digg

Join DiggAbout

Donkeys and Elephants and Delegates,oh my!
Check out the most popular Elections 2008 content on Digg.

United Stated National Debt As A Percentage Of GDP - Historical 1940 to Now

cedarcomm.com — Second Graph down on page but whole page is good information. Are the naysayers right in saying not to be concerned?

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • dgendreau, on 11/11/2007, -15/+147And they keep trying to tell us that Democrats are all about wasteful government spending...
    • AKBryant54, on 10/12/2007, -20/+67In the first graph, I like the first and second oil wars.
    • epicstruggle, on 10/12/2007, -31/+49from the linked article:
      "How did Mr. Clinton lead the nation into fiscal responsibility? When there was a Democratic run Congress they put a policy in place that the Republicans dumped the minute Mr. Bush entered office. That reasonable policy was that if you cut taxes you must make a corresponding cut in spending. They called it “Pay as you go.” We need that kind of wise leadership again."
      Clinton only had 2 years of a democratically controlled congress, after that he had to work with a republican controlled congress.
    • arcooke, on 10/12/2007, -18/+202Clinton's term was very impressive in this chart. Looks like, for once, a politician actually *tried* lowering the national debt after saying he would. He has an affair and the world goes ape *****.. he literally halts our exponentially increasing debt and nobody says a thing. This country is so F'd up.
    • RobertS44, on 11/11/2007, -24/+133I love how Clinton was bringing us to par inbetween the "retard eras" (bushes) and all his work goes to waste.
    • epicstruggle, on 10/12/2007, -32/+61Hmmm, Im getting dugg down for stating a fact? Clinton only had a democratic congress in 2 of his 8 years in office. Those 2 years being the first ones. After that he had a Republican congress to deal with. That gridlock is a major reason that he wasnt able to spend as he wanted to. Newt and the Contract with America Republicans* deserve much more credit than Clinton in keeping spending down.
      here is a table showing who controlled congress/presidency over the years:
      http://uspolitics.about.com/library/bl_party_division_2.htm

      *Different than the theologian Republicans who have been in power these last 6-8 years. The fall of Newt and the rise of Delay, saw a shift from fiscal conservatism to social conservatism.
    • chingy1788, on 10/12/2007, -69/+4if bush gets re-elected that spending line is going to look like n^n
    • Ngai, on 10/12/2007, -13/+20Hmm the line starts climbing when Reagan was in office....

      Quick! Someone go back in time and tell him about this site.... !

    • thedobber, on 10/12/2007, -5/+88"if bush gets re-elected that spending line is going to look like n^n"

      If that occurs, we've got some serious problems with

      1) our electoral system
      B) our education system
    • BarneyF, on 10/12/2007, -10/+45You guys are too young to remember Reaganomics, I guess. The argument goes that you cut taxes and that increases growth so much you outgrow the debt. In other words, debt goes up absolutely but decreases as a percent of GDP because you have unleashed the forces of capitalism.

      This continues to be the current administration's excuse for batently pampering the rich. It was referred to as the "trickle down effect" in the Reagan era. Give money to the rich and they will pass it on to their maids gardners etc.

    • eonblue, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21"And they keep trying to tell us that Democrats are all about wasteful government spending..."

      I'd like to point out that just because neo-cons or the republican party (same thing) are for wasteful government spending that doesnt mean democrats are not.
      Democrats and republicans are NOT polar opposites.

      I would immagine that the democrats increased taxes to compensate for some of their spending. Which is a hell of a lot better then what the neocon party is doing however it's still not the best direction for our government to be headed in. I will be interested to see what the next democratic year looks like as well as what this chart would look like if taxes (how I don't know) were also on it.
    • Salgat, on 10/12/2007, -6/+16I would like to see the money in 2006 terms, you know, inflation etc. I'm not defending anyone, I'm just curious of how much debt there really was back then.
    • sotopheavy, on 10/12/2007, -12/+11This graph really puts things in perspective. Although it neglects to mention the composition of congress at the time. This chart makes republican presidents look like a curse. A would like to see a line representing our GDP as well? I'm liberal at heart but I'd like to play devils advocate for a sec.

      If the republicans made the GDP go up as well then it could balance out (very doubtful). Also they tend to promise less taxes and say the dems will make you pay more taxes.

      whew, ok. I think paying a little more tax and decreasing the national debt would be good in the long run. Its like paying a little more to be part of an exclusive club where the benefits are worth it. Plus I want my habeas corpus/American soldiers back. Lets spend money on the national debt and use all the money we save in interest each year pay off even more debt. We could actually fund a decent space program/stem cell research/autonomous vehicles/education once our debt is gone...
    • tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28"if bush gets re-elected that spending line is going to look like n^n"

      You realise he can't get re-elected, right? *shakes head*
    • nullcodes, on 10/12/2007, -23/+9Why does the national debt even matter? We aren't applying for a car loan or something.

      As long as we can produce energy there will be jobs and improved quality of life. Why? Because people need services from each other, all this economy crap all boils down to trade of energy and goods or raw materials (which require energy to extract).

      Properly implemented .. trickle down economics works like this: The rich horde their assets in banks or financial institutions, and this money gets given out many times over in the form of loans that are used to buy cars, land, form bio-med startups, build houses, irrigate farmlands, and fund business activity. All of that creates jobs.

      The system fails only if there is not enough energy sources.
    • brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -10/+19"The rich horde their assets in banks or financial institutions, and this money gets given out many times over in the form of loans that are used to buy cars, land, form bio-med startups, build houses, irrigate farmlands, and fund business activity. All of that creates jobs."

      Funny that for all the times this theory has been tried, it has never worked. I'll give you a damn good example of completely unregulated capitalism: feudalism. Feudal landowners split all the wealth between themselves and the church and left the serfs (aka, you and me) to suffer in poverty. The aristocracies of the past have hardly ever created jobs or given loans. If you have all your country's wealth being horded by a few rich businessmen, your GDP is going to suffer, severely. A strong middle class is the key to a financially successful nation. They are the ones creating the wealth by BUYING those goods and services.

      It does sort of make sense though that rich corporations need to buy a lot of things in order to keep going. But for one, a handful of conglomerates are never going to buy nearly the amount of goods and services as tens of millions of middle-class homeowners. Secondly, corporations nowadays are notoriously tight with their money thanks to globalization. One needs only to look at Wal-Mart. They make more money than ExxonMobil at the expense of their suppliers, many of which are forced to sell their goods at a razor-thin profit margin just to meet the demands of the retailer.
    • jellomizer, on 10/12/2007, -15/+49@AKBryant54
      Actually calling it Oil Wars is a really Stupid thing to do. It clearly shows that the author has an agenda to point out. Why hasn't the author pointed out who was in charge of the congress at the time, or how much debt the world owes us. What I really hate is when people are trying to prove one fact and at the same time pushing an other rather unrelated fact at the same time.

      This graph looks like the guy collected some numbers without much research just to prove the "Republicans are bad... Um Kay" And no matter what they do even if they follow the democrat party line to a tee they will still be faulted from these people. I believe in giving credit where credit is due and argue where I feel there is a mistake not make a party line.

      The graph accomplished nothing. It just made the Anti-Bush Everything people just as Anti-Bush, It made the Pro-Bush people still Pro-Bush because it is obviously written with an agenda.

      If you have an agenda don't try to show it.
    • Yokohamalion, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3The US economy is at the best its ever been http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2963837673813979186
    • theWaterboy, on 10/12/2007, -9/+8no, they're only trying to convince the mentally handicapable, and Bush supporters. Everyone else knows what is REALLY going on, is Bush and his policies are raping the US of its economic future.,
    • IEatHamburgers, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@thedobber
      I think there's something already wrong with the education system if your lists go "1) B) ..." :p
    • bcorsi, on 10/12/2007, -13/+341st and 2nd oil wars, im sure this article isnt biased at all...

    • wpi97, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11@epicstruggle
      I think you may be on to something. It would be nice to see a graph showing not only the president's party affiliation, but also the composition of the congress at the same time. It may well turn out that spending is higher when the same party controls both the legislature and the white house, because the president gets a free hand. And, conversely, we have a gridlock situation when congress is controlled by the opposing party, which keeps spending down. In other words, gridlocks are good. Checks and balances are good too.

