• bloc said on Sep 26, 2009....

  And it's important to remember this exchange.
  
  
  O'Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter,"
  
  

• gingersoul said on Sep 26, 2009....

  Oh, don't worry, conservatives will find some pretty explanation for this too...like they always do......twisting numbers and facts to talk in their favor, specially when they do not talk in their favor...... .
  
  Most likely they will scream that you are a pitiful, blind hater who didn't even notice the graph was up side down....lol.......
  
  Gawgh....sorry...i was puking in my mouth.....Cheney is one of most disgusting politician ever.

• Black_lotus said on Sep 26, 2009....

  calling cheney a politician in an insult to politicians,(and I hate politicians), he's more of a cancer. And as long as the money's being spent wisely I don't care how much they use (within reason)

• bloc said on Sep 26, 2009....

  yeah, cheney will go down as one of the worst. 
  
  
  @black_lotus
  I agree. What we spend it on is an important, as well as when we spend it. I'm a keynsian and believe the government should run deficits when the economy is in serious trouble in order to pull it out. 

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 26, 2009....

  Do they have a term for people who think the government should raise taxes and save enough money when the economy is good that they aren't running a debt when they do step in.  I mean in the literal sense not the techno babble of "If I make four dollars and spend six I'm running a debt."  There is a difference between what a person should do (save money so when they spend six of the four they made they simply take two from the ten they made last month) and people who get a credit card and now OWE two bucks.  Is there a proper term for that?

• curmudgeon said on Sep 27, 2009....

  What this graph does not show is what GDP actually was from decade to decade.
  
  Ike - Republican
  Nixon & Ford - Republicans
  Clinton - Republican majority in Congress for most of his terms
  
  Reagan and Bush had Democratic majorities in Congress, if I am not mistaken.
  
  Carter may have lowered debt as % of GDP slightly, but seriously, I lived through the 70s. I want some of what anyone who thinks the 70s were great years to live in the US is smoking.
  
  If you are a Keynesian, you will see that the initial increase in deficit spending under W is 2001. Remember what happened that year? It holds steady right up until the end, when Bush has a Democratic majority in Congress.
  
  You can see that the line is vertical in the time of the Prophet Obama. My prediction is that it will remain vertical throughout his presidency.
  
  A liberal circle-jerk. How great for you!
  

• curmudgeon said on Sep 27, 2009....

  http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2008/1/30/gdpannualized1_2.png
  
  Here's a graph that show annualized US GDP fluctuations. Under Kennedy & LBJ, there is no negative growth. Under Reagan's  first term, there is quite a bit of negative growth.
  
  You will notice that right around Reagan-Bush terms, there is no negative growth until the end of Bush's presidency.
  
  Under Clinton, not much negative growth until the very end, which could indicate why so many voters shifted to Bush (whatever libs say about a stolen presidency, Al Gore had a pretty piss-poor showing for an incumbent VP).
  
  This graph tells us that negative growth can cause seismic shifts in voter party preference. The debt we incur seems more of a sideshow in national politics, which is why libs are decrying Regan-Bush, but defending Prophet Obama.
  
  How did you paste that image, btw?
  
  
  

• sheltercrow said on Sep 27, 2009....

  Gross federal debt:
  
  The only increases in debt/GDP since Roosevelt/Truman are:
  
  Nixon/Ford +0.1%, George W. Bush +6.9%/+11.7%, Ronald Reagan +9.2%/+11.3, GHW Bush +13.1%.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 27, 2009....

  Job creation by term Average annual increase:
  
  The worst eight since Herbert Hoover are all republicans.
  
  Herbert Hoover -9.0%, George W. Bush +0.002%, George W. Bush +0.3%, Dwight Eisenhower +0.4%, George H. W. Bush +0.6%, Dwight Eisenhower +1.4%, Ronald Reagan +1.5%, Nixon/Ford +1.7%.

• sheltercrow said on Sep 27, 2009....

   
  
  

• dyingman said on Sep 27, 2009....

