Where Did the Debt Come From?

In just 3 minutes, all lies myths and fantasies are put to rest, and reality is laid bare in clear facts and clear presentation... please share this around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcvLHHMC4iI



• LEST ANYONE FORGET THROUGH MEDIA BRAINWASHING, there was a surplus for the first time in American history since Andrew Jackson (1830s) during the later Clinton years. The republican thieves who pushed their shrub into the White House fucked it alllll up with tax cuts for the rich and war games and adventures in the Middle East. We all know how the eventual outcome of the previous 8 years before Obama's administration and we are still trying to recover from it. THE RICH NEED TO PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE!!!!!!!!!! NO MORE WELFARE FOR THE RICH AND WARFARE FOR THE POOR!

  anon

• "NO MORE WELFARE FOR THE RICH AND WARFARE FOR THE POOR!" I like that. We need to pass that quote around.

• I'd like to add that the war the republicans started in Iraq was based on lies and they knew it. Including Iraqi civilians, over 100 thousand people died needlessly due to their "war games."

  anon

• The opposite of surplus isn't debt, it's deficit. Also, just because the Budget Office came out with a prediction, doesn't mean that's the bar that comparisons should be made with. Such a huge projected suprlus was kinda too optimistic, in fact the kind of optimism that led people to forgetting that the money they were borrowing would eventually have to be paid back. Moreover, this guy is being rather disingenuous: the surplus/deficit isn't the product strictly of debt but of income/expenditure. So, the size of the surplus is not simply a result of what is being spent but also what is being earned. There's no mention here of what the US economy was producing over the past decade. Also, what is extremely disengenuous is the claim that the US has only had public debt since George Bush - the country has had public debt pretty much continuously since it came into existence.

• Why is he using $6 million but I hear constant references to $16 million?

• R4, denial and idiocy is strong within you. Your last statement in particular is really stupid. Try watching it again and this time paying attention. Your assertion is ridiculous, nobody (least of all the guy in the video) is claiming the US has only had public debt since George Bush. Try to comprehend what you're being told. As a clue, here's the answer for R5: They're talking relative to Bush's election. Not absolute values. Really, this isn't that complicated. Use your brains.

• Is this really real.

  And%20if%20so%2C%20I%27d%20like%20to%20know

• Yes, is is real and accurate, R7.

• R7, it's only accurate if you think that some estimated figure guessed in 2001 and projecting a decade into the future is of any relevance to a debate about the real economy. If you think that, then you're about as stupid as OP. And, I know this is a little too complicated for OP to understand, but it is possible to want a clear and honest debate on issues without this making you a Rethug. It's actually the only position that can be taken if you want to properly resolve issues and if you want to be an aware, thoughtful citizen. If anything is "wrong" here it's the CBO's projected continuous and ever-increasing surpluses, which lulled everyone, in the US and outside of the US, into thinking that the good times were going to last forever, so we could just spend on our credit cards and get mortgages for houses which we were never really able to afford. (I'm not actually from the US, which is perhaps why I can look at this issue more objectively than OP, but many thought the bubble was going to last forever in Europe too.)

  http://www.factcheck.org/2012/09/obamas-deficit-dodge/

• [quote]I'd like to add that the war the republicans started in Iraq was based on lies and they knew it. Including Iraqi civilians, over 100 thousand people died needlessly due to their "war games." Have you forgotten the NY Times was in favor of attacking Iraq? So was Hillary Clinton, and so were many others who knew better. I hate defending the Republicunts, but it's disingenuous to lay all of blame on them.

• R9, you're really not getting it. Ignore R9. This is real and accurate, and is well researched. R9 is a right-wing fucktard trying to spin things away from Republican Responsibility, that's all.

• remindeder bump

• I know he's made the deficit go down since he's been in office, but yhy did the deficit go up so much in Obama's first year (if you assign 2009 to him)? Not a Repub but it's one of those stats that I need a good DL explanation to tell people when they point it out in their anti-Obama criticism.

  Debbie%20Democrat

• r13, I'd guess it had to do with all the money spent to stop the banks from collapsing. I'm guessing there was a lot of fraud with that amount of money that was given out so quickly.

• R11 doesn't know what "responsibility" means. You're the one who doesn't "get" it because you can only see things in dogmatic, polemical terms whereas understanding the economy requires a slightly more nuanced approach. It is possible that the little video you posted is not objective or accurate, and saying that doesn't make one a "right-wing fucktard".