      Personally, I think that Clinton was incredibly lucky. He took office when the country was coming out of recession, and he left just before the dot.com bust. Everyone remembers the prosperous years during his presidency, although it is not at all clear whether any of that was his doing. Much of it was caused by the high tech boom, the low oil prices, and, again, the gridlock between the legislature and the executive branch, that left the economy alone. Also, everyone remembers the Monica scandal, which was very entertaining for the whole country. However, nobody seems to remember the failed war in Somalia, which left it in chaos for the next 16 years, the US action in Haiti, or the bombing of Yugoslavia.
    • jj2me, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12@nullcodes
      "Why does the national debt even matter? We aren't applying for a car loan or something."

      Because we owe interest on the debt to the people (Americans, Chinese, ...) who finance our debt.

      The analogy is more like:
      "Why are we taking out so many car loans? The cars we buy have rusted away, and all we have to show for it is debt."
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -13/+18Give me a break.

      Anyone in this world who isn't living in 'Magical Thinking' knows they are Oil Wars. We didn't go over there for "humanitarian" reasons to "liberate" the Iraqi people. Come on.
    • jcm267, on 10/12/2007, -8/+6brstilson:

      There's the old saying "Does a poor person sign your paycheck"? Yes rich people horde money, but they put invest it. Do you think rich people who invest only benefit theirselves or other rich people? Would you rather we tax the ***** out of the rich and chase them completely away to another country, where they can relocate their headquarters? I think given that there are more and more "offshore" countries setting up financial markets that are well regulated yet lower taxed than what we have here, coupled with the easy communications made possible by the Internet, we'd be worried about losing even more of these companies than we already are.
    • iceperson, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1"And they keep trying to tell us that Democrats are all about wasteful government spending..."

      Someone needs to remind Steve who controls the budget...
    • texpundit, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7"And they keep trying to tell us that Democrats are all about wasteful government spending..."

      Well... considering the Neocons are nothing more than Democrat hawks that left the party, moved over to the Republican party and took over, the out of control spending and debt makes sense. No *real* conservative would have let things get this far out of control. If you take a close look at history and policy, what's going on nowdays is just a continuation of what FDR started with the New Deal.

      (No...I'm not a Republican, FYI.)
    • SchnellFowVay, on 10/12/2007, -7/+24It's an interesting read...

      But it's also largely full of crap. It drives me nuts when the author could have written a well-worded and accurate article with just an extra 5% of effort and 5% impartiality, but instead the whole thing is ruined because of laziness and lack of desire to look at the topic even-handedly.

      First off, the first graph is not inflation-adjusted. But inflation is compounding, even if spending in real dollars stayed FLAT, spending in gross dollars would still form a curve similar to what you see there. Now, if the author had simply shown an inflation-adjusted graph, it STILL would have proven his/her point (but not as dramatically) and wouldn't have appeared that the author knows nothing about economics.

      Second off, any author that blames any president for the great depression can best be described as uneducated about both history and economics. Both history and economics and inconveniently complex nexuses of thousands of causes and results. It's like saying Clinton was responsible for the technology boom, or that Bush was responsible for the economic dump after 9/11. Both played parts, but only very small parts in the greater tapestry that makes up history.

      Thirdly, any article, ESPECIALLY dealing with economics, that calls an entire, well-accepted theory WRONG, is usually over-simplified garbage. Saying the trickle-down theory doesn't work is like saying murder laws don't work because there's still murder. Trickle-down DOES accomplish many of it's goals - it creates mass capital which spurs industry to grow. It can be competently argued that the mass capital investment in the 1980's led largely to the huge economic boom in the 1990s. However,there were many faults with trickle-down as well (which are covered in teh article). The point is that calling nearly any largely-adopted economic theory "WRONG" on all counts over-simplifies the nature of economics. Trickle-down theory was NOT the only reason for the recession and stag-flation in the 1980s. THere was the cold war, the numerous free-trade crises, and 100's of other factors.

      My point is simply that the author could have written an article on teh same topic and credibly backed up his assertions. Instead, he wrote a paper that sounds like it's straight out of an econ 102 class at a community college.
    • kelbear, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5That is some pretty damning evidence.
    • callahanj8, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Paul Krugman has an editorial in the New York Times today titled "Gilded Once More". Here's the link:
      http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/opinion/27krugman.html

      Unfortunately, you will need an account to read the entire article.

      Two items stood out. One was the ratio of Richest to average pay. Using John Rockefeller as an example,
      Taken from the editorial:
      "His return declared an income (in 1895) of $1.25 million, almost 7,000 times the average per capita income in the United States at the time."

      Zoom to the present,

      "But that makes him a mere piker by modern standards. Last year, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine, James Simons, a hedge fund manager, took home $1.7 billion, more than 38,000 times the average income. Two other hedge fund managers also made more than $1 billion, and the top 25 combined made $14 billion."

      The second item that stands out is how Paul Krugman puts $14 Billion into perspective.
      Taken from the editorial:
      "How much is $14 billion? It’s more than it would cost to provide health care for a year to eight million children — the number of children in America who, unlike children in any other advanced country, don’t have health insurance."

      Don't forget we are spending $1billion a week in Iraq. I'm not especially anti-war. We're responsible for Iraq now. As Colin Powell says "If we break it; we own it." We can't leave, but maybe we can spend a little less money on it. From what I read we have 125 thousand support contractors over there.

      I'm not especially anti-rich either, but my opinion is we spend way too much money without paying attention to some badly needed fixes here at home, like health care for kids. I'll bet most of the highest paid people in this country would gladly pay more taxes if they thought the rest of us, or our elected representatives, would spend the money wisely.

      That's the real shame of the debt, the amount of wasted $$$ in it.
    • Derrekito, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2Looks like the graphs showing historical CO2 levels and average Earth Temperature... more debt = global warming!
    • wageslaven, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6That is the ROVIAN method.

      Ok, here is how it works. Your caught/accused/possess some fault, say, you overspend. What do you do? Make exactly the same accusation -- however baseless -- against your accuser.

      The result? Reality is lost in the debate, where each side relies on his previous worldview to accept the accusation that maintains his worldview.
    • Infowarmachine, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3dividing them into republicans and democrats is meaningless
      everyone of the presidents on that list were put into power to work for the same puppet masters, JFK didnt obey so they murdered him
      even jimmy carter and clinton were both groomed and placed in the whitehouse to serve the same masters that bush serves
      hilary will very be the next president, and she will also serve

    • JK1150, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1First and second oil wars? This is obviously a pretty biased website, and should not be taken at face-value..
    • hibachipenguins, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Someone must believe in AC Pigou!
    • 15charmaxwtf, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4And they try and tell use Republicans are war mongers :) Funny how it's democrats that got the US into most of the wars.

      I guess at least the Dems don't preach small government rhetoric and then find other ways to tax people (inflation and deficit spending) like this current Republican administration.

      The scary thing is that the line doesn't look like it's going to stop going up there.
    • brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@jcm267

      You seem to think I'm advocating against having rich people around AT ALL. My stance is that there needs to be a balance. Trickle-down economics upsets that balance by giving too many tax breaks to the rich. If it weren't for globalization, it might have worked, but more and more, those rich businessmen are signing the paychecks of Chinese and Mexican workers. The American middle-class was built on manufacturing labor, and that market here is now crumbling. Sure, Chinese products may be cheaper now, but the lower prices on goods does not offset the wage loss of someone going from $20/hour to $7.

      Thanks to NAFTA and open trade with China, we're giving money to rich businessmen and they're creating wealth in China, India, and Mexico instead of here. The neocon economic philosophy is a pipe dream.
    • brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8"And they try and tell use Republicans are war mongers :) Funny how it's democrats that got the US into most of the wars."

      Democrats take us to war when it is necessary. Republicans take us to war to spread agendas.
    • BESTenemy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Judging by the graph, US national debt could also be responsible for Global Warming. Fits nicely with the temperature and CO2 emission chart.
    • lifeisapickle, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0@AKBryant54

      this is all true, this entire graph, its definitely unacceptable that bush has made the national debt so high, but "1st Oil War" and "2nd Oil War"...what the hell. its supposed to be "Gulf War" and "War on Terror" i mean seriously, its not about oil, it was about an evil, evil dictator who had to be taken down.
    • johncern, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Nah. Not Democrats. Politicians in general are the cause. :)
    • swordedge, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Clinton was simply the idiot in office when the internet boom happened. He did NOT lower the the deficit. The internet did.

