Incredible Shrinking Bush Deficit?

Question

Incredible Shrinking Bush Deficit?
Incredible Shrinking Bush Deficit And the new Democrat deficit. The Treasury Department’s tax-collection data for April puts the federal deficit over the 12-month period ending April 30 at $144.7 billion. This leaves the deficit at about one percent of GDP, and declining, which is not a significant economic problem. The decline is due to surging tax revenues from a booming economy. The deficit is down about $120 billion, or 45 percent, since last April. It has declined by $309 billion, or 68 percent, over the last three years from the peak of $455 billion in April, 2004. This experience shows that combining pro-growth tax cuts with just moderate spending restraint can sharply reduce, and, indeed, eliminate the deficit. The deficit has declined now for 26 consecutive months and will continue to do so over the next 5 months until the end of the fiscal year. The deficit will consequently soon be well below one percent of GDP. Even with some modest slow down in economic growth, this deficit could be eliminated over the next two years with reasonable restraint in the growth of federal spending. But any such reasonable restraint in spending is not going to happen with the new Democrat Congress. Their emerging budget plan calls for even more rapid increases in federal spending, sopping up all projected increases in revenues, which will leave no scope for continued deficit reduction in the next fiscal year. They tout a plan to eliminate the remaining rapidly shrinking deficit over a ridiculous five years, and that only with tax increases. Starting this fall, therefore, Democrats will be harping on a deficit which was rapidly falling toward extinction, but which they chose instead to sustain and perpetuate with excessive spending increases. Tax revenues this fiscal year are running at about 19 percent of GDP, which is in line with historical averages over the last 50-plus years, showing there is no justification for a tax increase. But the Democrats’ plan for history-shattering tax increases starting in the next fiscal year, to support record-setting increases in spending. Their long-term budget plan is for truly massive increases in taxes and spending, like nothing ever seen before. Those conservative commentators who argued last year that Democrats would be better at fiscal discipline than the Republicans played a major role in bringing down the Republican congressional majorities. They are being proved quite wrong. Now just wait until you hear about the Democrat plans for entitlements.

Answer 1

So Bush increases the deficit by 89%, then decreases it by 2% and this equates to progress in the mind of a neo-con. Watch the shiny, twirling keys...

Answer 2

All I see is a lot of wind, or should I say "breaking" wind...

Here is a stat YOU and everyone else knows about the deficit:

After Clinton left office, there was NO DEFICIT. When bush took office, our deficit has at least reached 400 BILLION. You talk about the deficit shrinking. I see A DEFICIT that should not have happened if bush was competent enough to run this country. Now you want to talk about the Democrats having a terrible idea on decreasing it. WHY DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT CAUSED THIS PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Answer 3

Hmmmmmmm, when did we last have an outstanding surplus???? Gee, wasn't that when Clinton was in office???
Bush took a record surplus and turned it into a record deficit and Republicans are STILL calling Dems "Tax-and-spend"?????. Unbelievable! In France people are taxed but their taxes pay for health care, education, child care, transportation infrastructure and other things. Here we are given tax cuts, which don't amount to much, then we have to pay thought the nose for health insurance and education. I'd rather pay more taxes and have guaranteed quality education and health care for all.

Answer 4

try the Fed Transfering 15 Trillion funds activity loose to HSBC who then placed it by way of Royal monetary corporation of Scotland see any invesigations as to this huge funds Launering scam Oh! isnt this practically your national Debt? check out the signitories who allowed those Transfers is going to the right? Greenspan, Geitner and so on? try Google seek Lord James of Blackheath Exposes 15 Trillion greenback funds Laundering scam you spot any investigations into this Fraud? they have Rigged the full interest and the lot ought to be sitting shearing a cellular with the Maddoff Brothers (for existence) Oh and get the money returned to united states that ought to help the placement is you are able to end Obuma giving to his Terroist communities? somebody ought to tell the usurper Charity starts at living house and united states particular ought to apply some funds to attend to our Crumbling cities? Gov spends out on Billions of Rounds of hollow factors Ummm! and that they desire our weapons? What next practice Kamp Fema?

Answer 5

so the Bush deficit for a one year period is 1% GDP, and that is something to brag about?
why don't you throw in the calculations from the other Bush years, and see what percent 8.9 trillion is of the GDP.

since it is obvious you are bad at math, just look at the pictures here:
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/thefederalbudget/l/bl_gross_national_debt.htm

Answer 6

the numbers you give are the current deficit and not the total...the total is increasing by the amounts you have posted every year...under Clinton the numbers were half and decreasing

Answer 7

Wow, that's gonna have a real impact on the value of the USD and put a real dent in the 9 trillion national debt.

Be proud.

