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CBO FY2018 Review

jonny5

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https://www.cbo.gov/system/files?file=2018-11/54647-MBR.pdf

-Deficit about 779bn, 100bn more than 2017
-revenue up 10bn (income tax up 100bn, corporate tax down 100bn)
-spending up 150bn (1/5 entitlements, 1/5 defense. 3/5 interest on the debt)

Basically a mixed bag. Good news that people arent paying more taxes, and we're shifting the burden away from business. Bad news that spending keeps increasing, especially on wealth redistribution programs, and worse news that the decades of out of control borrowing is costing us a lot in interest.

Hopefully divided govt will save us by blocking spending increases at it did under Obama and Clinton.
 
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files?file=2018-11/54647-MBR.pdf

-Deficit about 779bn, 100bn more than 2017
-revenue up 10bn (income tax up 100bn, corporate tax down 100bn)
-spending up 150bn (1/5 entitlements, 1/5 defense. 3/5 interest on the debt)

Basically a mixed bag. Good news that people arent paying more taxes, and we're shifting the burden away from business. Bad news that spending keeps increasing, especially on wealth redistribution programs, and worse news that the decades of out of control borrowing is costing us a lot in interest.

Hopefully divided govt will save us by blocking spending increases at it did under Obama and Clinton.

Lessee now. We've spent 20.5+ trillion of borrowed money and we've never paid back the debt from WWII, Like gravity, what goes up must come down. Will that be crashing down? I cannot fathom a way that we can pay this back, now, or in 20 years. "Confidence" is a wonderful thing, but I'm not sure it has enough substance in reality to be money. One can't hold that confidence in their grubby little dickskinners. As I understand the past year we borrowed for 1.4 trillion hamburgers to be repaid at some future date, or is it that we will pay the intereest on the 1.4 trillion hamburgers and never pay down the principle? I could use a little input on this because it seems to work like Bernie Madoff on steroids and that couldn't be the reality of Central Banking, or could it?
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Lessee now. We've spent 20.5+ trillion of borrowed money and we've never paid back the debt from WWII, Like gravity, what goes up must come down. Will that be crashing down? I cannot fathom a way that we can pay this back, now, or in 20 years. "Confidence" is a wonderful thing, but I'm not sure it has enough substance in reality to be money. One can't hold that confidence in their grubby little dickskinners. As I understand the past year we borrowed for 1.4 trillion hamburgers to be repaid at some future date, or is it that we will pay the intereest on the 1.4 trillion hamburgers and never pay down the principle? I could use a little input on this because it seems to work like Bernie Madoff on steroids and that couldn't be the reality of Central Banking, or could it?
/

We'll likely never pay down the principle. Not until everyone pays taxes, and stops leeching off those who do. We're essentially borrowing a trillion a year to mainly subsidize healthcare and welfare.
 
We'll likely never pay down the principle. Not until everyone pays taxes, and stops leeching off those who do. We're essentially borrowing a trillion a year to mainly subsidize healthcare and welfare.

Bullcrap! We subsidize Corporate Welfare a/k/a, the MIC, the Military Industrial Complex. That keeps the Oligarchic Billionaires fat, don't ya' know? We subsicize the Big Energy Industries by refusing to support Renewable Energy and denying Global Warming. We baiiled out the CROOKED banks in 2008, instead of putting them in jail, we saved the banking bilionaires. Trickle Up economics has been working really well for a long time.
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Last edited:
Dave knows all the kookernutter buzzwords. LAFF
 
Bullcrap! We subsidize Corporate Welfare a/k/a, the MIC, the Military Industrial Complex. That keeps the Oligarchic Billionaires fat, don't ya' know? We subsicize the Big Energy Industries by refusing to support Renewable Energy and denying Global Warming. We baiiled out the CROOKED banks in 2008, instead of putting them in jail, we saved the banking bilionaires. Trickle Up economics has been working really well for a long time.
/

No, we PAY the MIC for things we use to defend the country. IE, the main purpose of govt. The bank bailouts were a one time thing. We spend 10x as much on social programs every single year. It never ends.
 