  • big65rich, on 10/12/2007, -16/+9when you go to war of course your debt will rise...however i'm not sure that first graph is inflation adjusted using a proper base year
    • mikelieman, on 10/12/2007, -6/+25A really fiscally responsible, traditional Conservative would suggest that adjusting for inflation is pointless in this instance, as ALL DEBT IS BAD.

      Anyone who suggests otherwise, this Hypothetical Authentic Traditional Conservative would say, is collecting interest somewhere along the line.

      Contrast this with the philosophy evident in the current Administration.
    • ddales, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I don't necessarily agree with that. IMHO the point of the graph is to compare and contrast the particular presidencies. Therefore, I think it would only be reasonable to adjust the numbers for inflation to get a more accurate picture of what happened, comparativly, between the various decades. I never studied economy though so I might be making a completely idiotic statement here.
    • labmouse42, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@mikelieman

      Thats the inherent problem.
      The neo-con movement is not following traditional conservative values --- which include cutting back on government spending and influence in our lives. In fact, you could argue that much of the republican party is pushing the liberal policy today -- increased government spending and influence on our lives.

      It's a huge twist of irony that people like Ann Coulter and Neil Borish(sp) flame liberals when their policies are more liberal than conservative.
    • mcduckov, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Now that I'm on the right side of debt it doesn't look so bad to me.
  • nufan00, on 10/12/2007, -3/+42While in Canada; http://www.fin.gc.ca/ec2005/images/ecc3_2e.gif

    Canada’s fiscal situation is the strongest among the Group of Seven (G7) countries. In 2004 Canada was the only G7 country to post a total government surplus. Canada also had the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio among G7 countries in 2004.

    http://www.fin.gc.ca/ec2005/ec/ecc3e.html
    • BrainInAJar, on 10/12/2007, -6/+69But canada's socialist...

      they should take a note from the good old USofA, instead of wasting taxpayer money on social healthcare, they should spend it responsibly on things like blowing up foreign countries
    • KingMoses, on 10/12/2007, -38/+12A surplus is nothing more than proof of over-taxation.
    • azAZ09, on 10/12/2007, -10/+33One could argue that Canada's economy is stronger because it has some socialist tendencies.
    • thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -19/+14Or, one could argue that Canada isn't trying give aide out all over the world, fighting two wars, and increasing the socialistic programs at home....

      But, that would just be simplifying a country's economy to a nice "layman" one line talking point....
    • labmouse42, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18Some things work better with socalist influences.

      Look at the cost of Natural Gas in the US. When this was government regulated (socalist) the cost for Natural Gas was roughly $20 a month in 1994. After de-regulation and the removal of this influence the cost for Natural Gas shot up to $150 a month.

      Take the cost of prescription medicine in Australia. Since the government regulates the cost of prescription drugs, the costs are considerably less than the US market.

      Pure socialism does not work. Pure capitolism does not work. The best solution (IMHO) is capitolism with some socalist influences -- on required items to living such as gas, power, and oil.
    • biuku, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Because Chretien-Martin was -- economically -- like having Clinton from '93 to '06.

      Never believe that conservatives support fiscal responsibility. They support lower -- or no -- social spending, but in Canada (Mulroney) and the U.S., conservatism = very expensive bill for the next generation.
    • jcm267, on 10/12/2007, -12/+1"One could argue that Canada's economy is stronger because it has some socialist tendencies."

      Your opinion is based on what? Canada's economy is strong because of the oil boom in Alberta. If it wasn't for that, Canada's economy would be stagnant.
    • jcm267, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4"Look at the cost of Natural Gas in the US. When this was government regulated (socalist) the cost for Natural Gas was roughly $20 a month in 1994. After de-regulation and the removal of this influence the cost for Natural Gas shot up to $150 a month. "
      -I'm not exactly familiar on this subject, and unlike diggers I won't pretend to be. Was the gas subsidized before? If that's the case the taxpayers were footing the bill, and the price was artificial. Exactly how unregulated is the market now? How free are the gas companies to explore for gas, to extract the gas, to build the necessary distribution systems for the gas, etc? How much of an effect does the developing world have on natural gas prices? I don't think either of us has a good understanding on this subject. Next.

      "Take the cost of prescription medicine in Australia. Since the government regulates the cost of prescription drugs, the costs are considerably less than the US market."
      - And just who subsidizes the drugs in Australia??? Oh yeah that's right, its the Americans with their higher prescription cost. Countries with socialized medicine pay the drug companies enough so that they make money on the drugs, but not enough to recoup much of their losses from R&D. And what if the drug companies don't sell for the demanded price? Those countries will just break the patent and make these drugs generically. I think you guys have a pretty sweet deal right now, why would you want to screw that up by bringing socialized medicine to the USA? If the USA does what the rest of the western world does to the pharmaceutical companies, expect fewer and fewer innovative drugs...

      "Pure socialism does not work. Pure capitolism does not work. The best solution (IMHO) is capitolism with some socalist influences -- on required items to living such as gas, power, and oil."
      Just like we were so better off with AT&T (the equivalent to a government monopoly on a utility) owning the phone line into our house, as well as the phone. You think gas prices are high now??? Imagine if there wasn't a different gas station across the street your favorite gas station has to undercut the prices of. I think the power grid could become a thing of the past in our lifetimes, with hydrogen fuel cells being the way to go to fuel everything.

      Socialism doesn't work, capitalism does until you get monopolies and in that case it's basically the same thing as socialism. I think about it this way: a socialist manager worries about getting funding from the government and worries that he'll lose his funding if he doesn't spend every dime given to him, a capitalist manager tries to keep costs low and profits high. Capitalism is more efficient, and at the end of the day that benefits the consumer.
    • labmouse42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@jcm267
      "Was the gas subsidized before?"
      t was not subsidized, it was sold as a utility -- simlar to power and water today. When your sales are not focused on creating a profit you can spare many expenses, such as advertising campaigns.
      In the late 90s, natural gas was no longer provided by the government to the people, but instead was re-sold through corporations. In theory you would have multiple gas companies competing for the lowest price, lowering the cost of gas. However, this is not the case. Prices have instead increased ~1000%.
      Why did this happen? What are your guesses?

      "Americans with their higher prescription cost." How does paying a higher cost for drugs subsidize the drugs in Australia? If the drug companies did not make a profit selling them down under, they would not do so. In summary, they are able to sell the drugs for much more here so they make a profit.
      Oh, and drug companies spend more yearly on advertising than on R&D.
      "You think gas prices are high now???"If competition lowers prices, why did the price of natural gas shoot up? For an excercise, look to see what the most profitable company in the world is today.
      If gas was regulated like a utility, then I would argue that we could easily see the price drop.

      "I think the power grid could become a thing of the past in our lifetimes"
      Available, cheap power would be a boon to humanity.
      The world will eventually move away from fossil fuels, but I'm not sure if it will happen in our lifetime.

      "you get monopolies ... the same thing as socialism." Socialism does not work because it does not reward innovation.
      Monopolies do not work because they allow companies to set prices at whatever they want.

      "Capitalism is more efficient, and at the end of the day that benefits the consumer."
      No arguement there.

      (ps - it's good to have reasonable debate, usually digg is just people screaming party lines)
    • mattw, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Having SOME debt is a good thing, it means that you are investing in the future (so long as you are putting the money into the infrastructure of your own country).

      @ azAZ09: One could argue that one could argue anything they wanted.
    • KingMoses, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1No wonder liberals are liberals; you don't know dick about economics.
    • ISpeedAtNight, on 10/12/2007, -3/+085% of Canadian exports go to the US. Take that away and see how your economy does. You'd be a big, cold, white Nicaragua with annoying flags posted everywhere.

      http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/US_Canada_Mexico_1005.pdf
    • Misesean, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"Socialism doesn't work, capitalism does until you get monopolies"

      Monopolies cannot occur under capitalism; they only result from socialism (either of the left or right (fascist) variety)
  • Scoomdot, on 10/12/2007, -7/+20It's not that big of a deal. We'll just do what most broke Americans do...File for bankruptcy
    • loudribs, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Can the Federal Government file for Chapter 11? Problem solved!
    • kingkilr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+69Hey, I saw a guy on TV who could help consolidate our debt.
    • nova912, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Actually they just passed a bill making it harder to file chapter 11, there was a PBS special about it.
    • eonblue, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11As long as we have the best military were safe from debtors... Maybe all the military spending isn't so bad... (/sarcasm kind of =/)
    • kelbear, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Yes, a federal government can declare bankruptcy. It has the same effect that it does on people and businesses who declare bankruptcy. It absolutely murders your credit and makes it nigh impossible to take out a loan without a tremendous interest rate, because you've proven that you were incapable of making good on the payoff for the loans.

