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POTUS Elect Trump II: We Are So Totally F%*#ed

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Drew S. said:
Would you not agree $500 billion dollars is a lot of money? You can justify it however you like, but it is still a frightening sum when there are no extraordinary items involved.
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It's a lot of money for you or me. It's not a lot of money for a country with a $17 trillion GDP.

It's the equivalent of someone making $100,000 incurring a deficit of about $3,000
 
Re: POTUS Elect Trump II: We Are So Totally F%*#ed

Drew S. said:
Would you not agree $500 billion dollars is a lot of money? You can justify it however you like, but it is still a frightening sum when there are no extraordinary items involved.
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This is the price of the Empire. The middle class subsidizes the coercive apparatus that ensures the economy which allows the rich to get richer while the middle class gets poorer. (The poor staff the apparatus and get killed like good feudal property.)

Looks good on you, though.
 
Re: POTUS Elect Trump II: We Are So Totally F%*#ed

There seems to be some denial of reality as far as which party actually makes an effort to control the deficit. Going back to St. Ronnie let's have a look at how the deficit has grown/shrunk under each President. See any trends?
Data from here All #s are change in debt year over year to avoid any accounting gimmicks used to manipulate the "deficit" #.

Code: 
Reagan Yr 1	144,179,000,000
Reagan Yr 2	235,176,000,000
Reagan Yr 3	195,056,000,000
Reagan Yr 4	250,837,000,000
Reagan Yr 5	302,199,616,658
Reagan Yr 6	224,974,274,295
Reagan Yr 7	252,060,821,088
Reagan Yr 8	255,093,248,146
Bush Sr Yr 1	375,882,491,590
Bush Sr Yr 2	431,989,899,920
Bush Sr Yr 3	399,317,303,825
Bush Sr Yr 4	346,868,227,618
Clinton Yr 1	281,261,026,874
Clinton Yr 2	281,232,990,696
Clinton Yr 3	250,828,038,426
Clinton Yr 4	188,335,072,262
Clinton Yr 5	113,046,997,500
Clinton Yr 6	130,077,892,718
Clinton Yr 7	17,907,308,271
Clinton Yr 8	133,285,202,313
W Bush Yr 1	420,772,553,397
W Bush Yr 2	554,995,097,146
W Bush Yr 3	595,821,633,587
W Bush Yr 4	553,656,965,393
W Bush Yr 5	574,264,237,492
W Bush Yr 6	500,679,473,047
W Bush Yr 7	1,017,071,524,650
W Bush Yr 8	1,885,104,106,599
Obama Yr 1	1,651,794,027,380
Obama Yr 2	1,228,717,297,665
Obama Yr 3	1,275,901,078,829
Obama Yr 4	671,942,119,312
Obama Yr 5	1,085,887,854,037
Obama Yr 6	326,546,285,751
 
unofan said:
It's a lot of money for you or me. It's not a lot of money for a country with a $17 trillion GDP.

It's the equivalent of someone making $100,000 incurring a deficit of about $3,000
Click to expand...

GDP isn't government revenue though. Even if I go along with your analogy it wouldn't make any sense for someone making $100K a year to run a $3K deficit when times are good. You need to be saving for a day when you lose your job, get sick, etc.
 
Drew S. said:
GDP isn't government revenue though. Even if I go along with your analogy it wouldn't make any sense for someone making $100K a year to run a $3K deficit when times are good. You need to be saving for a day when you lose your job, get sick, etc.
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That still doesn't make it a massive deficit or a frightening sum. Especially when the government is leaving a lot of money on the table by cutting taxes for no reason.

And "tax and spend" is more fiscally conservative than "borrow and spend."

But guns. And emails. And Benghazi. You're being played, and don't even realize it. That's what's disappointing.
 
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unofan said:
That still doesn't make it a massive deficit or a frightening sum. Especially when the government is leaving a lot of money on the table by cutting taxes for no reason.

And "tax and spend" is more fiscally conservative than "borrow and spend."

But guns. And emails. And Benghazi. You're being played, and don't even realize it. That's what's disappointing.
Click to expand...

I think you're missing the bigger picture. The last few years were a good chance to make up for the years when the economy sucked or we were at war. There is an opportunity cost that you are disregarding.
 
Re: POTUS Elect Trump II: We Are So Totally F%*#ed

Kepler said:
I was wondering what the equivalent reaction in the other direction would be, if say Trump and the GOP truly implode and we get the four horsemen and then a tremendous liberal wave in 2018-20.

What would I wish for if I could have everything? In no particularly order. Amendments where required.

1. Abolition of the Electoral College. Presidency to be decided by plurality of popular vote.
2. Statehood for DC and the US territories. I'd split them into the Pacific Islands (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands) and the Atlantic Islands (Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands). That's three new states and 6 new Democratic Senators, but, you know, just coincidence and they should be represented
3. Amendment specifying that the rights delineated in the constitution do not apply to any fictive person (e.g., corporations).
4. ERA, well duh.
5. Amendment specifying Congressional districts will be redrawn by a non-partisan board using impartial mathematical models which emphasize maximal contiguity and whatever that dispersion of mass metric is that tells you a shape is not "twisty"
6. Public financing of elections, with one exception: total individual contributions capped at 1/10th of median American net worth (MANW). No collective or fictive entity may contribute. Advertising limited to the actual campaign and capped at 10x MANW.
7. Single payer health care
8. 90% estate tax over 100x MANW.
9. Criminalize the use of overseas tax shelters.
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dxmnkd316 said:
1. I'll leave that to the states to pass.
2. Agreed (Samoa has the highest per capital rate of participation in the armed forces. I think Guam is up there as well. Time to thank them.)
3. Agreed
4. Yep.
5. Agreed
6. In a dream world I would love this. I have no idea how it would pass muster though short of an amendment.
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7. I'm growing more accepting of this. I neither support or oppose it. I used to oppose it flat out.

