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Kend, here's a story from the daily Kos. Ronald Reagan raised the debt cieling 18 x. Bill Clinton reduced the budget deficit every year of his administration (by $100 billion by 1994) ran a budget surplus for the last three years of his presidency and brought down the Reagan debt to $5.7 trillion. G.W. Bush ran a debt of 11.3 trillion, the largest increase in history. Obama at least put the unfunded wars on the books but can't, in these times, do much about the debt. Selling bonds in a time like this is a good thing..
LarryMackFollowRSSDaily Kos member
Wed Oct 16, 2013 at 10:41 AM PDT
A Debt Ceiling Primer from George W.
by LarryMackFollow for LarryMack
When Mr. Bush took office, he inherited a federal budget that had been balanced for three consecutive years and a surplus of $236 billion, the largest surplus in American history. Even sweeter, we were running an on-budget surplus no longer diverting surplus from the Social Security Trust Fund to fund other government programs.
This conservative largess, of course, came from the previous Democratic administration. The national debt was $5.727 trillion when Bush took office. By September 2008, the national debt had soared to more than $9.849 trillion, an almost 72 percent increase during Mr. Bush’s two terms.
And those are the debt figures before the basically unregulated, free-for-all banking and financial system received Mr. Bush's $700 billion Wall Street bailout money leaving the biggest increase in the national debt under any president in U.S history as a going away present to the American people.
Mr. Bush must have erased the collective memory of his record national debt from the minds of the Grand Old Party. And the troublesome new gang of hometown heroes elected to office who are trying to operate like some kind of hostage-taking Tea Party Taliban have tried to shut down the government by refusing to approve extension of the Federal Debt Ceiling limit.
Most all of these Republicans who rant about "out of control national debt" having no real idea what a debt ceiling is and certainly no idea of how most of those trillions of bucks in debt got racked up . . . on the GOP watch.
So for our seasoned Republican pols like Speaker Boehner, and especially for the Koch Brothers' shiny new members of Congress, here's a quick review:
Shortly after taking office, President Bush spoke to the the Republican Congressional Retreat in Williamsburg and blithely declared that his budget would “pay down the national debt."
President Bush raised the national debt limit eight times during his administration with no notable opposition. Certainly no attempts to take the country hostage on any of the eight occasions when the debt ceiling was raised as a routine act national fiscal procedure.
On July 30, 2008 President Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, which contained a quiet little provision raising the debt ceiling to $10.615 trillion.
One week before leaving office, Bush asked Congress for the remaining $350 billion of the $700 billion Wall Street Troubled Assets Relief Program or TARP bailout package.
That same last week, Bush signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 raising the national debt ceiling for the eighth time to $12.104 trillion to accommodate the $11.3 trillion all time record debt he left the incoming administration.
George W. Bush's $11.3 trillion record debt has cost more than $37,000 each for every man, woman and child in the United States. The cost of cleaning up up after the huge GOP approved debt and near deep depression thus caused has been dealt with by the reasoned leadership of President Obama ... in spite of being stonewalled at every turn by Sen. Mitch McConnell and the entire Republican party.
And we aren't even factoring in cost of the Bush/ Cheney unfunded, off the books, decade long wars.
I have found it both bewildering and angering when Republican conservatives, now salted with Tea Party Jabberwockies all lambaste President Obama for the present state of indebtedness as if it was all his fault.
Republicans are ordered to pass these Cliff's Notes around especially to the petulant Tea Party clog. There will be an exam ... early next year.
( the referenced figures in this piece are all public record, mostly from the Congressional Budget Office ... Larry )
I caught some Randi Rhodes driving home from work today and some right wing genius called her and suggested that the unempolyed simply need to relocate to areas where jobs exist. However it doesn't take a genius to figure out what would happen if the 11 million unemployed citizens took his advice. Seeing how there's only one job for every three or four jobless citizens seeking......there would still be around 8 million jobless and homeless ciitzens living on the very streets of these alleged job fertile areas.
