Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: The National Debt |
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Michael holds a BA in Biology with a minor in Philosophy. He likes to spend his free time hiking and defending science, though not usually at the same time. Contrary to popular (but not scientific) belief, the positive and appropriate perception of science is undermined by religion, alternative medicine, the U.S. education system, and most science journalists.
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Ignoring the fact that war spending should be counted as stimulus, along with the Bush tax cuts, assuming that Keynes had his ducks in a row (clearly not, he would argue that it doesn’t matter who gets tax cuts, what the government spends on and whether we actually get anything for the spending), and that the size of the debt is really of no consequence it’s its size as compared to GDP and other things that is troubling, and leaving out the impacts of inflation…
He’s right. It’s mostly true, there are just a few bits missing. His math when it comes to the size of the stimulus is suspect though, as well as the share of debt under Obama’s tenure.
Bush was a big spender, Obama is a somewhat bigger spender, and the entire Congress at any time over the last 50 years couldn’t find it’s collective ass with both hands.
My only big pet peeve with this video, and most others covering the same info, is that they tend only to count debt owed to the public, I assume that is what makes his math suspect. The Clinton surplus and that 6 trillion dollar projected surplus.. well neither one was a real surplus, spending was simply projected to grow less than what social security payroll taxes were bringing in, over what social security was projected to pay out. SS has to use surplus revenues to buy government debt.
If that doesn’t make sense, don’t worry, Congress doesn’t get it either, Bush didn’t either, Obama doesn’t and never will, and I think the safe money would be on whatever moron gets elected in 2016 not understanding either.
Keep your powder dry, the future looks bumpy.