No, we PAY the MIC for things we use to defend the country. IE, the main purpose of govt. The bank bailouts were a one time thing. We spend 10x as much on social programs every single year. It never ends.

The USA is on OFFENSE. There has been no need for defense. Noone has attacked us. It's all about Military Offense and the propaganda keeps doing the Pete and Repeat about Military Defense because it hides the truth. The Pete and Repeat is working on you as the Repeat.
/
 
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files?file=2018-11/54647-MBR.pdf

-Deficit about 779bn, 100bn more than 2017
-revenue up 10bn (income tax up 100bn, corporate tax down 100bn)
-spending up 150bn (1/5 entitlements, 1/5 defense. 3/5 interest on the debt)

Basically a mixed bag. Good news that people arent paying more taxes, and we're shifting the burden away from business. Bad news that spending keeps increasing, especially on wealth redistribution programs, and worse news that the decades of out of control borrowing is costing us a lot in interest.

Hopefully divided govt will save us by blocking spending increases at it did under Obama and Clinton.
Hopefully, but I'm not optimistic. Under both Clinton and Obama the GOP controlled the House for most of their terms. While not the tightest fists in the world the GOP did a pretty good job controlling Clinton's and Obama's more reckless spending and even created two years with surpluses under Clinton; they were headed that why under Bush as well until Dems took over in 2007.

Best news from CBO was that revenues from personal income tax was up 6% - proof that Trump's tax cuts are working as expected.
 
No, we PAY the MIC for things we use to defend the country. IE, the main purpose of govt. The bank bailouts were a one time thing. We spend 10x as much on social programs every single year. It never ends.
I believe the banks paid back most if not all of the TARP funds dished out by Bush and Obama.
 
The USA is on OFFENSE. There has been no need for defense. Noone has attacked us. It's all about Military Offense and the propaganda keeps doing the Pete and Repeat about Military Defense because it hides the truth. The Pete and Repeat is working on you as the Repeat.
/

Defense is also about being strong, having allies, and defending those allies.
 
I believe the banks paid back most if not all of the TARP funds dished out by Bush and Obama.

There you go then. Bank bailouts are the least of our worries. Social spending remains the greatest.
 
There you go then. Bank bailouts are the least of our worries. Social spending remains the greatest.
Correct. Interest on the debt, and other mandatory spending like SS, Medicare, and Medicaid eat up a majority of our tax dollars.
 
I believe the banks paid back most if not all of the TARP funds dished out by Bush and Obama.

I thought TARP was the auto industry bailout and it was paid back. I think the Big Banks stuck us with the insolvent bad mortgages and the FED or Some Federal Agency is now stuck with the bad paper, but pretending it is quality debt.
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I thought TARP was the auto industry bailout and it was paid back. I think the Big Banks stuck us with the insolvent bad mortgages and the FED or Some Federal Agency is now stuck with the bad paper, but pretending it is quality debt.
/
Two different things. TARP was to financial institutions to keep credit flowing; mostly loans that were paid back. Auto bail outs were separate.
 
“2 years ago, Republicans presented a #BetterWay to get the country back on track. It's working:
Wages are rising at their fastest rate in 9 years.
The economy is on track to grow at its fastest rate in 13 years.
Unemployment is the lowest it’s been in 48 years.” — https://twitter.com/SpeakerRyan . Our economy will good, i trust that.
 
Correct. Interest on the debt, and other mandatory spending like SS, Medicare, and Medicaid eat up a majority of our tax dollars.

To date, SS has more than paid for itself ($5T more taken in than spent). So, SS has eaten up ZERO of our tax dollars to date (other than the specific amounts collected for SS, which as I have pointed out, have to date, exceeded the amount spent on social security). Medicare is also specifically taxed.

Its not fair or correct to blame government deficits on SS or Medicare. You can, however, blame them on continually cutting taxes while running deficits.
 
