IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPIDS!

You cant blame ANY administration. This goes back as far as Nixon..@HoraceGreenley

@whowasthatmaskedman Almost 1/2 of this debt is Barak Hussein Obama

And the current guy is doubling down and looks to be making it much worse.. But neither is the point. The nations people are going to end up with the bill. So maybe telling them everything is great is not the best idea.@HoraceGreenley

@HoraceGreenley Let's see:

This is how much the deficit grew, per administration:

Reagan: 184% - 13.9% per year
Bush (41): 54% - 11.5% per year
Clinton: 36% - 4% per year
Bush (43): 93% - 8.5% per year
Obama: 78% - 7.5% per year

The U.S. Federal deficit was $587 billion in Obama’s last year and it grew to $666 billion in Trump’s first year of his presidency. That would be an increase of 13.5%.

We know what caused it during the Obama years, which is the recovery from the worst recession, since the great depression.

What started the big slide, is Reaganomics, which is a combination of lowering taxes, to promote economic growth (did not work), and a decision to spend money we did not have, on the military, to drive the Soviets into spending more, and ruin their economy.

What we need to do, is reduce our military spending, adjust taxes up, to reduce or eliminate the deficit, and focus on rebuilding our infrastructure.

Is Congress willing to tackle this? Not by the look of things. If things did not change come November, then nothing will change, and we will add another $2T in military spending, we don't need to do.

Economically you are absolutely correct.. But geopolitically those moves at a time when China is pushing expansion and Russian is poking the world with a stick would mean American giving up Superpower status. Something not only Unthinkable politically, but remember all those trade concessions based on defence guarantees.. So it would have economic blowback as well.. Its rock and hard place time for the USA quite soon.@Northwest

@whowasthatmaskedman

1. China, S. Korea and Europe, all built up massive trade deficits, while having no superpower status.

2. I am not sure I understand what you mean by trade concessions, based on defense guarantees.

The extra military $s, will keep defense contractors happy, at the expense of infrastructure projects, and will keep soldiers employed, who typically vote conservative.

Ironically, the defense contractors, will have to hire more foreign workers, to insure that the technology they're developing, can actually be developed, because we don't have enough US born technology workers, to make it happen.

It turns out, it does not take all that extra spending, for us to maintain our superpower status.

@Northwest 1. That's kind of the point.. A trade deficit needs to fund something and provide a return on investment.. Not a bunch of supercarriers.
2. Nations like the OPEC oil countries have close relationships between trade and defence, and pricing and supply influence is subtle, but present.. Many African and Asian nations Also link friendly govt relations with agreements to buy from the US.

@whowasthatmaskedman

The Arab royalties, are protected, as in the US sells them arms so they can control their populations, but the US does not step in, and if we do, we get paid for it.

Iraq was a fluke.

@whowasthatmaskedman @HoraceGreenley @Northwest

Congress is the one that [b]PASSES[/b] the budget. Don't let them off the hook and blame it all on the person in the White House.

American voters since 1968 have pretty much decided they've wanted to have divided government.

@beckyromero [quote]Congress is the one that PASSES the budget. Don't let them off the hook and blame it all on the person in the White House.[/quote]

You will see that Horace is doing that, but the budget facts are clear to everyone else. I simply posted the numbers, as Horace seemed confused, or as usual, he has no clue.

@HoraceGreenley Really the only recent president to not fuck up on the debt front is Clinton. Obama at least has the excuse of having been forced to stimulate the economy out of a major recession. Why we're piling on the debt in the current economic climate I just don't understand. This is the time to pay it down.

I cant argue with a word of that. Except to add that both sides of the house were bought long ago by the same big business and special interest groups and are equally morally bankrupt.@beckyromero