Interesting you should mention this Soulshiner. The percentage of people living at or below poverty is essentially unchanged for the last 30 years (how's that "War on Poverty working out?) and according to the illiberals the middle class is disappearing. If they are leaving the middle class and not entering the poverty class, where are they going? What has been the result of lowering tax rates and allowing people to keep more of the money they earned? More people who are doing better economically, right? Lower tax rates encourage risking capital to improve profits. Raising taxes has the opposite effect, which brings economic stagnation and a surplus of unused capacity. That is why when Kennedy saw a surplus of capacity, he lowered taxes to encourage investment in production. Isn't this what we have now, a surplus of capacity? Why shouldn't we take the same tack that Kennedy took this time around as well to get the economy expanding instead of remaining stagnated or declining?
The quickest and surest way out of a recession or depression has historically been proven to be cut taxes and cut spending. It worked to lift us out of the depression following WWI, which was actually more severe than the one that has been labeled the Great Depression - it just didn't last as long because the road taken during the Great Depression (higher taxes, more government spending) lengthened both the duration and the severity of that depression. It worked at the end of WWII as well, which is actually what allowed the nation to finally emerge from the Great Depression. Federal spending went from over 30% of GDP in 1946 to 17% in '47 and 13% in '48 as a result of cutting tax rates and taking a machete to government spending. It worked when implemented by Kennedy, it worked at the end of the Civil War - it has worked every time it has been tried. Tax reductions without spending reductions doesn't work, we can clearly see the results of that, and neither does tax and spending increases. That was proven during the 1930's and again at the conclusion of the 1950's when the economy stagnated once more.
The percentage of GDP spent by Washington DC increased after the tax hikes of 1993 - which meant that the economy wasn't expanding. After the taxes were lowered in 1997, the percentage of GDP spend by the federal government dropped by about 2% even though spending in dollars continued to rise - meaning the economy was growing more rapidly after the tax cuts than it was after the tax increases.
Every year the government in DC attempts to spend more than 20% of the national production the result is an increase in the public debt. Every single year, not a single exception to be found. The spending by the government in DC has to be below 20% of the national production for there to even be a chance of not increasing the public debt and the only time there has even been an accounting surplus the percentage has been below 19%. I say accounting surplus because the public debt actually increased during the last 3 years of Clinton despite the accounting tricks used to show a budget surplus. If the government in DC was required to adhere to the same accounting standards of private businesses, the results would scare every single one of us beyond comprehension - good thing government gets to write its own accounting rules I guess.
Something the Dog Said wrote: Since Viking likes his charts, here is one to consider:
Proved my point. Congress writes the bills for spending cuts and tax increases. Under Reagan, the Dems contolled both houses. Look what they went for. Very few spending cuts. Under Clinton and Bush most of the time the Republicans had total control of both houses or at least one house a few of those years. They were able to stop the out of control spending. And you are posting Obama's 'proposed' cuts for 2011. Who is proposing them? The Republicans. I notice that you skipped 2009-2010 when the Dems controlled all 3 houses and spending was more than the other 3 combined! So a Republican controlled congress will cut spending and our debt way more than the Dems ever have!
You are right. I love charts!
So you are stating that Reagan was impotent and had nothing to do with the economy, that it is only Congress that affects the economy, thus President Obama should not be blamed for the deficit, that it is the fault of Congress?
"Remember to always be yourself. Unless you can be batman. Then always be batman." Unknown
Nothing beyond setting the tone and either giving people confidence in their government, which Reagan was very successful in doing, or inspiring a lack of confidence, which Obama has been wholly successful in thus far.
Yeah, he certain "set the tone" when he was trading arms-for-hostages, and diverting money, illegally, to the Contras... Dang, I remember it so well... I certainly gave me confidence... And all that money that we spent, building up the military that was unpaid for; and anti-missle-missles that didn't work...
I understand why conservatives want to rewrite history and pretend that these good things happened while a Republican was in office — or claim, implausibly, that the 1981 Reagan tax cut somehow deserves credit for positive economic developments that didn’t happen until 14 or more years had passed. (Does Richard Nixon get credit for “Morning in America”?)
Like Ronald Reagan, President Bush began his term in office with big tax cuts for the rich and promises that the benefits would trickle down to the middle class. Like Reagan, he also began his term with an economic slump, then claimed that the recovery from that slump proved the success of his policies.
