National Debt

[Shapley]

Nicole,

Well, I'll just say that I'm not planning on sending a check anytime soon. But then, I'm not one of those who think the national debt is a big deal. The site is for real, and I suppose there are those who send them a checque now and again. It would be interesting to see how much money they receive each year.

My point is that many people want other peoples' taxes raised to eliminate the debt, but the opportunity is there to 'put their own money where their mouth is' and send in the checque. I wonder how many of them cough up the cash?

V/R
Shapley

[piqaboo]

My point is that many people want other peoples' taxes raised to eliminate the debt

Or maybe people just want the spending to be trimmed to the existing budget? Which could only be done if things like wars were actually accounted for as wars? (Personally, in the case of war, I understand running over budget. I dislike not calling it a war and going for those special disbursements instead).

[Shapley]

Here's where the money goes:



Mandatory spending, which does not include Iraq, accounts for about 2/3 of the monies spent.

Here's where the money comes from:



I assume voluntary donations to the site I linked are included in the 'other' category, but I doubt they make up the bulk of it.

V/R
Shapley

[dai bread]

I'm still amazed at how much the American Govt. spends on social welfare, despite Americans' loud protests to the contrary.

I believe there are State and City programs on top of this.

[OperaTenor]

Pretty pies.

[Shapley]

I believe there are State and City programs on top of this.

Yes, there are State and City programs, but many of them are funded from this. The Federal government taxes the people and then gives the money to the State, County, and Municipal governments to run their programs. However, since it is 'Federal' monies, the Federal government gets to tell them how to run their State, County, and City programs. Plus, the Federal government has to hold out it's share of the taxes so that it can pay the adminstrators in charge of the strings they attach to the money that the government takes from the people when they give it back to the people.

The comic strip The Wizard of Id used to have a character called 'Robbing Hood', who stole from the rich and gave to poor, minus ten percent for handling. In one strip he was asked "What happens when you've taken so much that the rich become poor and the poor become rich?". He then said he'll "take from the rich and give to the poor, minus ten percent for handling". I think that is how our government tries to operate.

The people have learned to write themselves checques from the treasury. Now, whenever government goes about the business that it is Constitutionally charged with doing, such as waging war, the people clamour about it lest the cost of doing proper business should deprive them of the availability of money to put in their own pockets.

V/R
Shapley

[BigJon]

BigJon,

The link you posted shows only the dreaded red 'x'.

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-indebted-is-us-government.html
Here is the perma-link to the blog I found it in. BTW, it only shows publicly held debt, and my comment on Clinton and Gore was a joke.

[piqaboo]

14% to service dept.... could do many things with that money.
And that is my issue with running a deficit long term.

[Shapley]

Deficit hits lowest level in 5 years.

Record tax revenues, again. it's not like we've contained spending. I've yet to see any serious effort, except the one by President Bush which was derailed by the Congress, to control the growth of Social Security and Medicare entitlement spending. We've had a Republican Congress and now we have a Democrat Congress, and we still have no solution to the problem they all know is looming.

[BigJon@Work]

And yet all I read in the MSM is how the debt continues to grow at a record pace. Perhaps in dollars, but not in percentages.

[Shapley]

And yet all I read in the MSM is how the debt continues to grow at a record pace. Perhaps in dollars, but not in percentages.

I agree. It also seems as though reporters have only recently found out about 'intragovernment holdings', which are that portion of the debt that the government owes to itself (i.e., money that the government borrows from the Social Security Trust Fund). I've seen several op-eds about how the government 'cooks the books' by not reporting the deficit in intragovernment holdings, only reporting the deficity owed to the public. Of course, they neglect to mention that this has been standard practice for decades. It is because of this practice that President Clinton was able to claim that we had a 'three years of surpluses", even though the debt actually grew (although at a slower rate) every year that he was in office.

Intergovernment holdings are really not that big of a deal. It is no different than your borrowing from your retirement plant to pay your Visa bill. The money in the retirement plan is yours, so it's not technically a debt. However, if you plan to have that money available at retirement, you have to repay it. Congress has the authority at any time to reduce or cancel Social Security and Medicare payments, although the political and economic costs for doing so would be high. If these payments are reduced or cancelled, obligations from those holdings would be reduced, and the need to repay that portion of the 'debt' would be reduced or eliminated. Just as you could remove your obligation to repay your 'debt' to your retirement savings simply by deciding to live on less after retirement. Those spineless Congressional custodians of your Social Security payments know this, so they keep putting off any reforms to the program, hoping that the unpleasant business of 'fixing it' will fall on the shoulders of those who come after them.

Just one more reason to support the idea of privatizing a portion of those savings, IMHO. Does anyone really believe that the Congress is a better custodian of your retirement savings than a group of professional money managers????

V/R
Shapley

[BigJon@Work]

Does anyone really believe that the Congress is a better custodian of your retirement savings than a group of professional money managers????

Well, yeah, some professional money managers are just dismal and they still want 2% plus every year. But the people I've hired? They are surely better than the gubby.

[Shapley]

But the people I've hired? They are surely better than the gubby.

And there lies the real secret. You get to make a choice.

[piqaboo]

If I get to make a choice, then dont take it at all.
Dont take it and manage it saying I have a choice, but then the gov't has to pay the cost of manageing the deduction and ensuring I use my choice. Costly.

a singler-person business puts out about 50% of gross income in taxes and SS.

Now leave me alone, I got welfare paperwork to fill out.

[OperaTenor]

You guys are still carrying on about privatizing SS?!! Yet you never bothered to read the snow job put out by GWB.

Great research, fellas.....

[BigJon@Work]

Ummm, who said Bush's plan was the only, or best, way to privatize SS? If you turned it over to my guys, (eg. Vanguard, T Rowe Price) It would be a lot cheaper and safer. It's pretty hard to snow me on finacial stuff.

[Shapley]

You guys are still carrying on about privatizing SS?!! Yet you never bothered to read the snow job put out by GWB.

Doesn't matter. President Bush showed that it is possible to 'touch the third rail' of Social Security, and live. Despite this, and despite the fact that every member of Congress knows that teh demand on Social Security monies will exceed the supply very soon, and that it is those Social Security monies have been funding a vast majority of their pet projects, they have responded with nothing.

Nobody said President Bush' privatization plan was the best. That's why we have a Congress - to debate it, amend it, improve it, pass it. Not so, our recent Congress. They killed it, and have made no effort since to resolve the worsening situation. This President, at least, had the cajones to propose an alternative to the current pyramid scheme. Congress would do well to grow some of their own.

V/R
Shapley

[OperaTenor]

GWB's "models" were the *only* plans promoted to privatize SS.

Once again, this is all conjecture, unless you bother to actually learn what that occupant of the White House tried to pull.

[Shapley]

Once again, this is all conjecture, unless you bother to actually learn what that occupant of the White House tried to pull.

The "occupant of the White House" didn't try to 'pull' anything. He proposed a plan. Congressmen and Senators had to draft that plan into the form of legislation, which they did. The plan was debated and killed. The plan was designed to address a known problem. You may not have liked the way it addressed it, but it did address it. The Democrats were primarily responsible for killing the plan, yet they have proposed no alternative to it.

I've read the summary of the plan, and the analysis of it. It was not as onerous as most people claim it was.

V/R
Shapley

[OperaTenor]

Uh, no it didn't address the problem. If you'd read up on it, you'd know they admitted as much in the proposed models. They came right out and said privatization would nothing - not a single thing - to address the solvency issue.

Prove me wrong.