Budget talks: This is getting nasty

This has become one tired cliche.

When Reagan spent like crazy in the 80s, no doubt this concern was raised.

In 1999, that child or grandchild born in 1982 was 17 years old, lived in a nation with a budget surplus, and was able to go to college because Dad's portfolio tripled in value that decade.

 

And now that lazy little fucker won't work. [/crossthread]

 

He's done the right thing in both cases. In 2006, things were going relatively well. It's during times of prosperity that you rein things in and keep the budget from getting out of hand because if you are running debt during prosperity, it's going to be impossible to deal with when the shit hits the fan.

And hit the fan it did a year or two after that speech. He became president in the wake of the biggest financial crisis in 80 years. At that point, immediate reduction of debt was not the right call. The right call was to keep the economy from grinding to a halt. There was the real risk that if the economy was allowed to falter, then revenue would have been so stunted, we'd be in worse shape than we are now.

Personally, I think while the debt is the biggest issue, the approach to reducing it is still off. To me, you get the economy going again, get the revenue flowing, then you do your big cut when you can afford to do it. At that point, the thriving markets would help cover the losses. Cutting now is going to put us into a lost decade or more. But oh well, it is what it is. The political climate is such that it can be done no other way.

 

Give me a break.

The same arguments apply. There was no way then, just like there is no way now, to run the government -- without making drastic cuts -- without raisin the debt ceiling.

As people have argued now, it's like running up a big credit card debt and then deciding not to pay it.

He was posturing then and was trying to score points.

If the goal was to make the president live more responsibly going forward, he would have argued for something that would do that -- maybe something like cut, cap, and balance.

But to simply pontificate and vote against the debt limit is the irresponsible move.

And that's exactly what Senator Obama did. And now he wants to act like the "adult in the room".

What goes around...

 

Only in a paper-shuffling sense. Excess Social Security/Medicare contributions were being "loaned" to the government in exchange for IOUs that would come due in later years when the Baby Boomers' retirements would hit full force. The national debt, which consists of public debt and intragovernmental holdings, went up each of Clinton's fiscal budget years.

 

What, context means nothing to you?

In 2006, the Dow was sky high, unemployment was at 4.5 percent, people were still thinking prosperity would go on forever. If you're going to pay a debt, damn isn't that the time to pay it?

By 2008, unemployment was skyrocking and threatening to get worse, the markets had crashed and we had just, by the hairs of our chins, avoided an entire meltdown of the financial sector.

Of course, if the shoe was on the other foot politically speaking, you'd be concerned about context. Right now, it's a zero-sum game for you.

 

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

 

It would seem the President disagrees with you. In April his spokesman called that vote "a mistake."

 

That factcheck article plays it a bit loose with the facts. It's true that if you ignore Social Security, you get a surplus in FY2000. Yet that ignores the fact that Social Security isn't the only source of intragovernmental holdings. These other trust funds also had FY2000 surpluses, the sum of which was larger than that $86.4 billion "surplus."

 

Congress couldn't pass a National Daffodil Day resolution in the time left for this issue. Either Obama will extend the ceiling unilaterally, or more likely, some short term punt will kick the can down the road until Thanksgiving or so. Kicking the can is one game Congress is REALLY good at.

 

And so he disagrees. I disagreed with much of what he did with the stimulus too.

 

If voting against raising the debt limit in 2006 was the right move, what would you have done to avoid default?