8. Less interested in this. Maybe. According to Wikipedia* the median net worth is around $81k. That would put 100x around $8.1 million. I guess that's higher than I thought. I think I would prefer a progressive structure similar to income tax today. I have no idea what the brackets would be. I also think that certain small farms would be negatively impacted. I just don't know enough on how much a net worth is relative to maybe a "real" net worth is for a family farm. How much fluctuation is involved in a 20-year period? Etc.

9. I think a better way to do it is tax all income, foreign and domestic. You get deductions for paying foreign taxes and lose deductions (or have to claim as income) benefits like zero property tax, etc. This is an attempt to eliminate paying a billion in taxes overseas and getting a *wink* *wink* credit for $999,999,999.

*https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in_the_United_States
 
Drew S. said:
I think you're missing the bigger picture. The last few years were a good chance to make up for the years when the economy sucked or we were at war. There is an opportunity cost that you are disregarding.
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I'm objecting to your scare tactic labels, not your analysis.

But if you want to go that route, it's hardly being magnanimous to "also" blame the GOP when a)Congress has the power of the purse, b)the GOP controls Congress, and c) they turned down the grand bargain that would have given them 97% of what they wanted because God forbid we raise taxes at all.
 
Re: POTUS Elect Trump II: We Are So Totally F%*#ed

I really find the use of war as an excuse to run up the debt to be kind of gross. Wars post WWII have been optional. The US government can always change its policy on these wars. That Obama hasn't had to pay for a war is to his credit, not the other way around.

ETA: oh, and didn't bush play funny money with the cost of Iraq so it wasn't reflected in the spending or debt?
 
Re: POTUS Elect Trump II: We Are So Totally F%*#ed

One more thing, to Drew's point, do wish Obama had taken on more cheap debt to invest even more in infrastructure. With interest rates on the rise from record lows, we have kind of lost the opportunity to take out cheap debt to pay for these projects. It would have been nice to see a couple hundred billion more to spend on highways, bridges, the grid, broadband fiber, etc.


This is all based on my crude understanding of how our debt is issued and how it accrues interest.
 
Re: POTUS Elect Trump II: We Are So Totally F%*#ed

dxmnkd316 said:
I really find the use of war as an excuse to run up the debt to be kind of gross. Wars post WWII have been optional. The US government can always change its policy on these wars. That Obama hasn't had to pay for a war is to his credit, not the other way around.

ETA: oh, and didn't bush play funny money with the cost of Iraq so it wasn't reflected in the spending or debt?
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Bush kept the war out of the reported deficit, but it's in the annual change in debt, which is why that's more accurate.
 
unofan said:
I'm objecting to your scare tactic labels, not your analysis.

But if you want to go that route, it's hardly being magnanimous to "also" blame the GOP when a)Congress has the power of the purse, b)the GOP controls Congress, and c) they turned down the grand bargain that would have given them 97% of what they wanted because God forbid we raise taxes at all.
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I'm not trying to scare you or anyone else. I'm just pointing out that we've really squandered a great opportunity the last few years. The republicans deserve a lot of the blame as well, theres no two ways about that. With all that being said, the debt/deficits are a stain on Obama's presidency as far as I'm concerned.
 
Re: POTUS Elect Trump II: We Are So Totally F%*#ed

Drew S. said:
I'm not trying to scare you or anyone else. I'm just pointing out that we've really squandered a great opportunity the last few years. The republicans deserve a lot of the blame as well, theres no two ways about that. With all that being said, the debt/deficits are a stain on Obama's presidency as far as I'm concerned.
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I still don't see how you can single out Obama for this (compared to past presidents as well as completely ignoring Congress's responsibility for this) and seemingly use this as a single issue to paint his entire presidency and policy decisions.
 
Re: POTUS Elect Trump II: We Are So Totally F%*#ed

Drew S. said:
I'm not trying to scare you or anyone else. I'm just pointing out that we've really squandered a great opportunity the last few years. The republicans deserve a lot of the blame as well, theres no two ways about that. With all that being said, the debt/deficits are a stain on Obama's presidency as far as I'm concerned.
Click to expand...

I honestly don't know how you can say this with a straight face after the Republican Congress' anarchist drag act.
 
dxmnkd316 said:
I still don't see how you can single out Obama for this (compared to past presidents as well as completely ignoring Congress's responsibility for this) and seemingly use this as a single issue to paint his entire presidency and policy decisions.
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I wasn't trying to single him out, and Bush was just as bad if not worse. He wasn't a horrible president but as I said in my original post the debt/deficits and his handling of the Middle East are marks against him. I'd probably give him a C overall. I've said a lot of times republicans deserve a lot of the blame for spending as well. I still think Obama could have done more though, fairly or unfairly.
 
Re: POTUS Elect Trump II: We Are So Totally F%*#ed

Drew S. said:
I wasn't trying to single him out, and Bush was just as bad if not worse. He wasn't a horrible president but as I said in my original post the debt/deficits and his handling of the Middle East are marks against him. I'd probably give him a C overall. I've said a lot of times republicans deserve a lot of the blame for spending as well. I still think Obama could have done more though, fairly or unfairly.
Click to expand...

No, Bush wasn't horrible. Just the worst President in my lifetime.
 
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