Drumpf!!!!! Orange Man Bad!!!! also, how do you spell personal accountabilitee?

[Sarge]

I guess you guys are saying that if Bush served another 4 years there would have been no debt. Most of you just seem disingenuous. The financial crisis was a near depression experience, which
had to be dealt with in a certain way that would automatically raise deficits. That's a much different experience than raising deficits with 3.6% unemployment.

No. What I am saying and have been saying to you is that the deficit fluctuates up and down with every President. Look throughout history. Always up and down, because things that weren't in the original budget (wars, national disasters, 9/11) get added in in the middle of the budget year. Truth is, none of them have any interest in non-deficit spending. All they ever do is reduce the rate at which the debt expands.

 

[Vader]

Actually, trog is right on the basics.

I don't recall what the current total life expectancy is.

When it is said that the life expectancy is X, it means that is an "average" ofhow old people live to be from birth.

Once someone reaches a later age, they are more likely to live to/past 65 than when they were born.

However, that only relates to taking payments feom the system. IIRC, i think the expected payment stream from 65 was about 10 years at the inception of SS.

You gotta factor in pre 65 mortality when it comes to nm paying into the system, though.

Of course people that make 65 are more likely to make the ELA than someone that hasn't. There are SSI charts for all this. The issue is that moving the retirement age a few years up when it is un-tethered from the life expectancy rate. Not only that but SSI was never meant to be the majority of a person's retirement income. It was designed to be a supplement to private sector pensions and other retirement funds. Now it also has illegal aliens dipping into it.

 

[ark steel]

Of course people that make 65 are more likely to make the ELA than someone that hasn't. There are SSI charts for all this. The issue is that moving the retirement age a few years up when it is un-tethered from the life expectancy rate. Not only that but SSI was never meant to be the majority of a person's retirement income. It was designed to be a supplement to private sector pensions and other retirement funds. Now it also has illegal aliens dipping into it.

Add that the government rules and policy actively discourage pension plans.

 

[deljzc]

If we compare debt vs. GDP or debt vs. spending, nothing Trump is doing is much different than during Reagan's economy. And if we GIVE Trump and the Republicans 8-12 years like Reagan/Bush you will see debt levels come down over time. In fact, the CBO's forecast (and they are blatantly against Trump) has the year-to-year deficit going down to about $500 - $600 billion by the end of Trump's 2nd term while Revenue and GDP continue to rise at 3%. In 2024, a $500 billion year-to-year deficit on $4 trillion in revenue would be much better historically (as a percentage) than what our country has been doing since the 1970's and certainly sustainable.

We all get scared as the numbers get bigger but when we borrowed $270 billion dollars in 1991, that was WORSE than Trump borrowing $800 billion in 2018 (projected). Especially when you realize the fed rate was higher back then than now.

 

[deljzc]

I will add this last thing as an example of why I distrust the Democrats more than Republicans on federal finances (and so should everyone else).

IF, as the liberals here are arguing, the bank bailout and federal spending boost in 2009-2011 was unavoidable and necessary to combat the recession, why didn't the government stop spending once the stimulus was done? It's the perfect example of once you increase federal spending for even so-called "short-term necessity", you never get it back. Never. Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter. You give them more to spend, they spend it and they never lower it.

Federal spending went from $3 trillion to $3.5 trillion in 2009. Obama and the democrats sold us this type of HUGE increase in spending (17%) was necessary. So what happened to spending AFTER the bailouts? What happened to spending the rest of Obama's tenure?

He kept spending $3.5 trillion every year. And the last couple years when the economy started recovering (if you want to argue 1.5% growth was recovering), federal spending went up to $3.9 trillion in 2016. And if not for a Republican Senate, Obama would have spent more (he wanted to, on many things). But government spending NEVER went down (maybe small ticks like $50 billion up/down) but once we took that 17% increase in spending in 2009, Congress never stopped spending it.