  Grover Norquist, fiscal conservative extraordinaire was famously quoted as saying he wanted to make government so small you could drown it in a bathtub.
  
  There are limits to how small rank and file voters want a government to get.  Witness Afghanistan.  They are upset with Karzai's abilities to administer justice and keep starvation at bay.  This is a non-functioning government.  Is it small enough to drown?  Tough to say.
  
  Still, the amount of government we have is caused by what voters (and special interests that finance our elected officials' campaigns) asked for. 
  
  Attempts to privatize social security and medicare are going nowhere and the goal of conservatives like Norquist are to destroy this level of government help.  They would sooner leave it to private charities and churches and if it is insufficiently to meet need, them's the breaks,
  
  Still, if people in general don't agree, one way to destroy medicare and social security is to crowd them out of the budget. 
  
  No matter what you may have heard (check it yourself, I don't mind.) the budget is made of four things:
  
  Defense
  Medicare/Medicaid
  Social Security
  and
  Interest on the National Debt
  
  The GOP has bullied the Democrats into keeping the huge defense budget intact, the public supports and Democrats defend Medicare and Social Security to the hilt and the interest cannot be cut substantially.  It's already enjoying amazingly low interest.
  
  If you were to grow the national debt enough, something would have to give. the tax base will collapse and a black market economy would dominate if you try to continue the growth of all three.  They MUST be cutr at some point and if you let teh problem get out of hand to the point of endangering the country's solvency, you may be able to justify their abolition entirely.
  
  So to balloon the debt, but NOT pay for more services (thus increasing the possibility of generating favor from the public), you want to pass tax cuts.  MASSIVE tax cuts.  Keep buying the same stuff, but quit your job and flip burgers at McDonals. 
  
  Result?
  Reagan and Dubya.  Peas in a pod.  HUGE tax cuts, and HUGE deficits that propel the debt skyward.
  
  Norquist will get his way.  The government will either slash social security and medicare, screwing millions of seniors out of benefits OR America will pare back military expenditures to our nuclear arsenal and maybe dozens of thousands of special forces troops.
  
  I got a hint for ya.  Seniors VOTE.
  
  *DM
  
  
  

• sheltercrow said on Sep 27, 2009....

  'mean-spirited, humorless, dishonest little creep ... the leering, drunken uncle everyone else wishes would stay home' -- Conservative columnist Tucker Carlson on Grover Norquist and former economist and chief speechwriter for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
  
  'Starving the beast' [The term 'beast' used by the 'gang of five' refers to government and the programs it funds, particularly social programs such as welfare, Social Security, and Medicare] should first be applied to the military industrial complex. One of the implicit understanding of the Norquist crowd is that the best way to kill social programs, and make a huge profit for themselves in the process, is to waste tax revenues on a bloated military. Thus their need to find the next great 'Satan' to entangle the US in bogus foreign military adventures.
  
  It's not just coincidence that starving their 'beast' merely feeds another.
  

• curmudgeon said on Sep 28, 2009....

  Shelter - again, blame the presidents but not the Congresspeople who also have a say in what is spent. Whatever.
  
  The best way to starve the beast of Federal social spending is to increase their size to the point where it cannot sustain itself no matter how much the people are taxed.
  
  Now, you might think that the military is bloated, but the military also keeps a great number of American cities and towns economically viable. Go ahead - close bases, trash weapons programs and see how many more people wind up on the unemployment line. Close foreign bases and see how much diplomatic pull we will have with countries who are reeling from the negative economic impact. Trash weapons programs and see how quickly other countries move in to fill the void in international arms sales and how much other economic leverage we will lose.
  
  Frankly, I'm interested to see what will happen once the Federal Government finally collapses under the weight of the obligations it has created for itself over the last century. This might happen at the very end of my lifetime. My guess is the States will band together into regional economic caucuses and the once-mighty USA will be no more.
  

• sheltercrow said on Sep 28, 2009....

  curmudgeon:
  
  The president has the power of the veto and the bully pulpit. And a popular president can cause quite a bit of harm to the voting numbers of recalcitrant congresspeople.
  
