$38 billion better than what the CBO projected. Outlays down 1.6%. http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/washin...cit-dipped-to-11-trillion-in-fiscal-2012.html
You seem to like deficits. Guess you're voting Republican. Remember, those people think "deficits don't matter."
But honestly, if we try to take this out of a political argument, going back to the top rate under Clinton for the top 5% would take us well beneath a trillion in deficit spending for 2011, correct? Here is an article with lots of assumptions arguing against a tax hike on the rich. http://m.briefing.com/investor/our-view/ahead-of-the-curve/raising-taxes--not-enough-to-matter.htm The bottom line in this analysis would be reduced by $211 billion. Again, this is not a discussion of an unprecedented tax hike. We are talking about the rate used when this economy was booming and we were running surpluses. (yes, I know about the tech bubble. My point is that the rate charged at the time did not stifle spending or investment by the wealthy and in fact, there was really not a lot of belly aching over it.) So, that additional revenue would take us down under $900 billion deficit. Trim a reasonable amount from the military that I believe they have suggested, and we are reducing it further. The point is that whenever something happens or is suggested that moves the needle a significant amount, the other side says, "ah, that's not enough, so why do it. Just attack the REAL problem." But why shouldn't we attack the problem in little pieces at a time. When you are down three goals at halftime, do you just pack it in and say, "why try to score a goal, it won't matter?" Of course not. And you don't try to score three goals on one shot. You try to win a little possession. You try to push forward and take control of the game, and then you try to get one goal and see if you can change momentum. What is wrong with that approach? This is good news on the deficit, however, I know it will get played politically. So let's look after the election. I'm all for a fundamental restructuring of the tax code to simplify things, but that has to result in the same basic revenue model with some enhancements and those enhancements need to come from the ones who have benefited the most from the last decade of cuts.
Hooray! Today we celebrate trillion dollar deficits. It seems like just yesterday we were bemoaning 400 billion dollar deficits. We've come a long way in a few, short years:
I feel pretty confident that the Bush numbers don't include the off-budget wars, rendering vfish's chart worse than truthy.
Doesn't matter if it's true or not. If he asserts it, under the scoring system of Republican debating protocol, he wins. That's all that counts.
I would certainly be happy going back to the Clinton level tax rates AND the Clinton level spending rates. Concerning the Clinton "surplus", what happened to that money? If for a certain fiscal year the government took in more in revenues than it spent, should we not have seen a decrease of the national debt? I do not remember that happening. Or was that money just put somewhere safe for later spending? I really want to understand what happened to that surplus money.
Is Google to difficult for you to navigate? Here I'll make it easy for you with a simple graph from the CBO:
vfish's latest graph comes from Fox News. (The first was from pajamas media.) If it was, say, stanger, I'd do a bit of research myself. But vfish is a known liar, so all I'll do is repeat, source/link?
Good God you are dense, the numbers come from the CBO. Do you know what CBO stands for? Why not just admit you were wrong... yet again.
All taxing levels at Clinton levels before he cut the Capital gains tax would be cool with me. Now some people would argue that it was the cut on Capital gains tax (from 28% to 20%) that lead to the economic boom, but I can ignore that for now. Forbes does have their bias since that did not happen until 1997 when the boom was already going on. (the cut did not stop the USA from having a surplus in 1998). http://www.forbes.com/sites/charles...ous-myth-about-the-bill-clinton-tax-increase/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/the-clinton-tax-challenge-for-republicans/ What ever helps control the defecit would help. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...claims-job-rate-soared-after-clinton-raised-/
Here is the story from which Vfish got his graph http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/30/cbo-years-iraq-war-cost-stimulus-act/ And here is politifact on the same story http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...ark-tapscott/did-stimulus-cost-more-war-iraq/
The question was whether or not the deficit numbers in the chart included war costs. The answer is yes it does. Whether or not the Iraq war was more costly than the stimulus package is irrelevent.
As you are apparently incapable of looking anything up yourself and are evidently in need of some hand-holding for something that might not fit your convenient narrative, here you go. http://www.nber.org/erp/ERP_2012_Complete.pdf That's Economic Report of the President of the United States. See Table B-78. Please note the use of the term "outlay." An outlay is money actually spent (whether included in the regular budgeting process or in the "supplemental" budgets for war-funding). http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/budget/concepts.cfm#o
Oh boy, you really are stupid. Once again, the numbers come from the CBO and can be found on all sorts of government websites. Here is one from the White House OMB which took all of 2 seconds to Google: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/ (see table 1.3) The reason I gave you a chart is because I know that you'd never take the time to dig into the actual numbers. Here is a simple question for you, do you even know to cost of the Afghan and Iraq wars? Even if you added the war costs into the deficit tables a second time our current deficits would still dwarf the deficits we ran in the 2000s. Perhaps it is time to stop digging a hole and simply admit you were wrong? Since that won't happen and you obviously don't trust the government's #s can you please provide with a link to the actual deficit #s?