Not buying it. A third of the country on welfare? You must be counting tax deductions for mortgage interest.
Comedy Tonight!
But seriously folks, where I work most are fairly conservative and ultra religious to boot as well, I was having a discussion with someone about US economic policy and deficits since FDR or so and he brought up Clinton and asked wasn't there a surplus with him? I responded yes at the end of Clinton's term there was but then Bush came along and the conversation ended there. He backed away nearly fled muttering "I'm so sorry I drank that Kool-aid".
The mere mention of Bush nearly unnerved him.
I guess some people do learn from their mistakes.
But seriously folks, where I work most are fairly conservative and ultra religious to boot as well, I was having a discussion with someone about US economic policy and deficits since FDR or so and he brought up Clinton and asked wasn't there a surplus with him? I responded yes at the end of Clinton's term there was but then Bush came along and the conversation ended there. He backed away nearly fled muttering "I'm so sorry I drank that Kool-aid".
The mere mention of Bush nearly unnerved him.
-- Modified on 1/29/2015 3:29:14 PM
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
Never a surplus just pie in the sky accounting techniques but if you want to continue believing in Clinton's faulty arithmetic that is a fantasy it is your choice .
Clinton ran deficits thru out all 8 years of his tenure with the national debt increasing each year and had there ever been a surplus, the debt would have gone down. Not once did it do that. My link shows in detail true official numbers ,which are factual unlike factcheck which tries to keep a faulty myth alive.
One needs to discern between national debt and budget (deficit) but even for the latter he borrowed what was needed rather than (being able to) cover it from revenue. Borrowing it from "inside" (SS to retirement and medical funds and what have you) doesn't make it any less borrowing. He just borrowed less on the money markets but that didn't make the US's debt go down.
Ever.
-- Modified on 1/29/2015 7:31:22 PM
drink lots of water.
If that's the way you want to calculate deficits (btw I know the difference between the "debt" and a "deficit") then let's go all the way back to 60's or so when when they started adding in the SS surpluses and see how jaw dropping deficits were in years gone by. It'll make Clinton's numbers look positively serene. (I have Ste Ronnie Reagan in mind.)
But the subject of contention was the Clinton's "surplus." That's been proven with real numbers to be just a myth.
-- Modified on 1/30/2015 3:29:51 AM
but liars certainly figure.
and if you want to give anyone credit for that so called surplus, you need to thank the Republican Congress and especially Newt for forcing Clinton to the table.
For the record, I think Clinton did a decent job as POTUS, he had the very good sense to stay out of the way and "let the good times roll" without fucking with it too much, and that is not the weak compliment that it may seem. It is very difficult for a POTUS to stand aside and not try to fix things that are not broken. Clinton was smart enough to listen to Rubin and pretty much ignore Greenspan. Hindsight proves he was absolutely correct.
But that's only in actual reality, not fantasy reality.
And the site you link to is a propaganda site.
There was this little thing called the recession that wasn't good for deficit. That plus the ridiculous Bush war in Iraq account for most of today's deficit, which is shrinking.
Which isn't to say a deficit is always bad. Count my mortgage and my household budget is probably a deficit but if the money iis used for the things that build for the future that's okay.
Republicans fixation on a balanced budget is politics not economics.
Clinton left Bush a recession along with the housing bubble and this also just happened to be when all those Y2K jobs ended. And that ridiculous war may be the only thing that stopped Saddam from blowing your ass to smitherines with his stockpiles of WMDs. To say that that war is responsible for our deficit today, with a third of the country on Welfare, is proof that you will convince yourself of anything.
And believe it or not, some people actually care about $8 trillion in debt in just 6 years.
Which isn't to say a deficit is always bad. Count my mortgage and my household budget is probably a deficit but if the money iis used for the things that build for the future that's okay.
Republicans fixation on a balanced budget is politics not economics.
Not buying it. A third of the country on welfare? You must be counting tax deductions for mortgage interest.
Then maybe you'll believe the Census Bureau. Sorry that information was filtered out of your propaganda. And no, "welfare" still does not include people who are allowed to keep their own money.
That includes Social Security, workers comp, etc. Hardly welfare.
Learn to read a chart, Professor Einstein. The number that includes every federal benefit is 153,323,000, whch is nearly 50%. The number receiving "means-tested" benefits, aka Welfare, is 109,631,000. This is for the 4th quarter of 2012 which is the latest data available. The fact that this is news to you is all one needs to know about anything you have to say.