Of course it isn't. As I said in the OP, deficits have been a constant since Bush. Spending is popular with both Republicans and Democrats. I went to great pains to make this thread as non-partisan as possible. If your argument is that we can never discuss deficits again, because we overspent in the past, something we are all clearly guilty of, I would say that's a bad argument.

We are entering uncharted territory. Not just in amount, but in purpose. The Bush-Obama bailouts were in response to a market collapse. Trump's stimulus was in response to COVID-19. Biden's stimulus was in response to COVID-19. Now we are talking about running staggeringly high deficits (by our very bloated standards) in order to finance what I would refer to as normal government spending. I'm of the opinion that infrastructure spending is urgently needed, but it behooves us to have a conversation about what to do with the enormous amount of debt we are accumulating, especially in light of the risk that interest rates will rise in the near future, vastly expanding the spending power of the national debt. As the Economist notes, part off the reason that this has faded from the public discourse is because interests rates have been so low. As a result, the government can finance enormous deficits rather easily. If interest rates were to rise, as they're threatening to do, the cost of the debt will increase significantly.

This post was edited by bogie160 on Apr 5 2021 08:13am

*since Eisenhower.

I have to laugh at the imagery. But that's 100% correct. this budgeting troll is just another guy who wants to label everyone who doesn't fall in line as "other".



I addressed this in another topic the other day. I could look it all up, but suffice it to say, it's been 100% deficit spending for over a century at the federal level, so finger pointing by EITHER party is hypocrisy, on that level.

The fact that federal branch employees are somehow magically being used against political commentators on PaRD as "these people did this, therefore YOU are a hypocrit if you talk bad about today's people doing this" is just garbage. I criticized Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and now it's Biden's turn. I have plenty of criticism for nearly every president we've had (and their corresponding Congress) since WWI.

Realistically, States compete. And State-level policy determines quality of life in a state 99.99%. All the Federal Government is doing is leeching away the wealth of the states to redistribute as they see fit. The only real difference between voting Democrat and voting Republican when it comes to Federal Office is with the Republican, they lean more towards saying "Nah, not going to steal more, but not gonna spend less". The Democrat says, "We're going to steal and spend more, and you should thank us for it."

Both are thieves, both are liars. It's only a question of, "Who's going to hurt me less."

This post was edited by InsaneBobb on Apr 5 2021 08:18am

ty mister pard encyclopedia, but you seem to have a flawed memory. as i said, bogies has been anti spending even in the trump era. and he's not a maga trump worshiper either.

you just sound silly tbh. still charging at red.

You can, but the assumption is that as inflation rises, yields must rise with it. Because the debt is mostly shorter term, and inflation only reduces the debt's spending power before maturity, inflation needs to be very high in the short-term in order to meaningfully reduce the spending power of the debt before it gets rolled over to the new, higher rates.

This can be circumvented by financial repression, where the government essentially drives a wedge between market interest rates and what the government is willing to pay. Japan does this in a different sense via "captive consumers", i.e. Japanese citizens who have nothing else to do with their savings aside from invest in government debt, irrespective of what rates are offered.

no, i never said anything about not talking about deficits.

but here is where you sound disingenuous. you post about trump stimulus in response to covid-19. trump also passed a tax cut which you specifically left out of your last comment when you know that his tax cut did nothing to propel the economy forward and added just as much to the deficit.


in terms of deficit, the cycle is going to be hard to break when the people in power are the generation that are addicted to deficit spending. the next generation is not going to want to foot the bill for any of this and will likely adopt the same policy.

whoop, i was seeing maga red and was referring to insanebob, my bad.

Looking back, I also left out the Obama tax cuts. It is borderline conspiratorial to suggest that I am trying to min-max political talking points by leaving out or including something any of the last ~4 administrations did to increase or decrease the deficit. I tried to hit on the key points.

In my opinion, we need to look at out-of-the-box solutions. The vast majority of American spending falls into DoD and entitlement spending. Unless we make dramatic changes to those programs, last attempted by Bush in the early 2000s, we will never run another budget surplus.

fair point - i appreciate the perspective. sorry, as thespipa put it i was seeing maga red and charged.

in terms of getting the deficit under control, its going to be hard to do that when one generation is going to be left holding the bag.

every asset class is essentially inflated right now. the boomer generation is about to retire with all of their wealth. they are likely not going to want to take a hit to "control the deficit".

in terms of limit spending; DoD for sure. but, genuinely, there needs to be tax increases. im not saying insane tax increases but moderate increases in both corproate tax rate (There was no need for them to be cut down to 21%.), spending on luxury items should have higher taxes as well, cigarettes should be taxed out the fucking yahoo and same with alcohol.

if the rich want tax reductions they should be incentives for them to spend on infrastructure projects and invest into the country. i.e a grossed up tax credit or deduction for xxxx spent.

Historical debt outstanding for the federal government, 1950-1999: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm

The last time total debt went down year over year was 1956 during Eisenhower's first term.