      Some third world nations have done this, it wasn't pretty.
  • killcops, on 10/12/2007, -12/+32it's interesting to think that future history books will refer to these as the oil wars.
    • kahlessreborn, on 10/12/2007, -21/+3Would you prefer pissing contests?

      Or who's bomb is bigger?
    • thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -16/+20No, they won't... That article is just someone's political attack using statistics, appeals to emotion, and straw man tactics. The label on the graph is just one of the "appeal to emotion" fallacious arguments I saw.


      "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics."
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -7/+10If you can't see that they're Oil Wars, well I don't know. I don't like to insult people.

      Here's another one for you, I know people who did Combat tours in Vietnam. I've talked with them extensively and they have informed me of the following, which I followed up on with reading and personal research.

      Vietnam was an Opium War, so is Afghanistan.
    • dave11980, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"Vietnam was an Opium War"

      Actually Vietnam was a Rubber War, but the point is the same. It should be noted that in the 60's we had a full democrat government, JFK/LBJ and a democrat congress. That got us Vietnam.

      Republicans=Democrats with an accent, or vise versa.

      They both suck ass and need to be replaced by something better. Libertarians and Constitutionalists might make a decent mix as the two primary parties but then they would just get corrupted too.

      Bottom line is that power of the federal government were divided up based on the power level at the time. The fed now has a lot more power so either that power needs to be relinquished to the states or more separations need put in place.
    • mcduckov, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Statistics are actually pretty useful the closer you get to the raw data. If you are the person who take the raw data from a well-designed survey or a transactional system then stats will serve you pretty well and you can learn all kinds of neeto stuff. When it goes wrong is in the translation from analyst to the general public. There is a lot of unseemly massaging that goes on and that is unfortunate. But people ought not just dismiss stats...if you can get real close to the raw data then stats are pretty frikin useful.
  • thehumph, on 10/12/2007, -11/+18While I think the article has a terribly awful bias toward the Democrats and is anti-Republican, it's very informative and well presented. Oh, and it just so happens that I am pro-Democrat and anti-Republican. ;)
    • azAZ09, on 10/12/2007, -16/+43The truth has a liberal bias.
    • nova912, on 10/12/2007, -9/+6Yeah DATA has such a bad bias to it.... 2 > 1 "OMG SERSLY SO OPed MATH, TOTAL DEMOCRAT BIAS THERE"
    • nickelking, on 10/12/2007, -10/+7Why is he being dugg down? He admits the article has a liberal lean, and states he recognizes this despite his leaning in the same direction.

      I prefer that sort of honesty in a post!
    • CourtesyFlush, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23This is digg. Honesty doesn't count.

      Anything resembling the truth will be buried as long as it doesn't favor the popular vote.
  • LaueOfficer, on 10/12/2007, -13/+7It bothers me how the represent the presidents as being 100% accountable for what is happening during their tenure. Sure, it's their duty to take care of it and not wake it worse, but the actions of previous presidents and current events is not their fault.
    • razorsharp84, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8it is if they're the ones responsible for the current events
    • DforSpiD, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Well that's probably why Clintons first couple years were spent slowing down the spending that Bush started... and the second Bush just picked up where daddy left off
    • HomerS1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9DforspiD -- "Clintons first couple years were spent slowing down the spending that Bush started."

      Clinton did not slow down spending. Revenues increased dramatically during his tenure. The Clinton surplus was the result of a booming economy (dot com bubble), not the result of reduced federal spending.
    • jdibiase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's interesting how so many attribute spending to the President, while Congress holds the "purse strings."
  • Shad0wSP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10is this adjusted for inflation? i think the graph would resemble the same shape roughly anyway
    • Yazilliclick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Comparing to GDP is the accurate way to show it and does not require any comparison against inflation. Actually calculating inflation in would simply throw it off. The whole point of comparing debt vs gdp is to show the ability of the country to finance it's debt.
    • Misesean, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"The whole point of comparing debt vs gdp is to show the ability of the country to finance it's debt."

      GDP is a completely useless figure for that purpose (or any other, actually); it'd be much more ...interesting... to see the graph after replacing GDP with PPR.

      http://www.mises.org/story/2231
      http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/woods1.pdf
    • hreamer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I agree, this is really just propaganda anyway.
      1.) Congress bears an equal if not greater responsibility for the economy (good or bad)
      2.) I have a lot more debt than my children do. Sounds bad huh? Not really, I can afford the debt because I have a greater income. Statistics like this are worthless because the only data you see is the data that supports the preclusion to the article that the author has.
    • kelbear, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@hreamer

      Debt is not always bad. A small amount of debt can be better than no debt because if a small amount of debt is maintained, it can be a sign of good investment(money is borrowed to produce enough money to offset the interest payment, and possibly produce profit, etc. and if maintained, it shows the entity is capable of investing profitably).

      But a high amount of government debt reduces private investment by decreasing the available amount of loose capital in the economy. Government's using the money instead of private business, so if private business wants to start new ventures, it borrows the remaining money...at a higher interest, and higher interest can scare off new ventures, resulting in a decrease in investment.

      Decreased investment is a drain on the future economy, and the money of the future that is lost is lost forever and can't be reinvested into the future after that. So potential money lost today due to excessive debt is a massive loss farther into the future since it can't build off itself. That's why it needs to be tightly managed to ensure that no potential is wasted.
  • BarneyF, on 10/12/2007, -1/+660% of GNP is still low enough to get into the EU. It has increased at about 2.5% (percentage points of GDP I mean) per year since Clinton, which also is within EU limits.

    Not that America wants to join, but it's the only real world benchmark out there.

    Concerning presidential accountability, the slope correlates well with the party of the president, not with the party in cogress
    • gini1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Well. Comparing national debt to GDP is kind of silly anyways because GDP growth is at least partly financed by debt. You see, that Product part in GDP is actually misleading: Producing stuff and selling it increases GDP for sure but GDP is also increased when citizens or government borrow money and buy stuff.
      And since both private households and federal government are heavily indebted it is relatively safe to say that when that borrowing and spending ends (and it will, eventually), something nasty happens to GDP.
      So if I were an American (I'm not), I wouldn't feel too comfy about debt/GDP ratios...

    • themanautomatic, on 10/12/2007, -7/+8Thanks for recognizing our civilised European ways. We also offer actual democracy (get it while it lasts), equal opportunities in education (any person in the EU can get a full highschool and college education, either fully paid for by the state or on a student loan which is partially subsidised and so favorable even a part-time mailman could pay off), quality affordable healthcare, and much much more. We actually built all that good stuff with the U.S.'s money. Thanks dudes.

      All we need now is to stop following your redneck presidents into war, it's cutting into our "more good stuff" budget.
    • BarneyF, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@gini1
      What scares me is not so much the national debt as the current account. Exporting less than your importing means saving less than your investing. (A bit counter intuitive I know)

      The problem with the American government is that it is a huge negative saver without any balancing saving from America itself. That means America is being financed by foreigners. The whole thing is a house of cards and is threatening the worldwide financial system.
    • cyberdork, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@BarneyF:
      Good that you bring up the current account deficit.
      https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html

      The negative current account balance of $862.3 billion for 2006 basically means that every hour of the day the US needs to attract $100million of foreign capital to keep it's economy running.
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@themanautomatic

      What country do you live in? I may want to come and visit sometime. That all sounds pretty good.
  • edebolt, on 10/12/2007, -9/+9firstly the US external debt is about 30%. The other 30% is internal between programs and agencies. With a restructuring it could be halved.