Can you say Grapes of Wrath!
Sitting in for Thom today and as usual..... Pap really put the paddle to those who need it most. The overly polite and timid Democrats getting teabagged in Washington need to pay attention and learn from Pap speaking truth to power.
Sadly, there is a lot of truth in many of the former posts.
BUT...
They've practically lost the war on drugs because of the MMJ (and now two states are opting to sell pot for recreational use); they're losing the war against same sex marriages, state-by-state-by-state; they've lost the respect of most reasonable, self-thinking people around the country (and in other countries, as well). All they can do now is try to tear down as many of the 95%-er's safety nets as they possibly can (misery LOVES company, you know!), just as fast as they can, before (hopefully) some of their radicals are voted back to the "corn fields" and the "hollers" this coming November.
Remember that folks... REMEMBER in NOVEMBER.
Of course we're running out of money. It's called transfer of wealth. The one percent have moved it all to themselves. I dream of the day when my Social Security is taken away and I can move to an efficiency one room cardboard box, and eat others discarded food for free. Obviously a lifestyle of choice. Living under the radar. Not paying taxes.
Kend ~ I can't speak for everyone on the left; but, I'd say that when we cut off hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to corporations that are already making huge profits and not paying any taxes; and, when we strip our Defense Department of the annual trillion dollars that we squander on illegal wars; then, we can talk about cutting off unemployment benefits for our hungry fellow citizens. Does that answer your question?
I can't believe you guys you got what you want and your still whining. Geeeez.
When is the left going to realize you are running out of money. What are you going to do when no one will lend you any more. Isn't it about time you started talking about how to create jobs. Five years Obama has been leading you into poverty and no one seems to care. Hasn't this been extended 5 times already. You need jobs a lot more then you need social benefit extentions. When I say jobs I don't mean the kind the government subsidizes I mean the real ones. You know the old fashion ones that create tax income not spend it.
Of course the Rep. Are coming up with there own plan. Obamas doesn't work. Thank god someone is doing something To help the poor unemployed.
Valentine, you got anything substantive to say? A new, creative superficial shilling method of pot shots empty of any essence or content will only impress your supervisors at the big business serving PR firm so much.
How are you not the creationist? You ally yourself with a small fringe element of the scientific community and their denial and ignore OVERWHELMING evidence in the proferring of your argument.
Marc, to Mr. V: "Maybe if you neocons could all close your mouths for a couple of days the weather might return to normal". Hah-hah! MY turn for a belly laugh! - AIW
Dems are spineless. Of course they will cave.
Kend, the thousands of lies by oil company PR that you bought into (or, much more likely, are paid to propagate) were designed to resist going to natural gas - which would necessarily be a step to cleaner renewables as natural gas has many of its own problems, extraction methods as fracking, the reports about which there is no reason to doubt the credibility of (unless you have a vested interest in discrediting them). Why do you think there is not a great effort to convert cars to other fuels (and better, more environmentally sound ones, than natural gas; there's NO reason or attempt to power cars with natural gas).
stecoop01 ~ Yes, that thought has crossed my mind too. Makes some sense. However, there are already so many stupid laws on the books they don't really have to go that far to fill up prisons. After all, technically you can go to jail for recording a movie or reprinting an article.
There is also the Georgia Guidestone which states first and foremost that humanity must be maintained below 500,000,000. Another explanation could very well be soft genocide.
Of course, one must always remember that the best place to hide a secret is in plain sight. What about the stars on the Republican logo being flipped into a satanic symbol? Like I've said before they might offer a clue to explain the unexplainable. Maybe the Republicans just want to sacrifice a lot of weak people who don't agree with them to their high lord Satan? They want to do it in the cruelest way possible--freezing and starving to death like dogs in the street. To me that makes perfect sense and suits all the known characteristics of this gang of losers.