To date, SS has more than paid for itself ($5T more taken in than spent). So, SS has eaten up ZERO of our tax dollars to date (other than the specific amounts collected for SS, which as I have pointed out, have to date, exceeded the amount spent on social security). Medicare is also specifically taxed.
It's still a tax, and is reported as such by CBO.
upsideguy said:
Its not fair or correct to blame government deficits on SS or Medicare. You can, however, blame them on continually cutting taxes while running deficits.
Sorry, I'm just following standard government accounting.
 
It's still a tax, and is reported as such by CBO.
Sorry, I'm just following standard government accounting.

Actually, you are ignoring standard government accounting as Social Security is off-budget. $5T of our national debt is money owed to social security that was borrowed by the general budget. That $5T represents the excess collections of social security to actual payments. You can not claim that SS is a drain on the general budget as it is its own, thus far, self-sufficient entity.

https://www.thebalance.com/off-budget-definition-and-examples-3305951

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-does-it-mean-government-program-be-budget

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States
 
Actually, you are ignoring standard government accounting as Social Security is off-budget. $5T of our national debt is money owed to social security that was borrowed by the general budget. That $5T represents the excess collections of social security to actual payments. You can not claim that SS is a drain on the general budget as it is its own, thus far, self-sufficient entity.

https://www.thebalance.com/off-budget-definition-and-examples-3305951

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-does-it-mean-government-program-be-budget

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States
I'm still going with CBO vs some loony tune site like "The balance". Money paid in to SS and Medicare is counted as part of tax revenue.
 
Correct. Interest on the debt, and other mandatory spending like SS, Medicare, and Medicaid eat up a majority of our tax dollars.

Well the good news is we have dedicated funding for part of those social programs. That covers SS, and Medicare A for now, about a trillion worth. The problem is we spend 2.5 trillion on social programs.
 
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files?file=2018-11/54647-MBR.pdf

-Deficit about 779bn, 100bn more than 2017
-revenue up 10bn (income tax up 100bn, corporate tax down 100bn)
-spending up 150bn (1/5 entitlements, 1/5 defense. 3/5 interest on the debt)

Basically a mixed bag. Good news that people arent paying more taxes, and we're shifting the burden away from business. Bad news that spending keeps increasing, especially on wealth redistribution programs, and worse news that the decades of out of control borrowing is costing us a lot in interest.

Hopefully divided govt will save us by blocking spending increases at it did under Obama and Clinton.

Here is what the left wants to ignore along with the strong growth in other tax revenues tied to consumer spending, excise taxes, state and local sales taxes, state property taxes all thanks to people keeping more of what they earn and strong economic growth

The American economy continues to grow. In the third quarter of 2018, the economy expanded at 3.5 percent. This marks the first time America has sustained more than 3 percent yearly economic growth since 2005.
 
Well the good news is we have dedicated funding for part of those social programs. That covers SS, and Medicare A for now, about a trillion worth. The problem is we spend 2.5 trillion on social programs.

4 plus millions new taxpayers created all paying Federal Income Taxes and FICA(SS and Medicare) taxes

The left wants to ignore the true role of the federal govt. and the true responsibility of the items that Federal Income taxes are supposed to fund. They buy what they are told and ignore official federal revenue and expense data
 
Well the good news is we have dedicated funding for part of those social programs. That covers SS, and Medicare A for now, about a trillion worth. The problem is we spend 2.5 trillion on social programs.
Except it's not. SSA has had to use interest from loans to the gov't to pay benefits. And, of course, THAT money comes from other tax revenue
 
Except it's not. SSA has had to use interest from loans to the gov't to pay benefits. And, of course, THAT money comes from other tax revenue

Well, technically its money that was paid in as payroll tax, but yes, the govt is collecting income tax (or borrowing) to pay it back now that the scheme isnt working anymore. At the very least they need to raise the payroll tax (and my benefit with it).
 
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