Answer 8

All I can say is you are so off base here have do not have a clue where to begin .
Above that bottom line are other findings that should be sobering to wealthy Americans intoxicated by the ideology and tax cuts preached and practiced by Republicans. A few examples:

* All of the comparatively small cumulative gain in income by the rich under Republicans came during the Reagan years. Under the other four Republican administrations since 1969, the richest five percent of households lost an average of $444 per year.
* In nine of the last 34 years, the income of the richest five percent declined. Eight of those nine years of loss for the rich came when a Republican was in the White House. The only year under a Democrat in which the richest Americans did not gain was the last year of Jimmy Carter's presidency, 1980.
* During the last fourteen years for which these data are available-the presidencies of the two Bushes and Clinton-the contrast in how the rich fared is especially stark. In the eight years under Clinton, the richest five percent gained an annual average of $10,241; in the six years so far calculated under the Bushes, the rich lost an annual average of $1999.
* It is true that the rich fared well during the Reagan years: an average annual gain of 3.6 percent with his huge tax cuts and massive deficits. Yet under Clinton, with his tax increase on upper income people (which Republicans insisted would cause economic ruin and against which every Republican in Congress voted) and ultimate balancing of the budget, the mean income of the rich increased at the significantly faster annual rate of 4.9 percent.

A similar story emerges from a look at the stock market, usually seen as another benchmark of how the rich are faring. During the same administrations, from Nixon to the second Bush, the Dow has gained an annual average of 7.1 percent under Republican administrations and 11.1 percent under Democrats. Here, too, the difference is more striking when the comparison is limited to the two Bushes and Clinton: a 6.7 percent gain under the Bushes and a 16.8 percent gain under Clinton.

UNDER WHICH PARTY DO THE RICH FARE BETTER?

Since 1968 (Nixon Through G.W. Bush)

Since 1988 (The Two Bushes Compared with Clinton)

If the rich are, surprisingly, so much better off under Democratic presidents, what about the rest of us? Other economic statistics, which are available over a longer period of time (1930-2003; 34 years of Republican administrations; 40 years of Democratic administrations), tell basically the same story for the economy as a whole.

Over this period of roughly the last three-quarters of a century, real disposable personal income for all Americans has grown nearly twice as fast under Democrats as under Republicans. (The annual mean growth in real disposable personal income under Republicans has been 2.3 percent; under Democrats, 4.3 percent.)

Republicans have traditionally identified themselves as the party of fiscal discipline, but over the last three-quarters of a century, Republican administrations have increased federal debt at a rate more than four times faster than have Democrats. (This statistic, moreover, includes a decade and a half of combating the Depression and fighting World War II under Democrats and does not include this year’s record Republican deficit of more than $400 billion.) A comparison of the presidencies of the two Bushes and Clinton in the area of fiscal responsibility is especially dramatic. The average annual deficit under Clinton was $40 billion. Under the Bushes (again, not yet including this year’s $400-plus billion deficit), the federal government has gone more deeply into debt at the rate of $256.3 billion per year, meaning that deficit spending has been more than six times worse under the Bushes than Clinton--and that difference grows greater by the day.

President Bush's claims that his economic policies are working are absurd, considering that the massive deficits his tax cuts have produced have yielded only an anemic improvement in the economy. Such improvement as there has been is the Keynesian result of the huge deficits. As Sen. Lloyd Bentsen remarked to me during the Reagan recovery in the mid-1980s, "When you're writing $200 billion in hot checks every year, you can't help but produce some stimulus." Vice President Dick Cheney's rejoinder to then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's concern about growing deficits speaks volumes about how fiscally irresponsible the Republican party has become: "Reagan proved deficits don’t matter."

Here, perhaps, is the answer to the question of why the Republican states are labeled "red states," which seems so odd in light of the GOP's traditional fervent anti-communism. What makes it appropriate to call Republican states red is the color of the ink needed for the party's budgets.

What of overall economic growth? During the period from Herbert Hoover's presidency onward, the American economy (GDP) has grown nearly three times as fast under Democrats as Republicans. (The annual mean growth in real GDP under Republican Presidents has been 1.8 percent; under Democrats, 5.1 percent.)

UNDER WHICH PARTY DO AMERICANS IN GENERAL FARE BETTER?

Since 1929 (Hoover Through G.W. Bush)

Since 1968 (Nixon Through G.W. Bush)

Since 1988 (The Two Bushes Compared with Clinton)


These statistics show that the popular Democratic slogan, "If you want to live like a Republican, vote for the Democrats," is true--even for the rich.

Are the remarkably better economic results achieved by Democrats due to better policies? Such significant differences over such a long period of time strongly suggest that they are. Some might argue, though, that the Democrats just have better luck. Even if that were the explanation, that luck has been so much better for so long that it would seem foolish for the rich, as well as everyone else, not to vote for a party with such good luck.

SOURCES:

Mean Household Income for Top 5% in 2002 dollars:

U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Tables - Households, Table H-3, http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/h0301.html, accessed 12 August 2004.

Percent Change from Preceding Period in Real Disposable Income:

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product Accounts Table, Table 2.1—Personal Income and Its Disposition, Line 40: Percent Change from Preceding Period: Disposable Personal Income, Chained (2000)

Answer 9

Really! Check this out...

http://www.usdeficit.com/

As they say to the fish in the commercials "Sorry Charlie".

Answer 10

I am all for the Tax Cuts for working people. That's why this is happening.