[Newsbot]

Title: U.S. debt overpowers National Debt Clock
Category: Uncle Sam
Posted By: canuckns
Date: 2008-10-09 06:37:50

[tritium]

quadrillion dollars... geez where will it end?

[BartSimpson]

tritium tritium:

quadrillion dollars... geez where will it end?

I'm probably one of the few people hoping that the current crisis becomes a collapse. Such a collapse would turn the country from our credit addiction and would force government to live within its means, which means we'd have to have far less government since raising taxes during a depression is idiotic...not that the Democrats won't want to do this to protect their sacred constituencies.

[Zipperfish]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

tritium tritium:

quadrillion dollars... geez where will it end?

I'm probably one of the few people hoping that the current crisis becomes a collapse. Such a collapse would turn the country from our credit addiction and would force government to live within its means, which means we'd have to have far less government since raising taxes during a depression is idiotic...not that the Democrats won't want to do this to protect their sacred constituencies.

Well, to be fair, it's been the Republicans that have been doing the big deficit spending in the US. Unless I'm mistaken, Clinton is the only president in recent history to run a surplus Reagan and Bush Sr. had deficits, and Dubya has certainly been the most fiscally irresponsible president in US history, racking up record deficits practically every year he's been in office.

[BartSimpson]

To be fair, Clinton benefitted from the budget cuts to Defense at the end of the Cold War and then the increased revenues from the tech boom which went bust before Bush came into office in 2001 and with set spending levels on too much of the Federal budget we were screwed. Save but for the Iraq War, your chart would look just about the same had Al Gore been President since 2001. Even then, considering the Democrats were the hawks on the Iraq War Gore may well have taken similar action against Iraq and your chart would be virtually identical to Bush's record.

[Scape]

The purse strings are held by congress. Who held them from 1995 to 2006?

[ziggy]

tritium tritium:

quadrillion dollars... geez where will it end?

When it hit's a google.

[Reverend Blair]

To be fair, Republican governments tend to spend like drunken monkeys while cutting revenues.

[Zipperfish]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

To be fair, Clinton benefitted from the budget cuts to Defense at the end of the Cold War and then the increased revenues from the tech boom which went bust before Bush came into office in 2001 and with set spending levels on too much of the Federal budget we were screwed. Save but for the Iraq War, your chart would look just about the same had Al Gore been President since 2001. Even then, considering the Democrats were the hawks on the Iraq War Gore may well have taken similar action against Iraq and your chart would be virtually identical to Bush's record.

Well, some interesting speculation there. The numbers, though, speak for themsleves. I wonder if the 700 billion bailout is even refelcted in the above chart? Probably not.

Also, it should be pointed out that, though the Iraq War was supported by both Repuiblicans and Democrats. But the Iraq Resolution was supported by 40% of Democarts in the House 97% of Republicans, so to chacrterize the democrats as war supporters is incorrect. Gore spoke against the Iraq Resolution as too broad. He said in a September 2002 speech:

$1:

To begin with, I believe we should focus our efforts first and foremost against those who attacked us on September 11th and have thus far gotten away with it. The vast majority of those who sponsored, planned and implemented the cold blooded murder of more than 3,000 Americans are still at large, still neither located nor apprehended, much less punished and neutralized. I do not believe that we should allow ourselves to be distracted from this urgent task simply because it is proving to be more difficult and lengthy than predicted.

Well spoken, Al.

So I don't think there's much evidence to support your speculation that Al Gore would have invaded and occupied Iraq.