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Verified User
Debt comes from spending more than you have; so, if you have less than you thought you had, the deficit between spending and revenues increases thus increasing the debt. Revenue will decrease by $1.5 trillion due to the tax cuts. That means the debt increases by $1.5 trillion since we are already spending more than we have. Government is not going to spend any less on social welfare, it will just borrow more to fund them.Originally Posted by CFM
If government is going to cut taxes it should have cut spending by the same amount. Medicare itself reports $60 billion annually in waste and fraud.
Banned
I thought I said debt comes from spending more than you have.
I asked what increased debt has occurred from the tax cuts not what you speculate might happen.
I'm not arguing against cutting spending. Cut out social welfare programs. That's wasteful. There's an easy way for people that need something to get it. Find someone that consider their claim of a need as valid and let them get that person to help.
Verified User
It is not really speculation. We know approximately what spending will be annually and approximate revenues. If your boss reduces your pay and you already spend more than you make, it is safe to predict your debt will increase unless you can make big cuts in your spending.
If you want to see more immediate evidence we can look at the monthly deficit which increased to $215 billion in February [Treasury Department]. That is $23 billion more than the February deficit last year and is the highest monthly deficit in six years. Of that $23 billion deficit increase $7 billion was due to increased spending and $16 billion due to decreased revenues.
"Last month, the federal government spent roughly $371 billion, up $7 billion from February 2017. Tax receipts, meanwhile, fell to $156 billion from $172 billion a year earlier."
Banned
I'll let you figure out the one key word in your statement that proves what you say is speculation.
Althea told me...........
With more smart people, we get more Democrat voters. Conservatives are scared of the thought.
Sorry...can't agree with that at all. I guess it depends on the type of society you view as 'better'. You just articulated your view of a society that understands the benefits of respect, cooperation, etc.. How could you limit the positive qualities only to those who attend an institution that furthers the 'parrot on command' outlook to education?College produces better citizens than high school does.
Truth is, you never mentioned the fact that free training in the trades would far outweigh the benefits of free college degrees. What percentage of graduates actually find gainful employment in the fields they studied?
Our society is changing. The only job security is found in nursing/medical staff, or any of the service/construction industries.
Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right.
Althea told me...........
Unmotivated 'smart' people are worse than motivated (insert your own favorite adjective for those you seem to view as second class citizens)
.I agree that unmotivated students do not belong in public college or high schools. Get them out of there, let them drive trucks or mow lawns; make space for motivated individuals who are willing to work hard at getting a good education. It does not help our society to have college cost so much that students come out with a mortgage sized loan but no house. 20 years to pay off the loan before they can even think of buying a house. Capitalism has done this to us. This is wealth extraction. They ran out of current people to extract wealth from so they are extracting future wealth from those who have not earned it yet
For one who works so hard at appearing articulate, the more you type, the more you expose your narrow minded view of people. There are extremely intelligent people with no college degrees. Likewise, there are myriad successful businessmen/women who struggled in school, but were still extremely intelligent and motivated.
I know quite a few truck drivers who make more money than people with college degrees. I know many people who started out with one lawnmower, and now pull in $250k/year from their landscaping companies.
You are truly a conundrum.
Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right.
Verified User
The ten year projections are estimates based on current spending and taxation. But the increased deficits already occurring are not speculation--it occurred in February and is continuing. Congress has to raise the debt limit soon to allow continued spending.
It is also just plain logic--if you cut revenues by $1.5 trillion you are going to increase the debt since we both know government is not going to cut spending. The retirement of baby boomers increase the number of Social Security and Medicare recipients by 11,000 every day.
Verified User
Given that 8 million people are not making payments on their student loans we already have a lot of their loan money going into consumption. The largest percentage of defaults are at cosmetology schools.
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
Spot on with that one. The last thing we want to do is run the debt too high. I also think this kind of debt will have pay-backs which will offset the increased debt. Those pay-backs will be a higher GDP, more revenue, and enough over time to pay back every cent and more.