    Lets compare to some other countries. By memory from a past research.

    japan 180%
    Singapore 100%
    Israel 110%
    Germany 70%
    France 65%
    China 30%
    Canada 30%
    UK 30%
    Hong Kong 0%

    is 30% external so bad?
  • nickelking, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19sorry, this bugged me "While Mr. Reagan was in office this nation’s debt went from just under 1 trillion dollars to over 2.6 trillion dollars, a 260% increase." That's a 160% increase, or 260% of the debt he inherited.

    Great find though, found the whole thing fascinating!
  • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -10/+16NUMBERS DON'T LIE PEOPLE DO. I don't know who is dumber the person who wrote this BS or the person that posted it. First off Congress controls spending not the president. Second these number are NOT "A Percentage Of GDP." If you look at the percentage of GDP, spending was higher under Clinton (highest in 50 years) than Under "W." They were at the highest under Roosevelt and Truman. If you want the facts look here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._public_debt
    • pgoetz, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15The president can veto any spending bill. In this sense, he/she most certainly controls government spending. W has been spending like a drunken sailor -- if this isn't obvious to you, pull your head out of your ass and pay more attention.
      Second, GDP is ***** because it counts revenues that don't necessarily exist. If I sell you my favorite marble for $10, and then buy it back for $20, and then you buy it back from me for $30 and then are forced to sell it back to me for $20 because you need the cash, no money or goods really changed hands, but the GDP goes up by $80. In our case, our trillions of dollars in deficit spending and trade deficit act as an artificial GDP multiplier. In effect, we're borrowing trillions of dollars from foreigners to spend on houses, for example; the house builder then uses the money to buy a new car, the car salesman gets his watch repaired, and the watch repairman buys a McDonald's hamburger.
    • mjw2025, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2Dumber? You forgot the people that believe that chart without thinking about it. As most of the idiots on this thread.
    • thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2@gotez

      And a presidential veto can be overridden by congress.... So your assertion is incorrect.
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5If my assertion is incorrect, so is the article's. So who are you idiots disagreeing with?

      ..... and yet the DOW is at 13,000, home ownership is at an all time high, and unemployment is at record lows.
    • BarneyF, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Look at the slope of the curve. That is the deficit, that is,

      income - spending

      in the current year.

      The slope goes up under Reagan & the Bushes, und down in between when Clinton was in.

      Debt is a culumative measure, and under less control of the current government. Surplus means falling debt deficit means rising debt.
    • flinx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Saying that "the president controls spending" is pretty naive. Vetoing a budget is almost politically impossible.

      Plus, boiling that complexity to a yea/nay vote doesn't really result in anything approaching 'control'.

      The president used to have control via the OMB. Then in 1976 Congress created to CBO to get some control over the process. Look carefully when the real debt started. Bottom line is that now congress controls the money.

      The real culprit in our recent problems is not a republican president, it's a republican congress that abandoned it's principles and went for the free candy.

      The question we should be asking is NOT related to political party. The real question is "do we want an institution with a history of corruption and made up of individuals with only local accountability spending aggregate money"
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1It's no wonder you "blue people" need someone else to pay your bills. You don't know sh*t about economics.

      If you want to cut spending lets start with entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, Welfare and Medicaid. That 65% of the budget. That would also eliminate most of the interest on debt, which is 10% of the budget. There's 75% of the spending right there.

      This is all just a Red-herring to bash W. Anytime someone wants to cut taxes or spending you people raise holy hell.
    • jdibiase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's true that the president can veto any spending bill, but what happens so often is that the spending aspect is attached as an amendment to important, unrelated legislation. As a result, we have highways being built to no where, unneeded programs, etc. So, in order to veto the spending (pork), the entire bill must be vetoed. In order to enact the desired legislation, everyone (i.e., the president and congress) makes a deal with the devil, holds their noses, and allows the pork. Congress understands the game, people keep electing congressmen who "bring home the pork," and the system continues with ever-increasing spending patterns.

      What's really needed is some sort of rule change in how amendments get attached to bills to avoid these kinds of irrelevant spending being attached to unrelated legislation.
  • graystar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Does anyone have a graph of tax rates over time as well? I would like to see a comparison - I am expecting more taxes and still more debt.
  • Leevi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
  • PhillipJFry, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Jesus Christ people. Please try to spell correctly in the effing titles! If you can't spell, get Firefox, which has a built-in spell check. "United Stated National Debt?" I thought it was the stated national debt of some sort of united entity. Comments are one thing, but the second word in the title isn't hard. Secondly it's the word "states" which isn't hard to spell. I realize this is merely a typo but this is getting pathetic.
    • thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@fry

      Ahem.... stated is a real word.... No spell checker would have found it.


      http://www.geocities.com/tthor.geo/spellchecker.html
    • Swbari00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1haha. you really couldn't figure our what the article was about by the title?
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Oops. Sorry. I just noticed it when you pointed it out. It's a typo. The "s" is right beside the "d" on my keyboard.

      I hate typos, but since my typing sucks they happen sometimes.
  • lastobelus, on 10/12/2007, -10/+8It should not be surprising, neither the situation in the States, nor the general correlation worldwide between social democracy and fiscal responsibility.

    Conservatives are more likely to be liars and thieves than liberals, particularly when in power. To be conservative -- to deny the principles of social democracy -- is to take the position that you have no responsibility for the well-being of others in the society. Holding this distinction between one's own wellbeing and the wellbeing of others is the primary moral characteristic which enables someone to make the choice to lie, cheat and steal to benefit oneself while demanding of course the most extreme punishment for anyone else who breaks the law.

    It is the same reason so-called christians can stridently proclaim their "christianity" while in fact acting the same as and having the same inclination for imposing moral law on others as the Pharisees of Christ's time: the very group he condemned more than any other.

    They are the same sort of human -- a parasitical subspecies: ***** Hypocritus
    • thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6I got one word for you....


      "*****"


      Quit reading Marx and go into the real world.
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3These people wouldn't last one second in the real world, unless mommy and daddy where there to shelter them.
  • edebolt, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2its the same with good companies. Good companies borrow money to fund future growth. Japan had very low growth until they started borrowing again. Its a sign of good credit to borrow money. Within reason.

    by the above wiki list. France, Germany, Canada, Singapore, Belgium, Japan, Italy have more debt per GDP.

    Isn't Singapore considered to be one of the best run countries in the world?



    • david927, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Of course that's valid, and that's the point that many are making here. The debt has been used to consume, not produce. If you are about to be unemployed and get a loan to go back to school, great. If you get that same loan to spend a month in the Seychelles, you're screwed, because now you're out of work and have to pay back a huge debt with that lower income. America hasn't produced for years and is spending trying to put off facing that fact.
    • hode, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Singapore is practically a police state. Switzerland is the best run country in the world. Best foreign policy anyway...
  • Jasruler, on 10/12/2007, -15/+8This article is:
    a) flagrantly liberal-biased
    b) contains several fundamental untruths ("the massive national debt will only grow into more of a burden on the jobless next generation that will have to deal with it" ever heard of 'rolling over' buddy?)
    c) uses figures that aren't properly adjusted for inflation
    d) offers no context, as edebolt above did with other countries as benchmarks.
    • blakestah, on 10/12/2007, -10/+8Facts have a well-known liberal bias.
    • Egoist, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6Except that it's not the truth. Once adjusted for inflation, this Congress' spending based on the GDP is #4 in the history of the country. $1 80 years ago is not the same as $1 today.

      This is why people believe the lies that people like Michael Moore put out. They tell you half of the truth, then expect that the audience doesn't go and research it for themselves, but fill the rest in with their imagination.
  • laserblazer, on 10/12/2007, -11/+6So the first time we get a Bush in office (pulling senile ol' Reagan's strings), the economy goes to *****.

    History will remember the Bushes as the traitors that destroyed American supremacy.
    • aaronm67, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Have you picked up a newspaper or watched the news in the last year? The economy has not gone to *****, not at all. The economy is pretty close to the best it's ever been.
  • anthonyebell, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5This is proof bush is destroying the US, you guys will eventually collapse, you can't keep this up forever
  • DuffyDirect, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The thing about post-World War II is that we were unrivaled in exports since we were the only western nation that still had factories. In today's world I don't really see how the United States can reverse this downward spiral considering that we don't make anything anymore.
    • Egoist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7That's actually one of the advantages of the falling dollar. Manufacturing, along with those jobs, return to the US because our products become more affordable to other countries while outsourcing for us becomes more expensive.

