Geldpress

104 Responses to “The United States Has Not Had A Balanced Budget Since 1957!”

• DavidO Says:
  July 20th, 2008 at 11:14 pm

  So it’s basically worse than everyone thinks it is. And how much surplus does China have? It has got to be in the trillions. This is the biggest threat to US prosperity; not global warming or Al Queda or Iraq. The next Pres is gonna have to make this a priority.

• danw Says:
  August 3rd, 2008 at 11:02 am

  Not only is the total debt increasing it is doing so at almost an 8% rate year over year since 1970. If the minimum wage had increased in this manner for 38 years it would be over $30. an hour. Think of it with employees working hard year after year for a 2 or 3% raise the govt. has been going in the hole at better than twice that rate. Tax tables are not adjusted for inflation so the govt. gets an automatic raise from eveyone every year. Its not a simple mattter of finding efficiencies anymore. We , the govt, has to rethink what we are paying for. You may be able to cut $ 20 billion here or there. Whats needed is to describe a government that is $400-500 billion dollars smaller and over time reducing the national debt to a healthier figure. Debt as a % of gdp was down to 33% in the early 60s now we are over 66%. If interest rates were to rise in the future the interest would cripple future spending.

• Linnaeus Says:
  August 21st, 2008 at 11:18 am

  Hi DavidO, it seems to me there are three approximately equal threats:
  1) The exploding debt
  2) Climate change
  3) Perpetual war, which will inevitably turn global and nuclear unless it is stopped. Terrorism is not the threat; our response to terrorism is the threat.

  Any one of these three has the potential to take down our civilization as we know it.

• marketman Says:
  August 21st, 2008 at 11:42 am

  Absolutely. We have some serious problems and we need to address them. The reckless government finance engine can only sustain itself for so long, and then we are just another Weimar German Republic, or Zimbabwe.

• Joe S Says:
  October 25th, 2008 at 5:12 pm

  Thanks for getting this information out there, I only wish it were recognized by the mainstream media. I checked the Treasury website for the total deficit as of 9/30/2008 ($10,024,724,896,912.24) and 10/23/2008 ($10,524,112,985,802,87). That translates to a deficit for FY 2008 of over $1T, and another $500B since the beginning of this month.

  Using the Social Security surplus to artificially reduce the deficit numbers is sinful, especially when you consider that is an effective transfer of wealth from future SS recipients to the high income people today that are the prime beneficiaries of the Bush tax cuts.

  Soon there will be no SS annual surplus, and the SS expenses will have to be “recovered” from the General Budget – what will that do to the reported deficit?

• tired of liberals Says:
  November 16th, 2008 at 9:08 am

  Joe…please check out the GAO report published recently…I believe it reported that “no President has taxed the rich more than George W. Bush”…sometimes things aren’t as they appear are they?

• Private Worker Says:
  January 9th, 2009 at 2:18 pm

  Please give your figures in inflation adjusted dollars as well – using absolute figures is obviously misleading. (After accounting for inflation, Bill Clinton might very well have achieved the reduction at least once).

  An interesting article might also compare the debt as a proportion of (1) total government revenues and (2) GDP.

  Also, you skipped the intermediate years. Last time I checked a few years ago, Lyndon Johnson ran a true budget surplus (without stealing from SSI). Older folks might recall that in the face of the costs of the Vietnam War, he (well Congress actually) imposed a flat 10% temporary surcharge on income taxes. It was simple, no new wrangling about special exemptions or reduced deductions – just use the old system’s rates plus 10%. This temporary surcharge paid for the extra costs of the war (well at least the immediate ones – veterans benefits come over an extended period) and actually eventually produced a budget surplus, at which point the temporary tax increase was rescinded as promised.

  The only thing worse than “tax and spend” liberals like Johnson is “borrow and spend” conservatives like Bush.

• geldpress Says:
  January 9th, 2009 at 5:51 pm

  Private Worker: The trouble with inflation adjusted dollars is that there is no way to accurately measure REAL inflation. I’m certainly not going to trust the government reported inflation numbers.

  Most economists do talk about debt as a comparison to total GDP. Those numbers are useful for comparing our debt burden to that of other countries. But to forecast our ability to pay our own debt, the more meaningful relationship is our total government revenue vs the existing national debt.

  You are right, I skipped a few years because I wanted to showcase 1957. But I did provide the link to the historical debt tables. Lyndon Johnson took over in 1963. The total debt was $305 billion. Per the tables from the link I provided, the total debt increased every year from 1963 to 1970, and was $370 billion in 1970.

  You can check the historical debt tables link provided to verify for yourself, but it is true that 1957 was the last time the debt DECREASED.