I think any really good grasp of US economics understands that we operate with a debt, year after year - *and* we keep growing and thriving as a nation with a top national credit rating. Our credit rating is a standard upon which much of the financial world relies. How and why do we carry this debt? The reasons are complex. I don't fully understand it, but I can't deny that is what we do and there are pluses and minuses stemming from it.
Some of our debt is in the form of US bonds. They are a benchmark of the financial world. This is thought of as a place you can stick money which is incredibly secure - pretty much as secure as it gets. That's why they don't pay much interest. Our credit as a nation is solid.
But we have all this debt. Here's the thing. As long as we grow, as long as GDP grows, we can carry some debt. The important metric to look at is Debt to GDP. That ratio is uncomfortably high right now. We should be paying the debt down. A booming economy is when that is possible. You certainly can't do it during a recession. Recessions drive the debt up. A great economy is when you need to be responsible and collect that revenue to pay it down. By voting to do the opposite, Republicans have put us in a difficult position. Now they have put us in a position where only one thing can prevent debt disaster: The GDP absolutely HAS to grow, grow a lot, and grow fast.
I don't think that's gonna happen. Another melt down is coming. Mark my words. The market may be high now but it is also highly volatile. Any panic selling sets in and it's gonna dive down REALLY fast. How far nobody knows. We had a taste of that recently. These trade wars will exacerbate that.
Last edited by PoliTalker; 03-15-2018 at 06:39 PM.
Personal Ignore Policy PIP: I like civil discourse. I will give you all the respect in the world if you respect me. Mouth off to me, or express overt racism, you will be PERMANENTLY Ignore Listed. Zero tolerance. No exceptions. I'll never read a word you write, even if quoted by another, nor respond to you, nor participate in your threads. ... Ignore the shallow. Cherish the thoughtful. Long Live Civil Discourse, Mutual Respect, and Good Debate! ps: Feel free to adopt my PIP. It works well.
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
OK, your not so subtle suggestion to cut Medicare because it has $60 billion in fraud yearly?
Wrong!
Bad idea.
The thing to do is seek ways to cut the fraud. (Besides - $60 billion really isn't diddly squat compared to our debt. It takes 1000 billion to = 1 trillion.) $60 billion is an improvement, actually. There have been much larger fraud losses in the past.
Governor Rick Scott of Florida took the 5th 75 times as CEO of HCA when then record-setting Medicare fraud charges were brought up on that corporation before he became Governor.
"First, Gov. Rick Scott scared the bejesus out of seniors with an online ad claiming that Medicare rate cuts would lead them to lose access to their doctors, hospitals and preventive care.
Then, the Florida Democratic Party fired back at Scott, issuing a press release that called Scott "the ultimate Medicare thief."
The Democrats were referring to Scott’s prior tenure as CEO of Columbia/HCA about a decade ago, when the hospital company was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud."
PolitiFact
Personal Ignore Policy PIP: I like civil discourse. I will give you all the respect in the world if you respect me. Mouth off to me, or express overt racism, you will be PERMANENTLY Ignore Listed. Zero tolerance. No exceptions. I'll never read a word you write, even if quoted by another, nor respond to you, nor participate in your threads. ... Ignore the shallow. Cherish the thoughtful. Long Live Civil Discourse, Mutual Respect, and Good Debate! ps: Feel free to adopt my PIP. It works well.
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Althea,
Hey, great idea! I like that. Free training in the trades. That's good. We should do both! Free trade training *and* free college. Will some people get through college and not find work? Of course they will. And ya know what? Some will get through the free trade training and not end up working in that field either. But that doesn't mean we should not do both.
I don't limit/assign positive qualities only to those who hold college degrees. I never said that. I simply said that colleges produce better citizens than high schools do. Simply put, they make more money. They contribute more to the GDP. They pay more taxes. They create more jobs. Do they have better morals? That's debatable. I would suspect so, but the difference may not be very great. But they are less likely to get into trouble because at that level, more money makes life much easier with less stress. The more education one has, the less likely they are to be a smoker. They have more, so they don't want to get into trouble and risk losing what they have. And they are not as stressed by money issues and debt. That's all I meant. It's nothing about virtue. It's about statistics. From and economic point of view, and a criminal one, citizens with those qualities are preferable for a nation to have.
