GOP 2012 budget to make $4 trillion-plus in cuts

Especially when you have to lie outrageously about the numbers to make it look bad.

barfo

 

"It takes a village to destroy a village in order to save it."

barfo

 

The article is factually correct.

Total Withdrawals (excluding transfers)
Today $179,784
Month to date (all of March) $1,118,662
(Year to date) $5,835,757

 

And yet he, and now you, fail to state the total deposits. Why is that, Denny? Is it because that completely blows the whole story line you are pushing? Are you that dishonest?

Total deposits (excluding transfers):
Today: 231,607
March: 1,046,105
YTD: 5,643,979

barfo

 

No, the funny thing is that people do lie in order to make the deficit and debt look worse. And the article Denny quoted is evidence of that.

barfo

 

I think we need to get our long-term spending under control, but I don't think the sky is falling. We've got time to work it out. Which is good, because our system of government isn't fast.

I expect we'll handle it the way we've always handled it - congress will decide how much to spend and how much to tax, and we the voters will re-elect them, or not, depending on how we feel, and we'll elect presidents who may or may not take leadership roles on the subject.

Unless, of course, the teapartiers actually decide to have a revolution when they don't get their way, and then we'll have a civil war.

barfo

 

Right, I see what you mean. I didn't mean it the way you took it. For one thing, I was speaking specifically of the March numbers, not of the overall deficit or debt.

barfo

 

We can't do anything without consequence. So, sure, continuing to borrow will have bad effects. Will we instantly collapse into chaos and dark ages if we don't do something right this very minute? Maybe, but it seems rather unlikely.

barfo

 

There's no lie in the article.

If we were running a surplus, the cash in would be $200B and cash out would be $190B (or whatever). The cash out being $1.18T is a indication of the sheer massiveness of the debt. A balanced budget would be $200B in $200B out. Those aren't numbers that are out = 5x in

If you want to consider the other sources of income, it was selling $750B of debt instruments. That's charging $750B on new credit cards to pay off the balances on $500B of old credit cards.

 

I think the truth is somewhere b/w barfo and Denny's positions.

The government (at least, DoD) is not a constant-slope spend line. Even something as mundane as officer promotions (when you actually start getting paid) are staggered so that there's little spent early in the FY, and the bulk spent late. Same with training expenditures and moves due to orders.

So it's certainly feasible that the gov't spent 1.1T or whatever in March, while "only" taking in 120B or whatever. But if you were to write the article in, say, June, it might be a lot closer--like 250B coming in (our intakes are 2.1T a year--it's gotta come in sometime) and 200B going out.

So I think there's a bit of hyperbole to say "we're spending 8x our intakes!!" like the author suggests. It may be that he's factually correct, but the analysis of it (8x!!) is a bit faulty. That's like me (who gets paid bi-weekly) saying "I've spent $50 on groceries and $100 on gas filling up the tank this week...but I didn't bring in a dime in income! I'm on the road to ruin!" Nevermind that I'll get paid a full paycheck next week, and I did last week.

3.7T budgeted to go out vs. 2.1T budgeted to come in is bad enough w/o resorting to hyperbole, imho.

 

The document in question is a cash flow statement. The revenues were truly 1/8th what the govt. spent. A cash flow statement also shows cash from investments and selling equity and from borrowing money.

To put these numbers into perspective, all of GDP is $14T, and govt. is spending $1.2Tx12=$14.4T. The $750B it borrowed in just one month would pay for nearly all of Social Security benefits for the year.

It's not like spending $50 on groceries and $100 on gas between paychecks. It's like getting a paycheck of $100 and spending $50 on groceries and $100 on gas and charging $800 on a credit card to pay off the balance on an old card.

And a more apropos analogy would be a $50 paycheck and spending $200 going to the movies and out to the bars.

 

Sigh. If I give you $1 and Brian gives me $1, what is my cashflow?

I can't believe you are clinging to this dishonest position. The government had $1T in cash out, and $1T in cash in. It's simply a lie to pretend that we spent 5x as much as we took in.

Pretending that paying off debt counts as cash out but borrowing doesn't count as cash in is absurd.

And you know perfectly well that the government buys and sells huge amounts of debt every single month. There isn't anything unusual about this at all.

barfo

 

It's feasible in theory, but the point is it didn't happen in reality.

barfo