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Originally Posted by host
For the umpteenth time, ace....the white house "deficit reduction" PR is bullshit. The white house deficti "numbers" do not include the surplus payroll withholding that comes from social security/medicare taxes, nor do they include hundreds of billions in supplemental "off-budget" "war" appropriations, because....even in the 4th and 5th years of now predictable costs of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the pentagon/white house claim is that they can't yet budget an accurate estimate.....of those costs.....
...again, ace....here is the reliable set of numbers...it includes the new amount each year that goes from paychecks and employer paid SSI/medicare taxes...into the general revenue....is then spent by the federal government and does not show up in the white house phony deficit numbers, and is owed to the SSI trust fund....it includes the supplemental, "off-budget" appropriations, too.
Notice how the US Treasury debt increase, is constant, now....at over $500 billion each year. Notice that it had declined to just $18 billion, YOY....4 months before Bush "took office in Jan., 2001.
I'll stop posting this...over and over,,,,if you'll stop posting misleading, inaccurate, low ball white house PR that is totally meaningless in measuring the trend or the increasing scope of the debt obligation of the American people.....up now, from $5,807,463,412,200 on Sept. 30, 2001...to
$9,053,884,694,839.
<h3>You must know that the graph you included in your post is meaningless....so why did you post it?</h3>
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There are many ways to calculate federal government spending, the deficit and the debt. I don't dispute that and some measures are more accurate than others. However, looking at general trends most measures tell the same story. I don't study the numbers enough to participate in a scholarly discussion of the merits of one way of measuring the numbers over another method. However, I can talk about general trends.
We clearly know the debt has been increasing. The debt has never stopped increasing, even during the Clinton administration using the link you provided to Treasury Direct. During Clinton's term in office the debt increased 40%. So far it has increased 51% under the Bush administration. During Bush's term so far we have spent about $600 billion on the war. If we adjust for that, the debt increase during Bush's term is about 41%.
So if you compare what Bush has done to what many consider as an excellent period of fiscal management of federal deficit spending during Clinton's administration - we are almost even after adjusting for the war. Remember, Congress has authorized the $600 billion spent on the war.
So, please don't get beside yourself using bold thinking you have made some significant point. There are always more ways to look at an issue. However, no matter how I look at the numbers, I keep coming to the same conclusion, Bush is no better or worse at managing spending in Washington than any past President. In terms of increasing the debt Regan ranks as among the worst during his term, however some would argue what he did to get the economy moving after Carter lead to a boom that took us into 2000.