Mr. Valentine ~ Talk all you want, I'm getting a big kick out of it. So far, three posts and "0" facts without any arguments. So far we've stated more facts to back up your arguments then you. Criticise without facts all you want; but, be aware that you are just pushing around more hot air than that freak vortex on the North Pole. Say, perhaps you are the cause of Global Warming? Maybe if you neocons could all close your mouths for a couple of days the weather might return to normal.
There's a more insidious aspect to the republicans war on poverty: By destroying the social safety nets, forcing more people to fend for themselves, they hope to raise the crime rate. The more people committing crimes and being jailed, the more profit for the corporate prisons, and more rich people getting richer. And, yes, republicans just hate poor people.
Hi thanks for your reply.
Maybe you would have some luck petitioning the Government to redefine free speech?
"Liberal dips", Mr. Valentine? Perhaps you've stumbled into the wrong blog. I suggest you find something more appropriate to your level of comprehension (and maturity). We don't need reichwing trolls like you polluting this forum. - AIW
YOU people are right in there with the Creationists - with the dopey faith that "everything you see proves your idea including all the contrary evidence"
Bible thumpers ought to be looking to YOU foir tips on how to make people's brains go dead and believe whatever you tell them
Do not forget vigorous enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
AIW -- The interesting thing is that if you I identify progressive ideas as progressive the support for them drops below 50% (based on polls about the several proposals for the budget). The 70% think they are calling the shots, but the $600 billion in advertising is telling them what to shoot at.
bobcox and Palindromedary ~ Now that's what I want to hear--facts that make sense. One thing you both left out however, is perhaps the greatest external force on the solar system--the force imparted by the Galactic core. As the sun, planets and other stars move through space their movement is controlled by the Galactic core. These bodies don't just move in a consistent circular motion around the core; but, many oscillated up and down through the galactic center--as though at some time they were moving in a contrary trajectory and got trapped by the power field of the galactic core. They now move in a sine wave pattern that oscillates through the center of the galactic axis. When they reach their top perigee, some force--be it gravitational, magnetic, or something we haven't discovered yet--stops the motion of the bodies and reverses it. Imagine the power that stops even red giants and changes it's motion in space. That is a serious external influence on the entire solar system that should also be taken into account.
Quite frankly bobcox, I must agree with you and Palindromedary, analysing and understanding such a complex ecosystem as ours is no easy task. That is why I tend to trust the best informed amongst us; especially, when they admit they don't know.
Brian Valentine ~ Your rhetoric is not going to fly here. State some facts yourself of stick to your neocon blogs.
Hi Thom,
The R's also have a war on the free market and here's how: In free market theory, there are three conditions for the markets to work well:
"Perfect competition"
"Perfect information" and (wait for it.....)
NO externalities!
So when those libertarian types call in and claim to be such big believers in the wonders and magic of the Free Market, they need to understand they also should be in favor of a tax on carbon and paying a living wage to all Americans!
TPP will outsource jobs NAFTA hasn't yet!
at 63 i could go and try to get one of those 8 to 10 dollar per hour jobs that will only hire for a max of appx 19 to 32 hours per week but then id have to give up a good portion of my retirement (which i was forced into since there hasnt been any desent paying work to avoid retirement). and have the will to work for less money than i originally started my working career for over 46 years ago (proportionatly speaking.) I started out at 2.75 per hr. the then min .wage but i was able to have a car and insure it and save enough to move out of my parents house and live on my own with a 40 hour per week job. WHAT CAN A YOUNG PERSON STARTING OUT NOW A DAYS ACCOMPLISH WITHOUT WORKING 3 JOBS AND IT STILL WOULD BE TIGHT WITH NO SAVINGS.!!!!!!
Dweinstein003: Very interesting!
http://www.aspo2012.at/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Berman_aspo2012.pdf
too bad its not as simple as laying them off and putting them on unemployment then, CUTTING IT OFF.