      And before someone says it and diggs me down, I'm not rooting for a cheap dollar. A cheap dollar has as many benefits and setbacks as an expensive dollar. For me personally, an expensive dollar would be much more beneficial.
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2We make some good burgers.

      And we build good Military Hardware.
  • paratroopamac, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5hihihi, i don't want to throw more oil in, but if i had to describe the american economy, your governement and the wealth of your average people in one short sentence i'd say: you're *****.
  • kunfu, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8It would be nice if this chart was a little less bias, you know maybe label the wars by their actual name. Also I could have sworn that I have seen similar charts and the overall trend was not upward, I think this chart forgot about inflation.
  • zippy757, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Charts are in constant dollars vs inflation adjusted dollars.....
  • flohoff60, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4instead of looking at who was at fault why don't you think about who is going to pay this bill?

    YOU ARE. You and your children will be slaves.
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Many here are already slaves and they don't even know it. If a marriage even stays together, both people work to keep up with their own bloated consumption of overvalued crap. It becomes a vicious cycle.

      That isn't living.
  • speedmaster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4>> "An Analysis of the Presidents Who Are Responsible For Excessive Spending"
    While presidents can veto, it's Congress that determines spending.
    • Egoist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Shush! If we can't blame it on Bush, it's not important!
  • simowalker, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2GW Bush is a loser
  • CMOSLogic, on 10/12/2007, -12/+5Canada benefits from not having to carry the expense of re-starting the entire globe.

    She sits above us shielded by our missles; needing less navy because of us,
    Needing less air force because of us,

    Having a society MUCH less diverse than ours, or as large a set of borders to watch over;

    So basically Canada is #1 in being a 51st state of the United States, which gets all the benefits but pays ZERO to get them.

    Most of the developed world, is JUST LIKE THAT and that includes ALL of EUROPE and MOST of the russian economy that actually functions. If we hadn't set up the world economies based on forms of democratic capitalist-socialists as they saw fit: what WE said worked: russia would have been ripped to pieces even worse, and there'd be war between Russia and Europe RIGHT NOW.

    ALL those numbers are DIRECTLY DUE to the United States footing the bill for governments WORLD WIDE and NATO, the EU, the UN, ALL of these are United States driven principles.

    Europe didn't even all use the same money till the United States got there.

    The world, has never seen the progress the United States DIRECTLY paid for and the United States is responsible for nearly EVERY LIGHT BULB and EVERY TELEVISION TELEPHONE COMPUTER and DATA ROUTERS, SATELLITES, CELL PHONES, and an almost uncountable number of other things that make this world even bearable.

    Before the United States came along the world was living in ghettos where there wasn't even decent dental anesthesia. Today we have the medical world where it is.

    We didn't invent EVERYTHING: just NEARLY. But we're directly responsible, for you peeps having ANYTHING more than a smoking tallow lamp and damp, dark, cold HOVELS to live until you were 30 then die in.

    That is, if the Huns didn't run amok or the French; or the King of England; or the Spaniards; and you only lived to be 4.

    Everything about those numbers needs to be looked at in view of what i reminded you:

    and that we have also, already solved the energy crisis with the Thorium fluoride, molten salts reactor: which we build in 1955 and ran, have proven works well, and are now working around the world with others on the ARPANET: or 'internet' we INVENTED-

    having solved yet another critical problem for humanity. Literally saving all of mankind from ever seeing a 'dark ages' again. Cheap, safe power has already been proven to be essentially limitless; it's just a matter of time of refining the fluoride reactors.

    We built Uranium reactors so we could produce nuclear weapons in order to keep China and Russa at bay.

    Oh yea: we have also SOLVED the NUCLEAR WASTE problem with our invention: the Thorium molten salts reactor: you can BURN PLUTONIUM TILL IT'S GONE in one and the radioactivity for 250,000 years is *GONE*

    theres radioactivity associated but the differences are phenomenal: both in QUANTITY MADE which is MUCH LESS and the timeline for marginal safety problems.

    So here's to the United States: we have given you a world, if you can keep it.

    Since you can't, (we've seen the European hubris acting like they invented society as it is; stopped war in Europe; brought six continents out of the tallow lamp age)

    We'll be here to shepherd you through the next 1,000 years.

    You're welcome.
    • labmouse42, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@CMOSLogic
      "She sits above us shielded by our missles ...,"
      Just because the US spends more on it's military than the rest of the world combined, does not mean other countries need to have such a huge military budget.

      "We didn't invent EVERYTHING: just NEARLY. But we're directly responsible, for you peeps having ANYTHING more than a smoking tallow lamp and damp, dark, cold HOVELS to live until you were 30 then die in."
      Wow, what self-delusional world do you live in? Don't get me wrong, Americans have come up with some great inventions, but not most of them. For example, Tesla -- the man who pushed for AC current which lights your damp, dark hovel was born a Serb citizen of the Austrian Empire.

      There are other holes in your logic big enough to drive a semi through but I think everyone gets the picture.
    • davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I couldn't help but picturing you sitting at your computer desk furiously typing away with the "Star Spangled Banner" playing softly in the background, your shoulders covered with an American flag, its stars reflecting their glory in the computer screen, your feet marching in time to both the ferociousness of your typing and the beat of the National Anthem, with one thought coursing through your mind; "I am a true American."
  • Cyberen, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Whenever someone used the words "trickle-down effect" it makes me think of a rich guy standing on a ledge with his pants down pissing on the poor and destitute.
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Well, most of them could use a shower.
    • callahanj8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Look at Paul Krugman's editorial in the NYTimes today if you want to see the real effects of Trickle Down!
  • ElPieEater, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This video explains why this happens in a cartoonish fashion that even I can understand

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
  • Ben1987, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Two things.

    @edebolt

    Since when does 30% and 30% of the debt make 100%?

    @jackpotiq

    here is a better link for what you said.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms
  • superpixel, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Will some of you people act like Bush's poop don't stink and wake up to the fact that the past 3 Republican presidencies have presided over massive spending increases that are financed by incredible borrowing periods from foreign countries? Even when the financials are spread before you there's this crazy denial chemical released by your brain-- WTF? Just because they are Republican doesn't mean they are infallible. This is a massive economic blunder, and one Clinton actually tried to fix (that liberal, commie nutjob). Granted, Bill had a terrific economic boom to help finance the paydown, but Bush's spending spree and increase in government (hello, Dept. of Homeland Defense) isn't "conservative" by any stretch of the imagination.
  • c150flyboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Wow. So the white house spends all our money? Only congress can spend money. The white house can only veto or approve the spending.
  • DooDahMan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2The interesting thing is that most of the recent debt comes from two places:
    Government health care spending and the recent tax cuts. While the war in Iraq isn't helping, it's health care that is eating our budget.
  • AsylumAleikum, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"The percentage of debt to GDP continued to grow until 1996, when Mr. Clinton began to get government spending under control"
    ---
    ROTFL! Could this be somehow related to the Republicans' taking over the Congress in 1994? After all, the Congress, not President, has the power of the purse.

    In the 1970's, the national debt / GDP ratio was brought down by runaway inflation that eroded the debt value, and pushed a lot of taxpayers into higher income brackets while their inflation-adjusted income was declining. Do you really want the malaise years back?

    The article is a fraud.
    • BarneyF, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0There was a republican congress for most of the Bush administration as well. I repeat: There is no good correlation between the party in power in congress and the deficit, but there is a good correlation between the president's party and the deficit.
  • FilteringCraig, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I guess my analysis was obvious enough that it would occur to more than one person to do it, but I did this same graph analysis in September of 2005 on my own site and on Blogcritics.org. It was linked by Andrew Sullivan at the time.

    http://www.filteringcraig.com/2005/09/us_national_debt_graphic_is_de.shtml

    http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/28/165539.php
  • zennode, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Wow, people actually think Clinton was about lowering the debit. Learn to read between the lines. All Clinton did was create Roth IRA and other such forms of increased short term tax surpluses. Now I am not for Bush either. Personally we have not had a decent president since the 1800s, and since before the Federal Reserve was put into place in 1913.
  • 3tcp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Reagan and Bush jr both have had very specific geopolitical reasons for their spending. Reagan ended the cold war by engaging the soviets in an arms race they couldn't keep up with, adding another 15% of gdp to national debt to end soviet style government is a worthy cause. Clinton's boom was somewhat caused by his economic policies but also very much caused by hi-tech innovation and adoption. When it comes right down to it the best economic situation for the country is a democratic president who is pro free-trade and free-market but wants to spend a lot on social programs and a republican congress that can only oppose him by keeping spending down.

