Refresh my memory: How did we get to $17 trillion dollars in debt?

[kentuck]

As I recall, when Clinton left office, there was an actual surplus, even accounting for Social Security. And there were predictions that we would have all our debt paid off by 2011.

But then we had the stolen election of 2000 and everything changed. "It's the people's money - not the government's money!", we were told. And Bush and the Republicans, along with some Democrats, voted for taxcuts that took about $4 trillion dollars out of the Treasury over a ten-year period. So long to paying off the national debt.

Then 9/11 happened.

We went to war in Afghanistan and later invaded Iraq. But taxes were never raised to pay for either war. We are still paying for those two war wars since neither Bush nor the Congress would agree to raise taxes. That is now estimated to cost us between $3-4 trillion dollars.

On top of that, we had Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug Plan which cost about $500 billion dollars. And it was not paid for either.

Then we had the Great Recession and the crash of the markets.


The first deficit left for Barack Obama was $1.4 trillion dollars. It would have been nice if he had balanced the budget the next year but it was not possible. Unfortunately, with the depth of the recession, the deficits have gone down very slowly since 2009.

When we add it all up, it is over $17 trillion dollars. Just to think that we imagined a balanced budget and no national debt such a short time ago.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. * didn't include the costs (past, present, and future) of both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

A trillion here, a trillion there, and next thing you know, you're talking about real money.

Obama included those expenses in the debt the first year he took office. That's why it skyrocketed *after* Obama became President.

[Warpy]

2. What is much more important is how we pay it down to a reasonable level

1. Cut the DOD budget 10% per year until it's in line with what other countries spend.
2. Tax the rich commensurate with their demand on infrastructure over the years.
3. Per transaction tax levied on Wall Street
4. Raise wages to a livable level.

One of those will cut overspending drastically and the other three will raise a lot of revenue quickly.

[Hoyt]

6. That is a good approach. What will make Congress do something like that?

[Warpy]

9. Mobs outside and the occasional brick through their windows

They have to be more afraid of us than they are of billionaires.

[Hoyt]

10. Don't think that will help, but go for it. We never know.

[Warpy]

11. Socialist revolution was in the air when FDR took office

People had finally had enough of rule by the rich at that point. FDR basically saved capitalism during his years in office.

It seems that capitalism has to be saved from itself every couple of generations.

[Hoyt]

13. And at best, we'll all end ip living like my depression era grandad. I'm sorry, but

I've gotten up on a cold assed morning to walk a hundred yards to an outhouse. It sucks after awhile.

Now, if you want to heavily surcharge those who have done well financially, I'm all for it. But the short term impact won't last long. Then, who is going to lead us forward, you or some equally short-sighted tbagger.

Not opposed to significant change, but good change for the majority won't happen like that.

[spanone]

3. wars

[amandabeech]

4. When the economy goes in the water closet, people lose their jobs.

When people lose their jobs, they don't pay taxes but they qualify for programs like unemployment insurance and SNAP (food stamps). The trick is to get the economy going again and the situation reverses--people get jobs, stop collecting unemployment and start paying taxes. At least that's how it is supposed to work. However, financial bubbles are supposed to be the most difficult to correct, and that's what we have.

And I hate to raise this, but the later Clinton years were a complete bubble that was bound to burst just like previous bubbles. Remember pets.com? There were all kinds of dumb dotcoms around put together by crooks and taken public by banker crooks. Eventually those dumb dotcoms went bankrupt and took a lot of peoples' money with them.

There have been other tech-related bubbles in the past: radio, railroads (a big, big, bubble), canals, any major technical advance. There is usually considerable good in technological advance, but there is often a lot of hype.

[al_liberal]

5. The real story goes like this.

Alan Greenspan wouldn't work his magic to help G.H.W Bush get re-elected. Now Alan wasn't the brightest Fed chairman but he did manage to convince the powers that be that he was responsible for all of Paul Volker's work.

After being bestowed with the title of "king god shit of the economy" he went on to piss off Poppy by not helping him get re-elected.

Fast forward to the G.W. Bush forced upon us appointment. George the dimmer was never cognizant enough to understand the economy on his own. So either Dick the First or Poppy pulled good old Alan aside and gave him the old "mafia" deal that he couldn't refuse. Alan, not being one to put integrity (he already took credit for Paul Volker's work) before notoriety accepted the G.W.Bush deal and testified before Congress that paying off the national debt within just a few years would be "bad" for America. Yes, paying off our nation debt would be "bad". That's what the MF said in congressional testimony. His position was that "lowering taxes" would be better because Congress would get into the habit of spending excess revenue rather than give it back to the Bazillionaires.

Yes, paying off the debt and than spending the excess revenue on "we the people" was worse than accumulating more debt.

[Dreamer Tatum]

7. Holy facepalm

Go learn the difference between a budget surplus and the National debt. You will be smarter for it, trust me.

[kentuck]

8. ???

I think everyone knows the difference??

[bluestate10]

14. Don't understand your post. The difference was explained. nt

[CK_John]

12. National money systems are just concepts and are reset as needed. Like a car odometer it rolls

over to zero at some point. I call it the biggest gun economics.

[RobertEarl]

15. Uhm, we borrowed it?

And we made a promise to pay it back?

Now that 17T doesn't even begin to total up all the other debt from states, counties and cities. Really, really big numbers there.

We have not yet maxxed out the credit card tho, so we still have some fun times ahead!

[Enthusiast]

16. "even accounting for Social Security" ????

I believe most of the "surplus" was the result of overpayment of FICA contributions to prepare for the baby boomer retirement. Social security didn't contribute to debt, it contributed to the surplus.

[JaneyVee]

17. We didn't have an actual surplus in 2000 yet, it was a projected surplus which

Would have meant America would be debt free by 2012. That was if no one touched anything, kept spending the same, and kept tax rate the same. None of that happened, Bush exploded spending while cutting revenue stream. Then there's interest....