  The 'starve the beast' concept comes from the neo-conservatives and the 'gang of five,' not me. It is their way of trying to dismantle the Roosevelt programs of the new deal. It's been floating around for some twenty years.
  
  As far a placing tax dollars in the military-industrial project sector, their are quite a few studies that refute the idea that it's economically sound. It takes twice as much investment in the military-industrial area for the same amount of jobs created. All to produce a product that has little practical utility and capital value.
  

• bloc said on Sep 28, 2009....

  @curm, couldn't we keep the jobs created from military spending by spending it on something like infrastructure that directly increases the competitiveness of Americans? Or maybe healthcare?

• sheltercrow said on Sep 28, 2009....

  The trillion dollars we've blown in the Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan disaster could have funded the health care reform package, with a real public option, and still have kept the bloated military.
  
  Even the National Guard has been stripped to support those illegal preemptive missions.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 28, 2009....

  @curm, couldn't we keep the jobs created from military spending by spending it on something like infrastructure that directly increases the competitiveness of Americans? Or maybe healthcare?

  I doubt it.  Infrastructure with only a few exceptions is something you build and move on to a new place.  You might be able to do it with Health Care.  You were in the military, you know good and well that the United States doesn't pay is soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines.  It pays the surrounding neighborhood indirectly.  Eighteen year olds and their money are soon parted. 

• sheltercrow said on Sep 29, 2009....

  The infrastructure in this country is in such a state you could employ a half million people full time on a permanent basis and still not do the job fully.
  
  Construction and rehabilitation of physical infrastructure, such as highways, public buildings (including schools, universities, hospitals), airports, mass transit systems, water treatment plants, national parks, forests, water resources, dams and levees, et al. The list is endless.

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 29, 2009....

  My point wasn't that there isn't work to be done Shelter.  My point is that you'd do one of two things.  You'd decend your army on City X, solve all of it's infrastructure problems and then move on OR you'd solve a handful move around and come back like a carnival every year or every five years or what not.  It's not the same as a military base.  A military base is a permanent structure that bleeds money into the surrounding area.

  I'm not saying we shouldn't employ a half million people and rove the country fixing the infrastructure.  That would do wonders towards bringing us into the modern age.  I understand and accept that the US is geographically different from pretty much ANY other Industrialized nation in terms of our sheer size and generally in terms of our landscape as well.  It's no wonder that in England they changed over all their phone cords to a new technology.  Their entire nation is smaller than my state.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't pick a point and catch up.  It's not shocking that you can get anywhere in Japan by bullet train (you can't but that's not my point) the mainland of Japan isn't as large as New York and certainly not as big as the US.  So there is work and go do it.  But I'm highly skeptical that building infrastructure could replace a closed military base as far as supporting a community. 

• sheltercrow said on Sep 29, 2009....

  The existence of a military base as a from of local prosperity is an artificial construct that needs closer scrutiny. A situation that taxes us all to benefit a chosen community seems on the face of it as unfair. A cash cow for the local businesses and politicians. It doesn't bear any of the hallmarks of fair competition because it's a captive market.
  
  Many military bases exist, in part, because of the utility they provide to politicians that seek reelection, not because they provide any meaningful service to national security. How many times have you come across an instance of a politician cutting a deal to keep an unneeded base open? How many times have you come across an instance of politician cutting a deal to keep an unneeded defense program going?

• SeanRenaud said on Sep 29, 2009....

  Seeing how most military bases are located someplace between hell and highwater I don't really care if they are unfair.  Sure there are some like MCAS Miramar that are in the center of a major city but much more are located in bumfuckistan and I got no problem using tax dollars to support those communities.  Just like I have no problem encouraging major corporations to build their factories in those same cities. 

• sheltercrow said on Sep 30, 2009....

  Rereading my comment it does seem too strident. But the fact remains that using the military as a way to improve the prosperity of any community is not economically sound. As an investment it costs twice as much for the same results. With the added negative feature of increasing the profits for industries that supply the military with all the toys it uses. All of which eventually end up being scrapped or given away.
  