And like Reaganomics — but more quickly — Bushonomics has ended in grief. The public mood today is as grim as it was in 1992. Wages are lagging behind inflation. Employment growth in the Bush years has been pathetic compared with job creation in the Clinton era. Even if we don’t have a formal recession — and the odds now are that we will — the optimism of the 1990s has evaporated.
Yessirree, I'm all tingly with the confidence that inspired me... (just about the time that I became a Democrat...)
AspenValley wrote: I'd have had a heck of lot of "confidence" from the "tone being set" under Reagan if I'd been a military contractor. Otherwise, not so much.
Forgetting how bad Carter had left things with stagflation, energy woes, and high unemployment?
Reagan turned it around in a couple years, Barack is just making it worse after spending trillions.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
LadyJazzer wrote: Yeah, he certain "set the tone" when he was trading arms-for-hostages, and diverting money, illegally, to the Contras... Dang, I remember it so well... I certainly gave me confidence... And all that money that we spent, building up the military that was unpaid for; and anti-missle-missles that didn't work...
Wait, you mean that we don't have working anti-missile missiles today? I could have sworn we had them back when Saddam was firing Scuds at Israel and that current carriers have a working system on board as well. Do you have certitude that there are no anti-missile missiles LJ?
If Carter hadn't cut defense spending to the point where the military was incapable of defending or rescuing the citizens taken hostage by foreign nations and using the money to insert the wannabe national government into the world of education, perhaps Reagan, and the Congress of Democrats, would not have seen it so necessary to increase the defense spending by such a large amount. If Clinton had left more than a few Tomahawks in the inventory instead of firing the majority of the inventory into Bosnia and Kosovo while slashing the defense budget, perhaps the military spending at the start of the next administration wouldn't have been as high either.
Seems like the presidents elected from the party of Democrats love to use up all of the hardware their predecessor put into the inventory without replacing it and then the Democrats get to raise a stink when the next president has to replace the inventory his predecessor used up. Quite the con if allowed to get away with it - which I am unwilling to allow them to do.
I understand why conservatives want to rewrite history and pretend that these good things happened while a Republican was in office — or claim, implausibly, that the 1981 Reagan tax cut somehow deserves credit for positive economic developments that didn’t happen until 14 or more years had passed. (Does Richard Nixon get credit for “Morning in America”?)
Like Ronald Reagan, President Bush began his term in office with big tax cuts for the rich and promises that the benefits would trickle down to the middle class. Like Reagan, he also began his term with an economic slump, then claimed that the recovery from that slump proved the success of his policies.
And like Reaganomics — but more quickly — Bushonomics has ended in grief. The public mood today is as grim as it was in 1992. Wages are lagging behind inflation. Employment growth in the Bush years has been pathetic compared with job creation in the Clinton era. Even if we don’t have a formal recession — and the odds now are that we will — the optimism of the 1990s has evaporated.
And I completely understand why the regressives don't want to credit Reagan for inspiring the people such that the economy expanded a full 82% in value during his 8 years in office. The economy was $2.8 Trillion and inflation was 13.5% annually when he was elected and $5.1 Trillion and 4.1% the year he left office - all the result of renewing, rather than discouraging, confidence in the nation. Don't get me wrong here, Obama has done a wonderful job of encouraging the socialists here, but that is only a small percentage of the population. Reagan inspired the nation, which is why he won the EC vote in 43 states in 1980 and 48 states in 1984. Your anecdotal reference to yourself fails to support your premise in the wake of this reality LJ.
Yeah, I can see how the bottom curve grows with the Re-xxx-ican pressydents .. notably Ronny Raygun and the Idiot Son.
I still get all tingly thinking about how inspired I was...
Also note how the public debt (top graph) dropped with Billy-bob Clinton was in office.
Hmmm.
So. Why are the Republicans screaming about the debt .... when they're the one's that run it up? I know. I know. We can fix it with more tax cuts ... especially for the top 1%.
Ah well.
Of course, it's still the same basic info as Dog posted, just a different way to chart it:
Something the Dog Said wrote: Since Viking likes his charts, here is one to consider:
What runs up the debt is Republican presidents compromising with Democrat Congresses. Care to run that same graph showing the debt accumulation according to party control of Congress? I'm betting not since about 70% of the debt was accumulated under that scenario.