• [quote]I know he's made the deficit go down since he's been in office, but yhy did the deficit go up so much in Obama's first year (if you assign 2009 to him)? Keep in mind the budget you're talking about is BUSH'S 2009 budget (fiscal years going from October to October). Bush signed it a month before the election, and three full months before Obama took office. In the summer before the election, the 2009 fiscal year was already being projected as the largest deficit ever. The reason it suddenly balooned up even from those projections? The 2008 Fiscal crisis, collapse, and subsequent recession. This CRATERED revenues, while increasing costs (unemployment, medicare/medicaid, other government expendatures). On top of this, Obama put the Bush wars ON BUDGET, rather than only funding them through off-budget supplimentals as Bush had done, to try and hide their true costs. Obama's policies didn't really get to kick in until the following budget year. Yes, the stimulus was added to that, but there are two things that need to be considered: The stimulus was a one-time thing (not an on-going cost like the Bush Tax Cuts, the Bush Wars, the Republican Medicare-Part-D entitlement, etc). And it was an INVESTMENT, not "spending". Republicans don't seem to grasp the difference between investments and spending. Spending is what Bush did all over the place. Money just going out the window wtih nothing to show for it. What Obama did was INVEST... investments have RETURNS, both short-term and long-term. All told, Obama's spending increases have been the smallest in generations (you have to go back to "I Like Ike" to find anything close). But the Republicans continue to insist he's reckless spender, which couldn't be any further from the truth if it tried. And R15 still doesn't "get it", and should probably stop talking.

• Oh shut up, r16. What I am questioning is that stupid video you posted, which bases all its argument on a hopelessly optimistic projection made in 2001 of what the 2012 deficit would be like, as opposed to using real economic data. If you want to sway people's opinions - as your exhortation that people share this video around would imply - then don't attempt to do so with simplistic and somewhat disingenous material such as this video, don't confuse issues (debt and deficit, although related, are not the same thing) and perhaps also don't put forward simplistic, one-dimensional arguments (e.g. Republicans = everything bad, Obama = everything good). I know this might be a little difficult for you to comprehend, but try having something like a complex thought, it's good for you.

• There has been a lot of welfare for Haliburton, GE and Boeing.

• Reminder

• bump

• This is a great video. It points out that the Bush tax cuts really created the problem. I guess the conclusion is that we should do away with those tax cuts (75% OF WHICH WENT TO PEOPLE MAKING LESS THAN $250K). Idiots like the OP can't do basic math. Now that Congress has made these tax cuts permanent there is no where to go but to cut spending.

• R21, I'd say "oh mary" but that's not really sufficient I don't think. The current tax scheme is only "permanent" in the meaning that they don't auto-expire like the Bush cuts were supposed to two years ago. Thus, no extentions are required to keep them going. They are not permanent in the notion that they cannot be changed. They could change things next month. Or next year. At any time. I can do basic math. I can also do advanced math. I also understand an awful lot about economics, macro-economics, deficits, debt, spending, and taxes. Yes, the Bush Tax cuts really created the problem. But so did the unfunded Medicare-D entitlement. And so did the two off-budget wars during a time of tax cuts. Bush's spending took off. The problem now isn't spending. So no, the only solution left isn't "cutting spending", because spending is emphatically NOT the current problem. The current problem is a revenue deficit caused mostly by the recession and economic collapse, and the continued high unemployment. SPENDING, via stimulous, would actually have a long-term downward pressure on the deficit... it would not increase it. Think of it as "spending money to make money". But yes, the tax deal that was reached wasn't ideal. Limiting it to $400k/year was too high. But there is NOTHING preventing them from increasing taxes on those making between $200k and $400k (effectively "expiring" the Bush tax cuts for those individuals) next year... except for republican opposition of course. The best parts of the tax deal were the increases in the estate tax and the capital gains tax. Those were very good starts.

• The saddest part not even mentioned in this video, is the devaluation of our currency as a result of this added debt. 1.00 in 2001 is only .55 cents today. Bush not only cleaned out the treasury, he caused the value of goods to become inflated by 40%. That is why we see produce from Chile selling at prices equal to cost of meat back in 2001. The poverty that lies ahead is devastating. This will materialize by way of rapid inflation starting this year. Obama has been fairly successful in stifling the inflation monster with artificially low interest rates, but his sadly won hold through 2013.

• #22 you clearly don't know what you are talking about. You don't have command of very basic facts. For example, even if you increase the tax rates on those making $200K the vast bulk of cost of the Bush tax cuts are still there.

• [quote]This will materialize by way of rapid inflation starting this year. Yeah, yeah. You lot have been predicting this nonsense for years now, and it ain't happened yet.