  And even the dual purpose technologies seem to do nothing except provide the local police and tin pot dictators with new toys to use on their victims. Equipment marketed for 'internal security' and 'counterinsurgency' elsewhere is marketed here for 'crowd control.'
  

• kelly said on Oct 02, 2009....

  "Carter may have lowered debt as % of GDP slightly, but seriously, I lived through the 70s. I want some of what anyone who thinks the 70s were great years to live in the US is smoking."
  
  
  Well, I lived in the 70s as well.  And in my life I can say that the headiest, most exciting economic times were during the Clinton presidency.  So much for anecdotes, eh?

• SeanRenaud said on Oct 02, 2009....

  I'd be curious Shelter to see how you are coming up with the twice as much figure.  (note I'm not calling you a liar, I've used that term ONCE on SC for javadewd and he was lying.  I merely questioning your numbers.  I respectfully request my head remain on my shoulders)

  I strongly disagree with your dual purpose techonolgies point.  I mean even if we are only going to quote the fucking INTERNET as the only thing that the military has provided the private sector I would argue that was enough.  But I would also claim that the space race was clearly military driven (infact most astronauts have served *and I'm saying most so you don't bust out that guy.  I believe all of them have)  so basically anything that is satelite driven like cell phones could also be categorized as "military" cross over.  I'd be willing to bet that MRE's have done more than anybody really wants to admit not only in the kids school lunches market but certainly in the disaster kits/ non perishable food department. Nuclear power (which sadly we don't use nearly enough of) comes to mind too. 

  Granted my point is that paying a bunch of teenagers to live in city X and spend their money there really has less than nothing to do with the rest of the points that I've just made.  I just don't see how you can claim that using the military to improve a city is any less economically sound than encouraging UPS to run a major shop in Rockford Illinois.  I know because I passed through Rockford on a job a few years back.  UPS runs that fucking city.  They move everybody starves to death.  (or realistically moves)  '

  Also I'm not denying that weapons research makes weapons and that weapons kill people.  I"m rather fond of things like that microwave gun that is supposed to heat the water in your skin to cause increadible pain but not kill as non-lethal crowd control but I do understand your point.  However I don't think that we should skimp on military research.  But that isn't really the subject we are discussing.

  "Carter may have lowered debt as % of GDP slightly, but seriously, I lived through the 70s. I want some of what anyone who thinks the 70s were great years to live in the US is smoking."
   
  Correct me if I'm wrong someone.  America is the greatest country on the face of the earth and has been since sometime in the late eighteenth century.  Every year lived in the US is great, at least when compared to the rest of the world.

• sheltercrow said on Oct 03, 2009....

  From 'The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities' page 7:
  
  
  The table first shows in column 1 the data on the total number of jobs created by $1 billion in spending for alternative end uses. As we see, defense spending creates 8,555 total jobs with $1 billion in spending. This is the fewest number of jobs of any of the alternative uses that we present. Thus, personal consumption generates 10,779 jobs, 26.2 percent more than defense, health care generates 12,883 jobs, education generates 17,687, mass transit is at 19,795, and construction for weatherization/infrastructure is 12,804. From this list we see that with two of the categories, education and mass transit, the total number of jobs created with $1 billion in spending is more than twice as many as with defense.

• sheltercrow said on Oct 03, 2009....

  The Internet is an interesting case. It was initially developed, along with the interstate highway system, as a response to the 'sputnik threat' not as a possible benefit to mankind. And, I would suggest, as a way to let the military keep killing for as long as possible.
  
  Any 'dual purpose [technologies]' that were spin-offs of military investment are still subject to the initial criteria of having been economically impractical. Without the subsidy there would not have been spin-offs at all.
  
  All weapon systems seem interesting until you see the harm they cause.
  
  As an aside. I worked for two military contractors in the eighties and was shocked by the sheer waste and fraud. All intentional to keep profits as high as possible. The first one I worked for has since gone out of business when it was finally discovered they had contaminated an entire towns water supply.
  
  The companies milked the government for all it was worth as a matter of policy.
  

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