Posted on 02/16/2019 9:02:57 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The national debt hit $22 trillion this week. You won’t find many in either major party who think this is a healthy development.
But isn’t part of the reason people vote Republican because that party presents itself as fiscally responsible compared to Democrats?
For as long as the debt has grown, Republicans have been promising to stop it. Yet, in 1981 the national debt topped $1 trillion after former President Ronald Reagan’s first year. When former President George H.W. Bush left office in 1993, it was more than $4 trillion. His son, former President George W. Bush, would push it past $10 trillion.
Of course, Democrats were just as responsible for exploding the debt. President Barack Obama became the biggest government spender in world history, leaving office with an almost $20 trillion national debt.
That is, until our current Republican president outdid Obama in spending. When asked about a looming debt crisis in December, President Trump replied, “I won’t be here.” To his credit, Trump has shown some spending concerns, like his call for every agency to reduce operations by 5 percent in October.
But has anyone in Washington actually cut spending?
Yes, and not surprisingly they are all Republicans. Sadly, there’s only seven of them: Sens. Rand Paul R-Ky. and Mike Lee R-Utah, and Reps. Justin Amash R-Mich., Thomas Massie, R-Ky., John Duncan Jr. R-Tenn., Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, and Morgan Griffith, R-Va.
These findings are according to SpendingTracker.org, a project of the bipartisan nonprofit group the Coalition to Reduce Spending. SpendingTracker takes the annual votes of each member of Congress and measures how much is spent or cut through those votes, without exception. Amash was the biggest saver in Congress last year, voting to cut $165 billion in 2018.
But still, only seven?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Tax receipts last year were lower than the year before. And this is the strongest economy in over a decade.
All the research I’ve done supports more income that last year. So I am waiting for a final tally of ALL income.
Missed this one I guess: Link
"In calendar 2017, total federal tax collections in constant December 2018 dollars were $3,407,503,740,000. In calendar year 2018, they were $3,330,470,000,000—a decline of $77,033,740,000 from 2017."
For 2017 this site is saying $3,313B for 2017 in real dollars.
Using this calculator I get $3,364B adjusted (2018) for 2017 not $3,407B.
I would say revenues were flat. Which may be the sweet spot on the Laffer curve.
Thanks for the graph. I hope you will keep it handy and insert it regularly in threads on this topic. People who say entitlements are off limits — this would include President Trump — are left with cutting spending in defense, which has been shorted for years and needs to be increased, or the bottom three categories: education, transportation and “other.” Most of people who speechify about wasteful government spending pick as examples a couple of chump change accounts from “other.” This is utterly irrelevant to the deficit crisis. Either we reform entitlements, or we go bankrupt, with or without an interlude of runaway inflation, as soon as interest rates rise back to historic levels.
When GWB took office. He told them to drive the debt and deficit up as high as they could get it.
So under the outlays by function, where are the billions spent on illegal aliens? Probably as much as Social Security costs.
You’re right. He understands what’s going on. He is probably the best senator.
One can look at the chart and say where do you cut?
But remember that EVERY section of government does charity and social agenda. That can be cut.
“$22 trillion will never be paid back or cut,it’s all funny money.”
Kill the debt and start from zero. No one gets paid.
If the USA could stop the deficit spending after about 100 years of 3-4% annual inflation $22T would be peanuts.
I would say revenues were flat. Which may be the sweet spot on the Laffer curve.
Which would mean that additional tax cuts would result in reduced revenue?
Thank you for looking that stuff up.
We’ll have to wait and see what this fiscal year will will wind up looking like.
It doesn’t look good right now does it.
Look, we were told the tax cuts were really going to hurt us. They haven’t so far. I’ll admit things aren’t as rosy as I depicted them, but the fact still is, receipts did go up.
Generally it is accepted that they will drop for a year or two until business expands and revenues increase.
Under Reagan things didn’t turn better until about his third year. Under Trump, things are still hanging in there.
That deficit spending doesn’t look headed in the right direction there. We’ll see how it goes.
When people finally refuse to lend any more money to us, it will be as though the stars are falling from the sky like unripe figs from a shaken tree.
Maybe it’s because we’re the prettiest horse in the glue factory.
A more reasoned year to start would have been 1980, not 1981. Then you should have capped it in 1988, hot 1989.
Federal tax receipts in FY 1980 - $517 billion. You started him off at $599.272 billion. By the same token, you gave him credit for $991.104 billion in 1989, when it should have been $909 billion in 1988. While it does work out pretty close to the same percentages, I think this is more accurate.
His growth was from $517 billion in 1980, to $909 billion 1988. This worked out to a 75.8% growth rate. It’s not the doubling I attributed to him.
I do think you made a good point. It wasn’t a three time’s growth. I will tell you that my memory wasn’t on the mark there, in that the old saying was that Reagan doubled tax receipts, and the Congress tripled spending. I accidentally attribute the growth in spending percent to Reagan’s growth in tax receipts.
Thank you for the mention of these more accurate figures.
Figures obtained here...
https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-federal-government-tax-revenue-3305762
I call em as I see em, but that doesn't mean I'm always going to be right on target.
We'll have to see how things play out.
To your point, I think there’s some truth in that.
Drastic cuts need to be made. Someone has to address them, and I think Trump is that man to do it.
He’s only been in office for 25% of the time we hope he will be. There’s only so much you can address at one time.
When it comes to big cuts, you need allies in Congress.
So far, I just don’t see them.
Trump may not get the opportunity to do everything he promised, but I definitely think he’s trying as hard as he can.
He has some massive hurdles to get over.
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/trump-tax-cuts-federal-revenues-deficits/
That was because of corporate tax cuts. They were cut 31%.
Did that help us? Yes.
Corporations were able to bring back cash from overseas at good savings, and they were able to invest in the U. S. again.
We have added over 600 thousand manufacturing jobs because of it.
Steel is taking off.
Individual tax receipts were up 6% for the year, 5% after the tax cuts went into effect.
I think we’ll see some great numbers coming down the pike.
Here’s my source on that, and if you’ll check out the title, you’ll know why I made the comment I did, despite the factoid in the last sentence.
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/trump-tax-cuts-federal-revenues-deficits/
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