• R24, I clearly do know what I'm talking about. I'm beginning to think not only that you don't know what you're talking about, but that you also can't comprehend what you read very well. Your "for example" line was pretty irrelevant and meaningless in light of what I actually said, for example.

• bump

• Government debt is the problem, which makes debt slaves of all of us, even those of us who never borrow any money. BECAUSE: the owners of the central banks(the Fed, B of E, ECB) have as their prime goal to increase government debt by any means possible. This means more billions in interest payments received by them and extracted from us at gunpoint(aka IRS),In pursuance of this they use the MI5, CIA, etc to foment wars/'military actions' around the world, thus forcing governments to borrow more money to engage in these wars. They also enjoy the mass-murders that these wars generate.Americans have it in their power to stop this insanity. One way would be for all individuals and businesses to stop paying all federal taxes today!

  Mrs%20Patrick%20Campbell

• MPC, crazy and irrational as always.

• [quote]... but yhy did the deficit go up so much in Obama's first year (if you assign 2009 to him)? Hun, millions of people thrown out of work means millions fewer paying payroll taxes! Thus a huge widening deficit, it is not always spending!

• [quote]... but yhy did the deficit go up so much in Obama's first year (if you assign 2009 to him)? The Fiscal Year 2009 Budget was signed into law by George W. Bush in October 2008, PRIOR to the election of President Barack Obama. At the time, the projected 2009 Budget Deficit was already forecast to be a record high one, and that was NOT factoring in the recession (those estimates came before the collapse hit in September 2008). The record deficit was not Obama's fault and would have been as big (or bigger) under a McCain Presidency, precisely because the economy utterly collapsed, causing revenues to fall off a cliff. Add to that the fact that Obama put the two wars on-budget for the first time, and you have that record monster, almost NONE of which was Obama's responsibility. Instead, what we see is that starting with the next Fiscal Year (which started in October 2009), that under Obama, every year we've seen a decrease in the deficit. In fact, there hasn't been this rapid of a reduction in deficit since the end of WW2.

• It's amazing to me how reality is almost exactly the OPPOSITE of what the right-wing talking points say it is.

• Indeed.

• How does a bank get the power to lend a nation a trillion dollars that the bank didn't have and that didn't exist until it was borrowed? If we don't pay it back what has the bank lost other than money it didn't have in the first place?

• Think of it like this All the AIDS infested 'mos were crying how they had HIV. Then when they had a cure for HIV, the infested 'mos said, "Who cares, let's fuck and make super bugs."

• F&F the homophobic shitbag at R35

• bumping for a reminder of the facts.

• People need reminding. Watch this. Spread it around.

• Tax the rich.

• Keep on bumping the truth, and spreading it around in the face of conservative and republican lies...

• Deficits don't matter

  dick cheney

• God forbid congress should ever cut spending.

  %24600%20Toilet%20Seat

• [quote]It's amazing to me how reality is almost exactly the OPPOSITE of what the right-wing talking points say it is. Only if you believe the left-wing talking points in the video.

• [quote]...left-wing talking points... More commonly known as "facts".

• I also think it's important to note at this time, that President Obama has cut spending, instituted savngs, and reduced our deficit. Now that the new tax laws are going into effect, this will continue at a faster pace. Our economy is slowly putting people back to work, and they will pay taxes, so that helps a lot too. I bet that among the many reasons Rethuglicans are so determined to resist further efforts from President Obama to close tax loopholes and get rid of some of the advantages wealthy people have with inheritance taxes and capital gains, is because without the deficit, they have no "cause" even though they were the ones who gave us a deficit in the first place. I hate those stupid asses.

• R43 = right-wing moron, apparently. Either a brain-dead FOX-News viewer, or a brain-washed libertarian moron. Why are right-wingers so allergic to actual facts? Why do they cling so tightly to obvious lies?

• It came from Republicans. At least 80% of it, anyway.

• [quote]Government debt is the problem No, actually, it's not, which is why you didn't even bother to try to support that silly statement. [quote]BECAUSE: the owners of the central banks(the Fed, B of E, ECB) have as their prime goal to increase government debt by any means possible. And no, they don't, not even close. If you're really that far out of touch with reality, I suggest you stop posting.

• [quote]The poverty that lies ahead is devastating. Really? Poverty from what? It doesn't just magically materialize. [quote]This will materialize by way of rapid inflation starting this year. LOL.... Oh, you mean the "hyperinflation" that has been predicted for the past five years, which has never materialized and cannot materialize under current economic conditions? Does it never occur to you to question your predictions when they fail against reality over and over and over again?

• BUMP!