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Nice chart. What do you think increased the debt so dramatically from 2001 until 2006 when the president was Republican and both houses of congress were controlled by Republicans?
What can we learn from these years? What do these years have in common with the massive increase in debt in the early 1940s?
Is your intent to whine about the cost of the Iraq war? We can round it to around a trillion bucks right now, which is the same amount as the useless stimulous package that nobody ever talks about anymore. What is your point?? I guess it would be better for Iraq to be selling oil in euro's right now instead of US dollars and who knows maybe the rest of OPEC jump ship too?
This chart is per person US federal government spending in fixed, 2005 dollars. Like most people with a brain, I'd say ALL spending has caused our national debt. In fixed dollars, our spending is 5 TIMES what it was in 1950. Is there anyone that can possibly think that this is sustainable? Or that wonders why we saw such growth and prosperity in the 50s vs current times?
And this chart is per person federal revenue in the same, fixed dollars:
It's pretty hard to say that we have a "revenue problem" when the federal tax load on every person in this country has increased by 3 times, in one life time.
It's pretty obvious to anyone with any sense that we have a SPENDING PROBLEM. It isn't just one party, both are pigs at the trough. Neither Republicans or Democrats have made any serious proposals for reigning in spending. Both parties act like irresponsible teenagers with their parent's credit card. Until we vote in some leaders that are willing to make real spending cuts...we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Last edited by Toyman at Jewel Lake; 11-29-2011 at 08:38 AM..
The beast in the room that nobody wants to address of course is entitlement programs that eat away and will only get worse as baby boomers hit the rolls at 10K a day.
This chart is per person US federal government spending in fixed, 2005 dollars. Like most people with a brain, I'd say ALL spending has caused our national debt. In fixed dollars, our spending is 5 TIMES what it was in 1950. Is there anyone that can possibly think that this is sustainable? Or that wonders why we saw such growth and prosperity in the 50s vs current times?
And this chart is per person federal revenue in the same, fixed dollars:
It's pretty hard to say that we have a "revenue problem" when the federal tax load on every person in this country has increased by 3 times, in one life time.
It's pretty obvious to anyone with any sense that we have a SPENDING PROBLEM. It isn't just one party, both are pigs at the trough. Neither Republicans or Democrats have made any serious proposals for reigning in spending. Both parties act like irresponsible teenagers with their parent's credit card. Until we vote in some leaders that are willing to make real spending cuts...we have no one to blame but ourselves.
The beast in the room that nobody wants to address of course is entitlement programs that eat away and will only get worse as baby boomers hit the rolls at 10K a day.
It's going to be hard to tell the folks that paid into the mandatory federal social insurance programs for decades that they won't get what they were promised when the money was taken out of their paychecks for 40+ years.
It's pretty hard to say that we have a "revenue problem" when the federal tax load on every person in this country has increased by 3 times, in one life time.
It's pretty obvious to anyone with any sense that we have a SPENDING PROBLEM. It isn't just one party, both are pigs at the trough. Neither Republicans or Democrats have made any serious proposals for reigning in spending. Both parties act like irresponsible teenagers with their parent's credit card. Until we vote in some leaders that are willing to make real spending cuts...we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Lets go back even further. In fixed dollars, our current per-person spending is nearly twice what it was even during WWII. It dwarfs the disasterous spending habits of FDR during the "New Deal". We spend twice what we did during the height of the cold war. This has to stop! Are people really too dumb to realize this? Are our public schools really that bad that people these days are that ignorant?
This chart is per person US federal government spending in fixed, 2005 dollars. Like most people with a brain, I'd say ALL spending has caused our national debt. In fixed dollars, our spending is 5 TIMES what it was in 1950. Is there anyone that can possibly think that this is sustainable? Or that wonders why we saw such growth and prosperity in the 50s vs current times?
And this chart is per person federal revenue in the same, fixed dollars:
It's pretty hard to say that we have a "revenue problem" when the federal tax load on every person in this country has increased by 3 times, in one life time.
It's pretty obvious to anyone with any sense that we have a SPENDING PROBLEM. It isn't just one party, both are pigs at the trough. Neither Republicans or Democrats have made any serious proposals for reigning in spending. Both parties act like irresponsible teenagers with their parent's credit card. Until we vote in some leaders that are willing to make real spending cuts...we have no one to blame but ourselves.
you're drawing false conclusions from those charts.
all they tell me is that the economy has grown since 1950. Real gov't spending per capita and real gov't revenue per capita should grow over time, with increasing productivity. What you are describing is nothing more than an increasing tax base.
It's going to be hard to tell the folks that paid into the mandatory federal social insurance programs for decades that they won't get what they were promised when the money was taken out of their checks for 40+ years.
When we have dug ourselves into this kind of hole with debt, the solution will be hard no matter what.
If you personally owed $100k in credit card debt, becoming financially stable again will never be easy.
This chart is per person US federal government spending in fixed, 2005 dollars. Like most people with a brain, I'd say ALL spending has caused our national debt. In fixed dollars, our spending is 5 TIMES what it was in 1950. Is there anyone that can possibly think that this is sustainable? Or that wonders why we saw such growth and prosperity in the 50s vs current times?
And this chart is per person federal revenue in the same, fixed dollars:
It's pretty hard to say that we have a "revenue problem" when the federal tax load on every person in this country has increased by 3 times, in one life time.
It's pretty obvious to anyone with any sense that we have a SPENDING PROBLEM. It isn't just one party, both are pigs at the trough. Neither Republicans or Democrats have made any serious proposals for reigning in spending. Both parties act like irresponsible teenagers with their parent's credit card. Until we vote in some leaders that are willing to make real spending cuts...we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Nice charts and posts. I have one question though. Your charts indicate that tax revenue increased, almost proportionately, with spending per person. If this is the case, why the increase of debt?
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