• geldpress Says:
  January 9th, 2009 at 5:55 pm

  Also, I have no comment on your “tax and spend” vs “borrow and spend” remark. I appreciate the comment, but my article was an objective look at the real debt numbers. I mentioned Eisenhower simply because he was in charge in 1957, and not due to his political persuasion.

• weR2blame Says:
  January 18th, 2009 at 4:05 pm

  Legislatures spend our tax money, presidents receive the glory or the grief, and the saddest part is we elected them all. Think about that the next time you look at your pay stub.

• Tim Says:
  January 21st, 2009 at 1:37 pm

  The white elephant in the national debt room is the “Federal” Reserve Banking system. These private (NOT “quasi-public”) banks were installed in 1913 after banksters bought off our politicians during a Christmas break, and given Congress’ constitutional authority to issue currency. As a result, the biggest chunk of the national debt is owed to these private banks, who issue money and lend it to the U.S. government at interest. To pay for this interest, the federal income tax was passed back then as well. Get rid of the Fed and let the government issue currency at low interest rates… this would result in the elimination of the federal income tax and the government can be funded with the interest money it receives from loaning to banks.

• Shaarangapanaye Says:
  February 12th, 2009 at 12:04 pm

  You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.

• Goal Of Deficit Cutting Is Stupid | Geldpress Says:
  February 22nd, 2009 at 11:30 pm

  [...] spending for this country.  The debt is the cumulative total of all past deficits and surplus (not since 1957 have we had one!).  Further, the goal of “cutting the deficit” is no more admirable than a serial [...]

• military Says:
  March 11th, 2009 at 1:23 am

  Is it a good time to be doing this now?

• geldpress Says:
  March 11th, 2009 at 7:27 am

  By “doing this now”, I assume you mean balancing the budget now? Modern economic theory does encourage deficit spending in times of recession to help smooth out the economic cycles and dampen the effects of a recession. However, that same theory states that during times of economic expansion, the cumulative government debts MUST BE PAID DOWN. This is WHERE WE FAILED AS A NATION. We oversspend like drunken sailors – in good times and in bad. And this is WHY it is SO DIFFICULT to get a large enough stimulus going. We simply don’t have the resources to do what is necessary because we are tapped out.

• Ceaser Says:
  June 9th, 2009 at 9:33 pm

  Linnaeus. Terrorism is a threat. 3,000 dead are an attestment to that. Do you think that by doing nothing that AL Queda will stop??Do you think that such people can be reasoned with?

  If so, than we’ll call you Neville because there is no reasoning with such people and the only way to deal with terrorism is with a mixture of brute force, legal action, and to find a way to change the conditions which created them.

  In my opinion, YOUR response is as big of a threat to peace than what Bush did. If a government did as you suggested–nothing–violence would escalate even more because the terrorists would understand that that there is no consequences for their actions. Tucking youir head and acting like nothing is wrong is not a solution to the problem. Permitting a criminal to get away with an act because you loath the solution is a) incompatible with human instinct and b) makes one complicit in the initial crime.

  War has been around since the beginning of mankind. Nothing you or anyone else will do can change that. Violence is apart of our DNA. Liberals think war just came on the scene in the past 50 years. It didn’t. It predates every economic and political system that we know. It goes back to the very beginnings of human civilization.

  You need to live in the real world, Lanneause. You have to comprehend the limitations of man.

• Alex Says:
  July 13th, 2009 at 5:22 am

  @Linnaeus:
  “Any one of these three has the potential to take down our civilization as we know it.”

  1) and 3) I agree. But, the “climate change” (aka “new ice age”, aka “global warming” …) I do not. Check the facts – it’s nothing but a hoax from the discredited socialist/utopian manual:

  http://www.garynorth.com/public/5156print.cfm

  @Ceaser:
  “to find a way to change the conditions which created them.”

  Maybe stop the perpetual meddling in other people’s internal affairs (e.g. regime change in Iran in the 50s, Iran/Iraq war and Afghanistan in 80s etc) would do. Remember, Saddam and bin Laden are ex U.S. buddies, our own creatures, recruited, trained and armed by U.S. taxpayers money. Not to mention that all our overseas adventures are charged on the credit card. How long do you think world will keep financing the crusades of a bankrupt empire?

• Mike Says:
  August 26th, 2009 at 11:29 pm

  You have to admit, nominals can be misleading. It reminds me a little of statistics…averages(mean) can easily mislead one who has not observered the median.

  Your comment of

  “Private Worker: The trouble with inflation adjusted dollars is that there is no way to accurately measure REAL inflation. I’m certainly not going to trust the government reported inflation numbers.”