    The increases to debt under Bush, however, is not. GW has given congress a blank check for handouts because 3000 people got killed in a day. I think the 'security spending' by Bush is futile, we've spent billions of dollars just to make it tougher to hijack a plane. We could have accomplished the same thing by mandating that all new planes have cockpit doors that swing in and must stay locked the entire trip except for bathroom/food. Spending on Iraq has been the cover for a lot of wasteful spending on everything and Bush will be remembered for defying everything that the fiscal conservatives supported him for.
  • trevorsnyder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3If the author hadn't been dumb enough to label his chart with terms like "first oil war" and "second oil war" I might actually have read the article to see if any serious point was going to be made. He lost his opportunity to influence me with childish labels.
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"... because I'd rather just keep my head in the sand and not call them what they are Thank-You!"
  • davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Love those conservatives. They give us smaller government, reduced spending, wow, what's not to love, oh yeah, the massive debt they leave behind.

    /sarc
    • labmouse42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The problem is Bush Jr. does not follow the conservative model.
    • davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1He doesn't appear to really follow any model, which makes me wonder where he's trying to take us on this crazy trip.
    • keitho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1gwb is a big government "conservative".
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's a myth that the GOP delivers "smaller Government." Read up on it sometime. Or, just look out on your world.
  • jcm267, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I'm burying this simply for the fact that the douchebag who put this graph together referred to the Iraq wars as "Oil War 1" and "Oil War 2"
  • andcal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The Digg title says "United Stated National Debt As A Percentage Of GDP." The graph in the article seems to only show dollars, not a percentage of anything. I haven't read the whole article yet, but what I have seen doesn't seem to mention United Stated National Debt As A Percentage Of GDP. Is this false advertising? Has anyone else noticed this?
    • Misesean, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3No. The first graph shows national debt in dollars. The second graph, which is the one the title refers to, shows the national debt in dollars as red bars and as a percentage of GDP (a completely useless number) as a blue line.
  • skrowl, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Nation DEBT to GDP is worthless, obviously DEBT will increase every year. National DEFICIT to GDP is the correct way to compare. Not that it matters since this alarmist graph is in $ amounts instead of % of anything.
    • BarneyF, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's wrong to say debt always goes up. If you run a surplus the debt goes down. Both measures are of interest - national debt and annual deficit/surplus.
  • andcal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah, only now has the second graph loaded (the one that shows debt as a percentage of GDP). My browser was waiting for me to OK the loading of some object called "ietag". I guess that's what I get for runnung IE7.
  • lpozsaki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Its just a disgrace how George Bush gets away with the things he does. This really was the best newspaper front cover ever:
    http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/V/_/bush_daily_mirror_dumb_people.jpg
  • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2It's no wonder you "blue people" need someone else to pay your bills. You don't know sh*t about economics.

    If you want to cut spending lets start with entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, Welfare and Medicaid. That 65% of the budget. That would also eliminate most of the interest on debt, which is 10% of the budget. There's 75% of the spending right there.

    This is all just a Red-herring to bash W. Anytime someone wants to cut taxes or spending you people raise holy hell.
    • TherealObadiah, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2You nailed it. But you're wasting your breath with these partisan hacks here on Digg. The graphs are deliberately deceptive to make a politically invalid point.
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0Your right. Dealing with these people is like masturbating with a cheese-grater. Slightly amusing but mostly painful.
    • labmouse42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@jackpotiq
      "That 65% of the budget."

      Where did you get this data? Rush Limbaugh?
      Why don't you go to the source and read what our budget is.
      http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/budget.html

      Department of Defense : $419.3 billion
      Department of Heath and Human Services - $67.2 billion
      Department of Eduction : $56.0 billion
      The look in your face when you realize how mistaken your comment was : Priceless
    • keitho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@jackpotiq
      Thats right. Social security, medicare and other "new deal" programs have only existed since the early 80's.
    • davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@TherealObadiah

      And what would be a politically valid point? Bush proceeded to engage America in a war of HIS choice that has now cost Americans nearly one trillion dollars, and there is no end in sight. Is that a valid point? Why do conservatives like you two continue to attack social programs? All I see from Liberals is for increasing social spending and shrinking the military. All I see from the conservatives is shrinking social spending and increasing the military. Our two party system is a major problem with American politics.
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@ labmouse42 - Once again you show how ignorant you really are. Social Security has been one of Washington's favorite "shell games" for years. Social Security's trust fund is an "off budget" "no budget" entity. Although separate taxes are collected for Social Security, the money left over after benefits are paid is used to fund other government programs. Playing this "shell game" is how Clinton claimed a "government surplus" by creating "phantom IOUs" the government has issued to itself. As "baby boomers" began to retire over the past 7 years this "surplus" disappeared. Social Security benefits are not legally guaranteed, as would be the guarantee on a consumer product or a financial obligation. Social Security's funds have been off-budget for nearly two decades.

      ... but, are you saying you would support cutting 65% of the budget?
    • jdibiase, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@labmouse42 - the figures you quote from "the source" are discretionary numbers only. Particularly under the H&HS budget, these discretionary numbers are much lower than total outlay. In fact, by my very quick math, it looks like the total outlay of Defense, H&HS and Education are roughly twice what you claim, i.e., > $1trillion.
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1jackpotiq must be a little slow. Let's cut him some slack.

      Here's a couple of interesting comparisons:

      http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_wor_tim_to_buy_bre-labor-working-time-buy-bread
      http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mil_exp_dol_fig-military-expenditures-dollar-figure
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0@ littlelittledick - is that the best you can do. You are so sad. You're so tied in knots trying to bash the right you don't know how to respond. Do you know if you want to cut spending or raise spending.
    • labmouse42, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@jdibiase
      How is the WhiteHouse's budget "subject or left to one's own discretion."?
      http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/discretionary

      If you have a better source, could you please link it? Like any site where you did your quick match from.
      Thanks!
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Well let's see. Hmm. I'm thinking it's really not that hard.

      I want the Annual Federal Budget balanced and in the Black with a plan to pay off the National Debt, sort of like what Clinton had.

      Then I want to cancel all one-sided Trade agreements and make it mandatory that any new Trade agreement is a two-way street.

      That way, China and other interests won't own our asses of generations.
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0@ littlelittlebrain - How much do you want to cut from the budget and where do you want to cut it from? Don't weasel out now.

      PS
      Where in the article does it show "As A Percentage Of GDP" as you wrote in the title?
    • labmouse42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@jackpotiq

      You lost the argument with littlebylittle the second you resorted to name calling.
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@ labmouse42 Grow up! Go back and read to see who started what. Whenever you're confronted with the facts you don't know what to do. This whole post is one big joke. All you want is bigger government. Anyone who has a little more than you should have to pay. Take some responsibility for the choices you make in life. Stop asking others to pay your way. You always have someone to blame other than yourself.
    • labmouse42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@jackpotiq
      "Go back and read to see who started what"
      That may have worked in kindergarden, but in the adult world it does not matter who started it.

      'Whenever you're confronted with the facts you don't know what to do. "
      Like when I linked the federal budget to you showing that your estimates of 75% of our spending going to social welfare to be a fantasy?

      "All you want is bigger government."
      Can you read minds? How can you state what I want when you don't even know me?
      What you are doing here is called "A Strawman logical fallacy" When you go to college, you will learn of this.

      "Anyone who has a little more than you should have to pay. Take some responsibility for the choices you make in life. Stop asking others to pay your way. You always have someone to blame other than yourself."
      Are you venting those at someone in particular or are you just frothing at the mouth while screaming party lines?

