FY17 Projected Deficit: $559 Billion. And Trump wants TAX CUTS???

[eniwetok]

https://www.cbo.gov/topics/budget

But then the GOP has addicted voters to getting a Free Lunch. Since 1981 We The People have pissed away some 19 trillion on ourselves that we refuse to pay for. Instead of each generation paying its own bills, we simply have stolen this money from future taxpayers who will be saddled with massive interest payments that will buy them nothing... estimates are as high as 800-900 billion in a decade... and they'll be paying more in taxes to get less.

And as the GOP continues to make the tax code less progressive... any paying down of the debt will fall less on the rich... even if much of the debt was from giving them irresponsible Starve The Beast tax cuts designed TO CREATE MORE DEBT.

[eniwetok]

1. why did Dems change their position on debt paydown?

In the late 90's Clinton vetoed a number of irresponsible tax cuts proposed by the GOP. The reason was it threatened the Surplus and if debt wasn't payed down, it might weaken Social Security. Even Bush pretended he was being responsible in this area. Here's one of his press releases from May 2000 http://romcache.tripod.com/bush2000.pdf

One MIGHT have thought that when Bush went in the opposite direction, doing everything he could to create more debt, that the Dems would be furious. Yet when Obama promised to make permanent most of Bush's irresponsible tax cuts... most Dems seemed to go along. While obviously the Bush Crash created havoc with finances... gone was that Democratic urgency to pay down debt. They seemed comfortable with deficits settling in at about 400-450 billion a year.

[Blue_true]

3. Revisionist explanations are never useful.

President Obama did not want to keep any of the Bush tax cuts, but was in a position where republicans dug the heels in and his fellow Democrats were running for the hills in the face of attacks on them as tax and spend liberals.

My sense is Trump is going to put the debt out of reach. We are most likely going to have a $30-35 trillion debt by the time that idiot is done in four years. Republican care about debt only when a Democrat is President.

[eniwetok]

4. Speaking of revisionism.... sorry, you're wrong

Here's what I remember Obama running on... and here is Heritage criticizing the plan in an OCTOBER 15 2008 article:

Senator Obama, on the other hand, will extend the Bush tax cuts only for those taxpayers who earn less than $250,000 a year-he has deemed the rest of the people "rich." Senator Obama will also enact new tax increases on these rich individuals as well as a series of targeted tax credits for lower-income individuals. Senator Obama believes that the current tax system is not progressive enough and that higher taxes on the rich should be used to give money to low-income individuals or those who do not work at all, such as retired people, reduce the deficit, and reduce the size of Social Security's shortfall.



http://www.heritage.org/taxes/report/the-obama-and-mccain-tax-plans-how-do-they-compare

The 2008 Democratic Platform from July 08, says the same... :

"We will not increase taxes on any family earning under $250,000 and we will offer additional tax cuts for middle class families. For families making more than $250,000, we'll ask them to give back a portion of the Bush tax cuts to invest in health care and other key priorities. "

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=78283

Your retraction is noted. And it raises the question I was asking... how did Dems move from opposing the Bush tax cuts, to wanting to preserve most of them even though Bush added 6 trillion more in debt? What happened to the desire to pay down debt to strengthen SS? What happened to Gore's lock box?

[eniwetok]

8. here's where I think you're confused....

President Obama did not want to keep any of the Bush tax cuts, but was in a position where republicans dug the heels in and his fellow Democrats were running for the hills in the face of attacks on them as tax and spend liberals.

The Bush tax cuts were going to expire on their own in 2010... and it would have taken new legislation to keep Obama's 2008 promise to restore the Clinton rate on the top income but otherwise keep the Bush rates. From Dec 2010:

" President Obama appears poised to break one of his biggest campaign promises and agree to extend tax cuts to all Americans, not just those who make $250,000 or less, something Republicans have been demanding for months.

The payback for the president: he will get an extension of unemployment benefits.

"I think it's pretty clear now taxes are not going up on anybody in the middle of this recession. We're discussing how long we should maintain current tax rates," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said this morning on NBC's Meet the Press.


http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obama-poised-break-campaign-promise-extend-tax/story?id=12319088

Obama and the GOP extended the Bush tax cuts for two years at which point the GOP was throwing tantrums if they were not all extended. There was a new fight at the end of 2012.

