Michelle Bachmann tells an untruth
Gary
while ago.
She did what liars do well. She told the truth -- by telling a lie.
She said that it took the U.S. 230 years to run up a deficit of $8
trillion. She said that Obama then doubled that to $17 trillion.
The lie was that it took 205 years (til 1981) for the debt ceiling to
rise past $1 trillion. It took Reagan and the Bushes 20 years to
run it from $1 to $10 trillion. Ten times as much as in the previous
205 years.
This graph explains it all :
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/the-debt-ceiling-and-the-balanced-budget-amendment/
Evelyn
When Rachel Maddow makes the tiniest error, she apologizes profusely
and makes a public correction.
When a republican makes an error, no matter how grossly wrong it is,
they never correct it, nor does anyone else correct it.
I can't imagine that whoever was interviewing her on FOX would let
such a lie slip by. It wouldn't happen like that on MSNBC.
Thank goodness they aren't owned by Rupert Murdoch!
Evelyn
Gary
wrote:
Actually, she told the literal truth. She just neglected to tell
the WHOLE truth. Taken in context -- she lied -- by not telling the
fact it took 205 years to get it to 1 trillion. She implied
getting it to 8 trillion took 230 years. It didn't. It only took
about 26 year to from 1 to 8.
>Thank goodness they aren't owned by Rupert Murdoch!
>
>Evelyn
I doubt Rupert cares. The only who is worried is Roger Ailes.
El Castor
Gary, absolute numbers don't matter because over those 205 years there
has been something called inflation. You need to look at numbers that
are independent of inflation like the national debt as a percentage of
GDP, federal spending as a percent of GDP, and the annual deficit as a
percent of GDP. Those numbers show the truth of what Obama has done.
The EU, and almost all economists, agree that national debt as a
percentage of GDP should not exceed 60% (it just hit 100%), and the
annual deficit should not exceed 3% of GDP -- this year it will be
around 11%. I'm not aware of any specific guidelines for federal
spending as a percent of GDP, but 18% - 20% seems reasonable, and is
what we saw under Bush. Obama has run it up to 25%. I am not claiming
Republicans are perfect (they aren't), but it is Obama that has gone
nuts and seems to be deliberately spending us into bankruptcy -- not
Reagan or Bush.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/cbo-report-reveals-spending-disaster/
"Debt is now about 95 percent of GDP and going higher. The Treasury
Department announced last week the budget deficit for this fiscal year
will be larger than last year's $1.29 trillion."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11205/1162266-373-0.stm
"Let us hope that the US realises quite what a mess it’s in"
'America will always do the right thing, but only after exhausting all
the other options." ... Winston Churchill
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/tom-stevenson/8656616/Let-us-hope-that-the-US-realises-quite-what-a-mess-its-in.html
And a word of warning. Folks from your side of the aisle like to point
at 2009 fiscal year spending and pin the huge deficit on Bush since
the FY 2009 budget was produced on Bush's watch. The US fiscal year
(and budget) for 2009 began on October 1, 2008, and ended September 30
of 2009. Bush signed that budget, but his budget did not include the
Obama Stimulus, which was passed In February of 2009, and signed by
Obama. Ultimately, the total cost of the "The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009" (the Obama "Stimulus") was $821 billion. It
was passed by Democrats with the almost universal opposition of
Republicans and conservative economists. Since then, the debt
situation has only gotten worse.
Josh
The amount of the stimulus' impact on fiscal 2009 was about $400B, or
about 4% of GDP. The debt ratio in 2009 was 84%, so Obama inherited a
debt ratio of about 80%.
Gary's overall point still holds.
El Castor
80%?? No way. You didn't post a link, but I suspect you were using a
total government figure (including state and local). Our discussion
concerns the federal government.
Here are the real numbers. IMHO, the OECD is the best source of
economic statistics. It is an international organization situated in
Paris, headed by a Mexican, Jose Angel Gurria, and cannot be accused
of fudging the stats for US domestic political purposes. In fact it
insists that it's member states employ standardized methodology,
however you will likely find slightly different numbers if you use
other sources, like the CIA World Factbook or Eurostat. Here are the
OECD numbers for the last 10 years:
Total US Central Government Debt % of GDP
2001 32.4
2002 33.2
2003 34.9
2004 36.0
2005 36.1
2006 36.0
2007 35.7
2008 40.2
2009 53.6
2010 61.3
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=GOV_DEBT
As for what it will be this year, I believe the 95% number I quoted
from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette is wrong. Other sources put it at
about 70% -- which still exceeds the EU guidelines by 16%, and is
projected to grow to 100% in the next ten years. Sadly, Josh, if we
applied to join the EU, we would be turned down as fiscally
irresponsible. )-8
http://blogs.forbes.com/peterferrara/2011/06/30/the-cbos-ticking-bankruptcy-bomb/
As far as your $400 billion stimulus figure is concerned, you didn't
produce a link, but I do know that the deficit in 2010 was $1.3
trillion, and the CBO has projected an even greater deficit of $1.4
trillion for this year and another $1.2 trillion next year -- and even
at $1.2 trillion the deficit would exceed 7% of GDP.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12103
Those numbers dwarf the Bush era deficits, and push us into Greek
territory. If S&P, Moodys, and Fitch don't see cuts in spending very
soon they have made it plain that they intend to cut the credit rating
of the United States. That will increase the cost of borrowing, and
make the situation even worse.
>Gary's overall point still holds.
No it doesn't -- which, knowing Gary, is no big surprise. You taking
his side in this is also no big surprise.
Josh
These figures are publicly-held (federal) debt, not total (federal)
public debt. You can tell because you rightly said the debt ratio is
now over 100%, yet your source above says it is nowhere close.
My source: Table 7.1 from http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals
> As for what it will be this year, I believe the 95% number I quoted
> from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette is wrong. Other sources put it at
> about 70% -- which still exceeds the EU guidelines by 16%, and is
> projected to grow to 100% in the next ten years. Sadly, Josh, if we
> applied to join the EU, we would be turned down as fiscally
> irresponsible. )-8
> http://blogs.forbes.com/peterferrara/2011/06/30/the-cbos-ticking-bankruptcy-bomb/
>
> As far as your $400 billion stimulus figure is concerned, you didn't
> produce a link, but I do know that the deficit in 2010 was $1.3
> trillion, and the CBO has projected an even greater deficit of $1.4
> trillion for this year and another $1.2 trillion next year -- and even
> at $1.2 trillion the deficit would exceed 7% of GDP.
> http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12103
I was going from memory, but here are the source data (Page 2):
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9970/1-27-RyanLetter-09stimulus.pdf
The $400B was for fiscal 2010, not 2009. It was $200B in fiscal 2009,
and that can be subtracted from the baseline that Obama inherited.
> Those numbers dwarf the Bush era deficits, and push us into Greek
> territory. If S&P, Moodys, and Fitch don't see cuts in spending very
> soon they have made it plain that they intend to cut the credit rating
> of the United States. That will increase the cost of borrowing, and
> make the situation even worse.
>
>> Gary's overall point still holds.
>
> No it doesn't -- which, knowing Gary, is no big surprise. You taking
> his side in this is also no big surprise.
How do you conclude Gary is wrong? All he said it is not entirely
truthful to claim Obama added to the debt in 2 years the same that was
added in the prior 230 years, because most of the debt added in the
prior 230 years was done so in the 28 years before Obama.
The debt ratio figures support Gary:
1982: 35%
2009: 82% (84% - 2% for the stimulus)
2011: just over 100%
El Castor
Sigh, you're just not worth the trouble.