      Quit strawman'ing and learn to debate.
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@ labmouse42 - You said I don't know anything about you, well ... I know 2 things about you. One, you don't know ***** about the budget, as pointed out by others and myself. Second, you don't have the balls to make a stand on the issue. So I'll ask you. Do you want to lower the budget? If so, by how much and where do you want to cut it from.
    • jdibiase, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1oops
    • jdibiase, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@labmouse42 - my source is the web page you linked to, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/budget.html

      You said that these were the numbers attributed to the following depts. ...
      "Department of Defense : $419.3 billion
      Department of Heath and Human Services - $67.2 billion
      Department of Eduction : $56.0 billion"

      The total of these 3 numbers is $542.5BB

      Your numbers aren't wrong but are only the "Discretionary Budget Authority" for these depts.,

      in the site you link to, it says for the Defense Dept., "2006 Discretionary Budget Authority: $419.3 billion"
      if you go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/defense.html (which is the link for the Defense Dept. budget from your link), and scroll down near the bottom, you'll see that Est. 2006 "Total, Outlays" are $426.3BB

      for H&HS, "2006 Discretionary Budget Authority: $67.2 billion"
      go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/hhs.html, scroll down, you'll see Est. 2006 "Total, Outlays" are $642.5BB

      for Education, "2006 Discretionary Budget Authority: $56.0 billion"
      go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/education.html, scroll down, you'll see Est. 2006 "Total, Outlays" are $64.3BB

      These total outlay numbers include mandatory spending, which the current administration and congress have little/no say over, since previous commitments require these (mandatory) payments.

      So, the $542.5BB total for Defense, H&HS and Education you referenced in your post is what is called in budget-speak "discretionary" (I know the definition of discretionary, thanks for the link though). The TOTAL outlays for these 3 departments (discretionary + mandatory), however, total $1.13 Trillion, or roughly two times of the "discretionary" amounts you were looking at.
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@jackpotiq

      “@ littlelittlebrain - How much do you want to cut from the budget and where do you want to cut it from? Don't weasel out now. PS…Where in the article does it show "As A Percentage Of GDP" as you wrote in the title?”

      I prefer to look at this as a discussion as opposed to an argument.

      I could have left out the “little slow” part. My Bad.

      On to your questions:

      The Second Graph Reads:
      “United States National Debt Versus Percent of Gross Domestic Product”

      This is how I should have Titled the article but I was in a hurry. My Bad again.

      Where do we cut the budget?

      Complicated matter and one that I couldn’t possibly solve on my own.

      One place to start would be to stop this business of Corporations hanging a shingle in the Cayman Islands and not paying US taxes.

      Additionally, I think we could spend our DOD dollars in a much more efficient manner.

      What happened to the 2.3 Trillion the DOD “lost” just before 911.

      There’s no excuse for it.
    • davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@jdibiase

      Don't forget the $180 billion plus per year supplemental defense spending for the combined occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Don't forget "The Black Budget" that none of us even knows what it's for.
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@ littlebylittle - I have problems with Washington's spending and many of W's new entitlements. Closing tax loopholes and cutting waste maybe good ideas but they are "nickel and dimes" compared to the rest of the budget. There are only 2 ways to cut the debt. One is to grow the economy. The second is to cut entitlement spending. Because no one will cut entitlement spending it leaves one option. Regardless of what people think, government has little control over the economy. But this brings me back to my point. This article has nothing to do with debt. It is about bashing the right, pure and simple. If they had some ideas it maybe worth putting on the front page of Digg, but it doesn't. It just shows everything that is wrong with Digg. No real news just more hate.
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Black Budget:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_budget
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@jackpotiq

      My points have been valid and have nothing to do with "hate."

      You are free to have your opinion, of course.

      Corporate Welfare and DOD waste are hardly "nickle and dime." ** 2.3 Trillion the DOD "lost?" **

      Unbalanced Trade agreements are a huge factor as well.

      Have a good week-end.

    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0littlebylittle - I still don't get your point. Those DoD losses you refer to happened under Clinton's watch. Rumsfeld is the one who uncovered them. The "offshore tax loophole" and most of our China trade policy was created during Clinton's term.
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Clicking that down thumb doesn't make the truth go away.
    • davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@jackpotiq

      Yet another issue Clinton is responsible for. This administration is infallible, makes me wonder why its approval ratings are so low. Hey, was Clinton also responsible for an entire pallet full of $100 bills vanishing without a trace?
    • littlebylittle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So tired of the "b,b,b, Clinton"

      I'm living in the now, speaking on the now.

      Let's not even get into what happened on who's watch.
    • jackpotiq, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@ littlebylittle You are so sad. You brought it up, now you don't want to talk about it? You dodge the question with false information, then when you're called on your BS you don't want to discuss it. With every post you make you just prove me correct. You don't want to talk about the facts, you just want to spread hate. Grow up!
  • keegster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Had his [Clinton's] policies been followed for one more year the debt would have been reduced for the first time since the first year of the Kennedy administration. "

    "The current President Bush came into office and quickly turned all that progress around."

    just wanted to point out the most important statement in that article. That was a very good read, and i don't know anything about economics.
  • keitho, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3This chart is made with a pre-september 11th mentality.
    • davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2And just what would be a post-September 11th mentality? If this is your idea of good leadership resulting from the attacks, I'd much rather return to the dangerous days of pre-September 11th.
    • buglord, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2One thing I could never understand - the dichtomy between "never let the terrorists change our way of life" and "never forget 911", doublethink indeed.

      Why, exactly, should everybody think differently after terrorist attacks? And how? Be afraid? Protect? Spend?
    • diggduggjoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I am more afraid of the economic collapse that GB2 will have given us than terrorists. Most terrorists just want 1st world people out of their countries. We should agree with them and let their systems collapse. Only then will they begin to redefine their culture. With our involvement with them, we become the problem that most of them agree to fight.

      Israel? Well, if they want peace, it will be theirs to make or not. Without all our weapons, they may be more agreeable to giving back land. With Uncle Sam riding shotgun, they do not feel a need to negotiate with any land on the table.
    • jdibiase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@buglord - I think when someone says, "never let the terrorists change our way of life," they're talking about something very fundamental. Has your way of life changed since 9/11? If so, how? Personally, mine hasn't changed fundamentally, although it takes a little longer to get through security at the airport, for instance. Although in any system there are abuses and mistakes, I think they are, in the vast majority of instances, checked effectively in the US,

      you said, "Why, exactly, should everybody think differently after terrorist attacks?" ... hmmm, because for the first time since WW2, foreigners attacked the US. If you're willing to live with attacks like this in the future, I guess we could just go back to the way things were pre-9/11. For example, we could go back to allowing box cutters on airliners, which if you don't realize it, were not prohibited items on 9/11.

      So I don't think there is an irreconcilable dichotomy in saying, "never let the terrorists change our way of life" and "never forget 911." In fact, I think the two statement go hand-in-hand, because if we do forget 9/11, the terrorists will change our way of life.
  • buttersoft, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0Any unbiased economist can list a number of reasons for this. Remember the dot-com crash and housing bubble burst? Note how they both happened around 2001? (This is not related to Sept 11, if you take time to look at the history of this...it's just a coincidence). Well this decreased investment significantly in the economy, which drives down GDP growth and can lead to a recession. They key ways of attacking this threat are to either increase government spending or decrease taxes. These both put the company in debt, but are necessary to encourage growth.
    • keitho, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2the problem is that we are importing more than we export and that we spend more taxes than we receive.
    • davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1If you increase government spending domestically you can spur economic growth, true enough. But when you spend hundreds of billions of dollars prosecuting two military occupations and rebuilding two countries, how is this going to help the average working American?
    • buttersoft, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Regarding importing more than we export, this is bound to change. China has been buying US treasuries for years to artificially stabilize their exchange rate. This allows then to continue to to export to the US. Recently, the dollar has been depreciating worldwide, which makes it less desirable to China. Also, a lower dollar increases demand for US exports.
  • TherealObadiah, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Have noticed the correlation to increased debt and globull warming? It's unmistakable. Globull warming is the cause of the increased debt!! It's globull warming!
    • davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Have you noticed the increase in the National Debt correlates with the rise of the "Intelligent Design" movement and the rise in Christian "Mega-Churches? It's the Christian Fundamentalists causing the drain of the Federal Treasury.
    • bobo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0And the country singer sings in that twangy voice, "And it's all George Bush's fault."
  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 78 of 78 discussions
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.