TheAgitator.com
The Party of Limited Government
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008President Bush inherited a $100 billion budget surplus upon taking office. He’ll leave his successor with a $480 billion deficit. The latter figure doe not include funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, which are tabulated “off the books.”
It’s not a bloody corporation, you know, trying to hide revenue from the taxman. What the hell is the government trying to pull by putting expenditures “off the books”?
Bush is a big-government politician. At this point, that is no secret. Federal spending has crossed both the two trillion dollar and three trillion dollar marks under his (and a GOP Congress’) watch.
But, was there ever a real budget surplus in 2001, or was that the figure counting the (misnamed) social security surplus toward the general fund? I don’t believe there has been a surplus in general fund spending in decades.
BTW, I didn’t mean to imply that a Democrat Congress and President would have done any better. As little as either party has to recommend it, I have to be a fan of glorious gridlock. The people are better off when the political class is too busy fighting to agree on how to spend our money.
Isn’t budget surplus our tax money? If it is, should it not be refunded back to the American people? I am not trying to be a shill here as I know a lot of pols (cough! | GOP | cough!) speak of this, I truly want to know. And yes, I know it sounds ignorant but I am a humble IT guy with not as much knowledge as I’d like about such things.
IMO, I thought the libertarian POV would be to give it back if it is not used . . . or would it be don’t take it at all? ;)
I hope it would be. Pay off the freaking debt.
What kind of assclown authorizes a bill giving every American a couple of hundred bucks instead of paying off the debt. At this point it looks like we are just trying to pull a “Trump” i.e. owe so much to so many they can’t possibly expect to get paid off. Yea for third world economic schemes!!
LOL. Loved “the stimulus” check idea. Funny as hell.
My ratings are at all time record lows! What can I do! I know I’ll BUY friends! Send every person $600 now!
FYI:
http://www.letxa.com/articles/16
Anyone who thinks either party is working for the People should look in the mirror in order to be able to recognize a fool.
Who wrote the spending bills? Who wrote the most expensive ones?
The wars are “off the books” in the sense that they are (supposedly) one-off expenses. Most of the Federal budget is recurring expenses, so is supposed to stay roughly the same year-to-year. The expenses are not “off the books” in the literal sense of being hidden money.
Calculating the deficit this way allows you to plan for the future: assuming the budget remains as it is today (constant spending and taxes), the Federal Government will be increasing the national debt $480B every year. If the current wars are really temporary, then a few years of such deficits will dwarf the costs of these wars.
If the US plans to be continuously fighting some war or another for the foreseeable future then the Pentagon budget should be permanently increased. If not, then the US should decide over how many years it wants to spread paying for the wars, and then report the amortized annual costs of the wars separately from the recurring deficit.
Freedomfan,
In the year 2000, the general budget of the United States was in surplus, according to the United States budget’s historic tables section.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf
Can anyone say ‘end of the Tech boom’ for the year 2000? Giving Clinton (or whoever) credit for the surplus is ridiculous … does he ever get credit for the recession that started that year too and really cranked in when Bush started his first year? (Of course not, not with our media.)
I’d like to see someone tell me with a straight face that they really think the budget would be better if we’d had Gore for the past 8 years ……
The fact is the Democrats will always waste money and ‘big government’ Republicans need to go too …. at least it looks like we’ll finally be rid of Ted Stevens soon.
Bush didn’t run as a fiscal conservative so it isn’t surprising that he hasn’t served his presidency looking to save every nickel he could. That doesn’t mean I agree with his spending priorities, just that it’s hard to fault a guy for not being something he never claimed to be.
If you look hard, you can occasionally find a silver lining in the Bush era. For instance, the Bush presidency has once and for all demonstated that conservatism and libertarianism are entirely different political philosophies. The era of libertarians making strategic alliances with the GOP is probably over. On a personal note, the Bush presidency, and the failures of government that became more apparent during this period, turned me from a leftist to a libertarian (though I’m still probably on the left flank of the libertarian movement). Thanks George, I needed that.
Surplus?
Don’t you mean “record profits”?
Actually, I was a big fan of the stimulus checks. It’s just money I’d been forced to pay the govt that they chose to give back.
If Washington goes broke giving taxpayers refunds, that just means a bit less money for debacles like Big Digs, TSA, and Sporks For New Orleans.
As to a $100 Billion Dollar surplus – well, that’s just a windfall profit by a different name. ;)
I think the budget would have been a lot better if Gore had been president.
Of course, I also think 9/11 would not have happened if Gore had been president. And I also think we wouldn’t have bombed a country that never attacked us into smithereens, if Gore had been president. I also think we wouldn’t be nearly as dependent on oil as we now are, if Gore had been president.
Alas.
Oh come on Fay …. 9/11 would have happened if Nader was president … it had been planned for years. What possible logical reasoning do you have that 9/11 wouldn’t have happened if Gore was President? Oh wait, you must be one of those “9/11 was an inside job” kooks? Nevermind, don’t bother answering …. :(
And don’t get me started on Gore’s man-made Global Warming junk science … it’s crap and every real scientist knows it.
And don’t get me started on Gore’s man-made Global Warming junk science … it’s crap and every real scientist knows it.
I agree with you comments regarding Gore and 9/11, but are you saying that all the climatologists and meteorologists who believe the evidence supports the notion of man-made global warming are not “real scientists?” That would be silly.
Don’t believe me, watch the latest Penn&Teller Bullshit episode … it’s called ‘follow the money’. Maybe I shouldn’t have said ‘EVERY’ real scientist, but just like you need to put the word ‘anti-terrorism’ in your pitch to get a defense contract, scientists have to put ‘to fight global warming’ in their grants to get funding. Just one piece of information that should make you never trust Al Gore: He is a co-owner in the ‘carbon credits’ company he tells us that we should invest in and he started it months before his movie came out ……
I have yet to see a scientist provide good evidence that one of the ‘unbelievers’ can’t easily prove incorrect.