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Thursday, November 29, 2012

Bush Could Have Paid Off the Entire Debt - Twice

Here's something you may not know: George W Hoover could have easily paid off the entire federal debt during his administrations -- twice.

When Bush Jr. took office in 1Q2001, federal receipts were 20.7% of GDP. (Today they are 17.0% of GDP.)

FRED Graph

Had federal revenues remained at that level, it's easy to calculate the additional federal revenue that would have come in, using this GDP data.

The answer: an additional $10,820 billion dollars.

When Bush Jr came into office, the total federal debt was $5.7 trillion. When he left office in January 2009 it stood at $10.62 trillion.

Hence, had Bush not decided the surplus was "the people's money," and gave it all to (rich) people, the entire debt would have been easily paid off, with plenty of money left over for wars, killing people, Medicare expansion (Part D), etc.

No conservative gave a crap them. Don't let them tell you they give a crap now.

PS: While Hoover Jr doubled the debt, Reagan increased it by 150%.

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8 comments:

  1. Victor Venema4:27 AM

    In principle there is nothing against making debt, if you invest it wisely. People and Companies do it all the time.

    The main problem in case of government debt is, that making debt increases your abilities to change society, but limits these abilities of future governments. It thus amounts to appropriating too much power.

    I wonder whether you can reduce government debt by introducing a compensation mechanism. For example, by reduce the term in office of governments that make debt.

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  2. charlesH5:52 PM

    On the other hand, if spending was at the same level as it was under Clinton {when the budget was last balanced) we would be running budget surpluses today.

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  3. charlesH5:58 PM

    "and gave it all to (rich) people"

    Most of the tax relief went to people making less than $250,000/yr.

    Obama's proposed tax on those making over $250,000/yr only raises $50-$100B/yr. The deficit is over $1,000B/yr.

    The Bush tax cuts for the rich are a small portion of the deficit problem. The majority problem is spending growing faster than the economy.

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  4. Dano7:20 PM

    Charles, you are embarrassing yourself. Stick to your fissile material shilling.

    Best,

    D

    ReplyDelete
  5. charlesH8:22 PM

    Dano,

    The graph you link to supports my comments.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Harold4:46 AM

    No, it doesn't, Charles. Increased spending is the red, the dark blue, and the light blue. Combined, those are smaller than the orange, not to mention the medium blue. The big problem hasn't been increased spending, it's been decreased revenue.

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  7. charlesH5:13 AM

    "No, it doesn't, Charles. Increased spending is the red, the dark blue, and the light blue. Combined, those are smaller than the orange, not to mention the medium blue. The big problem hasn't been increased spending, it's been decreased revenue."

    The orange is the total tax cuts. 50-100B/yr to those over $250,000/yr (the rich) and 300,000B/yr to those making less than $250,000/yr *middle class". Obama's plan to tax the rich doesn't do much to solve the problem.


    So you have in order

    middle class tax cut
    economic downturn (spending growing faster than economy)
    wars
    rich tax cut

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  8. charlesH9:11 AM

    Spending vs revenue in inflation adjusted dollars.

    Spending has been growing faster than revenue. Revenue flat. Spending growing.

    Question to libs. Can we trade Obama in for Clinton?

    http://reason.com/blog/2012/11/30/the-bush-tax-cut-issue-in-one-chart

    ReplyDelete