

The Balance
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Flash,

I can understand why there is some confusion here. I do not understand why it is not listed on the page you visited, but the same website shows that Clinton balanced the budget and produced a budget SURPLUS:
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Yes, he did have a surplus, but the debt continues grow. I think the explanation is the difference between government held debt (like the Social Security surplus) and publicly held debt. If the money in the government held debt increases (the Social Security trust fund buys additional securities with its surplus) that increases the government held debt which might exceed the surplus in the publicly held debt.
 
The debt doesn't have to be paid down as long as the economy grows faster than the debt.

It is true some debt can be a good thing. Our nation takes advantage of that, as most nations do.

The economy is measured by the GDP.

That's why we look at the Debt/GDP ratio. And we like to keep that low. A low Debt/GDP ratio means we have a strong economy and a secure nation that people feel comfortable investing in. When people stop feeling comfortable investing in your nation, your economy is screwed.

The federal budget deficit (what we simply call 'the deficit,') is the difference between the spending and the revenue.

As long as the economy is growing and we keep the deficit low enough, we are reducing the Debt/GDP ratio.

We should be able to do that during a strong economy.

If we can't, we are on the road to ruin.

And that is the road Trump is driving us down right now.

We have to get rid of Trump and get somebody responsible, who will know to keep the deficit low during a good economy, and only let it rise during a recession or other temporary emergency.

Trump is using 'emergency spending' to prop up the economy to make everybody think he is this great business leader.

But it's all false and it will collapse unless we get responsible.

President Trump is irresponsible with debt.

So maybe Governance 101 should be more like:

Bad economy: Let the deficit rise because of government assistance and stimulus acts, if needed.

Good economy: Keep the deficit low.
 
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