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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (32891)	2/18/2009 11:28:14 AM
From: Steve Lokness	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

Despite a genuine economic emergency, the stimulus bill is more about dispensing goodies to Democrat interest groups than stimulating the economy. What in the world does the WSJ expect after the deficits under Bush? That democrats would suddenly NOT want to fund their favored projects? ......It is no accident that the year used in the article as a starting point is 1982. That is the year after the tax cuts under Reagan. For the WSJ to ever have credibility, they need to abandon the ridiculous notion that tax cuts always stimulate the economy and bring in more money. Reagan and Bush have proved that is just NOT the case. Honesty from the WSJ would help a lot in formating the debate. Honesty from the WSJ, and then we could move to smaller government and some improvement in our debt - until then we just bounce from ones favored spending to the others. steve

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (32891)	2/18/2009 11:46:16 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

In fiscal 2008, the national debt increased from $9 trillion to slightly over $10 trillion. Yet the budget deficit in the last fiscal year was officially reported as being $455 billion. How could the national debt have increased by considerably more than twice the "deficit"? Simple. Just call the money borrowed from the Social Security trust fund an "intragovernmental transfer" and exclude it from the calculation of the deficit. Legitimately so, its a transfer of funds from the government to the government. I don't have a deficit if I transfer funds from the left pocket to my right, or from my savings account to my checking account. But there should be an additional entries, beyond the official budget balance, for change in(and resultant amount of) estimated long term obligations (like the estimated additional obligation for future social security spending), and potential obligations (for example loan guarantees, all or part of which might need to be paid).