I get your comment about 'Parrot on command.' That exists, but it is not accurate to describe all colleges this way.
Personal Ignore Policy PIP: I like civil discourse. I will give you all the respect in the world if you respect me. Mouth off to me, or express overt racism, you will be PERMANENTLY Ignore Listed. Zero tolerance. No exceptions. I'll never read a word you write, even if quoted by another, nor respond to you, nor participate in your threads. ... Ignore the shallow. Cherish the thoughtful. Long Live Civil Discourse, Mutual Respect, and Good Debate! ps: Feel free to adopt my PIP. It works well.
Verified User
If eliminating college loans by $1.48 trillion will reduce the debt, that means the $1.5 trillion tax cut should also reduce the debt since they both give consumers more income. But it still makes no sense to say adding $2 trillion in debt will result in more than $2 trillion in increased revenue.
About all (95%) government debt is in the form of treasury bills, bonds, and notes except for the $2.5 trillion surplus in the Social Security system which is in special treasuries. You say we should be paying our debt down but we can never even begin to pay it down until we eliminate the deficit and that can't happen if we keep adding to the debt through tax cuts, excusing loans, and increased spending. When treasuries mature we roll those over and borrow more to pay the bond owners. The current unachievable challenge is to eliminate the deficit, but since that cannot happen our debt will continue to grow which means we never pay down any of the debt.
When the debt reaches 90% of the GDP economic growth slows about 1% based on studies of developed nations; so, the increased debt is more likely to slow than stimulate economic growth.
http://www.nber.org/digest/apr10/w15639.html
Verified User
Well, that is what I had in mind to cut--just the fraud and waste. It was only one example to illustrate that even programs people claim shouldn't be cut can be reduced without harming those needing the care. Unfortunately, there is no line in the budget labeled fraud or waste, so it is difficult to eliminate. We could make it much more efficient by using competitive bidding for supplies. Medicare started that on an experimental basis in some areas and has saved about 40%.
When Medicare is cut it doesn't usually hurt the recipients but payments to providers is cut which is the reason many doctors do not take new Medicare or Medicaid patients.
But yes, I agree we could cut almost everything without harm. I gave some examples earlier in discussing the Pell Grant program. As long as government agencies are funded based on the number of customers they get, they will find ways to increase their budget.
The 1996 welfare reform bill took the correct approach--agencies lost some of their funding if they did not get recipients off welfare and into jobs even though "jobs" was loosely interpreted. Since 1996 the number of families on TANF (cash welfare benefits) has declined from 4.8 million to 1.9 million (2011).
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
No, sorry. That doesn't follow. The former depends on qualified individuals succeeding - a reasonable bet. The latter depends on GDP going to record levels and staying there - wishful thinking.
That depends on what it is spent on.
The current debt to GDP ratio is 106% according to debtclock.org. The current debt to GDP is too high. We should be paying it down by taxing the rich and the corporations more: those who are collecting the most profits during the good economy.
Last edited by PoliTalker; 03-15-2018 at 08:53 PM.
Personal Ignore Policy PIP: I like civil discourse. I will give you all the respect in the world if you respect me. Mouth off to me, or express overt racism, you will be PERMANENTLY Ignore Listed. Zero tolerance. No exceptions. I'll never read a word you write, even if quoted by another, nor respond to you, nor participate in your threads. ... Ignore the shallow. Cherish the thoughtful. Long Live Civil Discourse, Mutual Respect, and Good Debate! ps: Feel free to adopt my PIP. It works well.
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Flash,
That's encouraging to hear. That makes it sound like the system is working and helping people who were not productive or self supporting - to become productive members of society. And remarkable during a period of time which includes The Great Recession.
Personal Ignore Policy PIP: I like civil discourse. I will give you all the respect in the world if you respect me. Mouth off to me, or express overt racism, you will be PERMANENTLY Ignore Listed. Zero tolerance. No exceptions. I'll never read a word you write, even if quoted by another, nor respond to you, nor participate in your threads. ... Ignore the shallow. Cherish the thoughtful. Long Live Civil Discourse, Mutual Respect, and Good Debate! ps: Feel free to adopt my PIP. It works well.
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