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

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (35985)	7/17/2009 1:07:52 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

The chart (http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/National-Debt-GDP.gif) does indeed show that "we paid down a lot of the debt from WWII and then after that we went on a spending/debt spree, with some modest interruption in the Clinton/Gingrich/"Peace Dividend" " Well it doesn't show spending, it shows debt, but both you and I know that the debt wouldn't have exploded to those levels without the massive increase in spending. Or if that common and certain knowledge isn't enough for you than just drop the word "spending" and the chart clearly shows that point. The high point on the debt is the debt from WWII. It was decreased to a level about 1/3rd of what it had been as a percentage of GDP. Then the nation went on a strong string of adding debt that continues to this day. The evidence establishing it is the chart itself. If you accept the chart than the point I raised is established, if you don't accept the chart I could come up with another source of data, but if we are discounting the data you provide when it backs my arguments, than I don't think we need to consider it as part of your arguments either. The other points I raised aren't supported by the chart, but aren't controversial points. 1 - More and more of our budget is effectively on autopilot with entitlements being a majority of federal spending. 2 - The early post WWII days where from very high (and I believe unprecedented (but I haven't checked out the Civil War era) debt levels, the late part of that pay down was helped by inflating away the debt (certainly the inflation was harmful in a number of ways, and also caused the feds to have to pay higher interest rates, but still the inflation effectively wrote off a lot of the principle).