[eniwetok]

14. looks like Blue_True has left the building...

without having the decency to offer a retraction.

[eniwetok]

2. Do Dems ever care about fiscal responsibility?

Last edited Wed Feb 22, 2017, 11:05 PM - Edit history (1)

I've noticed over the past 8 years that fiscal responsibility has fallen off the radar as an issue most liberal Dems care about. I blame this in part to partisanship... that parties can change positions and the party faithful tend to migrate to the new position for political reasons and leave some principle behind. I'm a loyal Thom Hartmann listener and I've noticed the shift with him... that deficits and debt didn't matter any more. All we had to think of is what percentage of the GDP it was. It's the same argument the Bush Junta was making when their irresponsible tax cuts created massive deficits... and we know they wanted to conceal their fiscal irresponsibility.

Sorry... I'm stuck in that fiscal debate from 16 years ago... that we have moral duty to not be ripping off our kids... and we need to deal with the fact that we're pissing away hundreds of billions on interest.

In FY 16 the interest was $432.6 billion... https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm
Some of that is for the trust funds... but these numbers are too abstract.... and CBO projects interest alone might be 800 billion in the next decade. Without something to compare that 432 billion to... it's just a huge number. Here's one comparison. The FY16 NASA budget was less than 19 billion. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/NASA_FY_2016_Budget_Estimates.pdf We're pissing away on interest each year to fund NASA about 23 times over.

Regardless if fiscal issue's are no longer in vogue... this debt was the Starve The Beast trap set by the far Right... and the longer it's not dealt with... the more this debt will be used as justification for weakening if not dismantling needed programs.

EDIT: Yeah... post 1000!

[roamer65]

5. I'm fairly certain Dump is going to cause a dollar crisis.

It's going to be hard to sell all Treasury paper to finance a higher deficit. The Federal Reserve will be forced to buy most of it by creating dollars...aka QE.

Inflation will eventually go through the roof.

[eniwetok]

6. there's always China!

And why do I suspect that China might love to buy more US debt as a "trump" card to be used as leverage at a time of their choosing.

[dalton99a]

7. "I'm the king of debt. I love debt."

[eniwetok]

10. and in Trump world...

In Trump world what does he care if he pays no taxes... and yet makes plenty of money from government freebies like trademark protections, free limited liability protections for corporate owners, etc.

In the end the GOP's plan seems to be create crushing debt with irresponsible tax cuts and spending... all sold to the base that tax cuts create revenue booms... then as the safety net programs are weakened... and the tax burden is shifted down... THEN the GOP might want to pay down debt. It doesn't matter to them if government is crippled with outrageous interest payments... because they'd rather see that money wasted than do anything good for the American People proving that government can be a beneficial force. Of course absent from this dementia is that there might not be any uber rich without government freebies.

[DefenseLawyer]

9. Tax cuts will raise revenue!

Everybody knows that. That's why Reagan balanced the budget and W. erased the deficit. Duh.

[eniwetok]

11. there's no way to sell irresponsible "starve the beast" tax cuts but to claim they ARE resposnible

[DefenseLawyer]

12. As long as idiots keep buying it

Republicans will keep selling it.

[eniwetok]

13. the big lie is in the spin...

Having debated enough braindead right wingers on this topic I think I understand their dementia. There's simply no metrics in the claim of a revenue boom. The arguments in defense of these irresponsible tax cuts is that revenue DID rise even after them. So with the Bush2 tax cuts sure... revenue finally began to rise again by 2005 or so... so they see that as "proof" the tax cuts did no harm. But revenue rises somewhat automatically from inflation and growth of the economy. What the Reagan and Bush tax cuts did was set the revenue curve back 3-4-5 years. The faithful never want to see the revenue losses. They want to see the tax cuts as a free lunch where taxes are cut... and revenues rise! It's classic self-deception. It doesn't matter that Bush revenues in constant dollars only finally exceeded Clinton's last year for 2 of Bush's 8... and then only by a total of 160 billion or so. Still hundreds of billions below what the Clinton tax rates would have brought in for each year. The fact remains that unlike Reagan, Bush never panicked about revenue losses. The GOP did nothing but cut taxes for all of Bush's 8 years