  Seems kind of shady to me. Just because you don’t trust the government’s numbers doesn’t mean you should not account for it in some way. In order to have not only an accurate but meaningful representation of debt, inflation has to be taken into account. Whether or not you believe in the government’s account of inflation is besides the point, the reality is that it does exist and must be accounted for in some fashion.

  So looking at those figures between 1999 and 2000 the debt increased nominally by .3% If you think inflation for that year was below .3% or that this year exhibited deflation then you’re right, Clinton didn’t get it done. Otherwise some balance was achieved. To what extent is up for debate.

  Not saying this is the end-all-be-all indicator, but going by CPI inflation between 1999 and 2000 was over 3%. This means that Eisenhower balanced the budget even more so, since the period between 1956-57 had an inflation rate of about 3.3%

  Additionally, inflation from 1963-1970 was almost 27%, while the nominal debt increased by about 21% during that same time, meaning some REAL balancing took place.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

• geldpress Says:
  August 27th, 2009 at 9:37 am

  Good point Mike. My problem with measuring this “real” increase in debt – growth of debt vs growth in inflation – is it makes it to convenient for politicians to excuse their wasteful spending. Also, if we take Obama’s first term into consideration, inflation is near zero (at least for now), yet the national debt is increasing at $2 trillion per year so far. And on that note, the annual increase in total debt is what I term “deficit”. Our annual budget deficit as of now is about $2 trillion, not the $1 trillion reported by the media, which only takes one of two accounts into consideration.
  Also see:
  http://www.geldpress.com/2008/07/us-budget-reporting-deception/

• digger Says:
  September 5th, 2009 at 4:58 pm

  IS EVERYONE FOREGETTING THERE WAS A REPUBLICAN HOUSE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 40 YEARS THAT FORCED THE PRESIDENT TO SPEND LESS

• Matt Says:
  November 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm

  You’re making a big error in judgement. Budget surplus/deficit aren’t the same as total debt. Clinton had a budget surplus for a few years. But total debt (due to interest) was still increasing. Debt != budget.

  All the debt numbers above show that the budget surplus wasn’t greater than the rate at which the US owed money.

  You’re comparing apples to oranges. It’s not good that debt increased, but a surplus budget was a step in the right direction.

• geldpress Says:
  November 11th, 2009 at 1:13 pm

  You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but sorry to say I completely DISAGREE Matt. Clinton only had a surplus on the “public debt” side, but this was more than offset by an increase in the “intragovernmental debt”. The total is much more important and relevant than the parts because they BOTH MUST BE RECORDED AND PAID BACK.

  Eventually (probably much sooner than we imagined), the intragovernmental debt will STOP GROWING ENTIRELY. This is because there will no longer be any money to borrow/steal from social security (the main source of intragovernmental debt). The whole reason a surplus exists in social security is because of the current age demographics of the United States. The right thing to do would be to save and invest those surpluses for what they are intended – the future retirees.

  Perhaps it will be a good day when social security runs a deficit. At least then there will be no misleading statements by the treasury, and all the idiotic main stream news organizations who like to conceal the truth by advertising only the “public debt” figures.

  My analogy still holds true. I’m not going to congratulate my friends and family members for paying down their $5,000 VISA bill if they did so by running up $6,000 on their Master Card.

• Private Worker Says:
  November 12th, 2009 at 11:22 am

  As somebody facing retirement age in the next decade, and having paid SSI all my life (mostly at the increased 15.3% rate – which becomes more obvious if you are self-employed) – I am concerned about the massive “borrowing” that the US government has done against those surpluses in order to finance the general fund deficits. Who’s going to repay that? Future taxpayers and workers.

  The surplus was largely due to an increase in SSI rates beyond what was needed to pay current retirees, with the idea being that it would help to finance the eventual retirement of current contributors. But there’s a problem with how to sock away that many trillion dollars – where do you put it? They could have invested the surplus in stocks, but that would have over the decades have made the US government the world’s largest stockholder, effectively in control of many corporations. The US has problems with that (which is one reason the bank bailout had to go through such gyrations – injecting the amount of money needed in return for stock at then market prices would have wound up with the government owning all the bank’s stock and accidentally “nationalizing” the bank). And it’s susceptible to a stock crash. And there would be some huge effects on the economy when the boomers retires and this massive investment is sold off (including the likelyhood of dropping prices). It could have been deposited in banks, but again it’s too big – the banks would have needed to invest it in turn. Instead, in essense they put it into something like government securities, in the largest and supposedly most stable economy in the world. IE: US government issued securities.

  This also provided the US government with funding that it would have otherwise needed to borrow from others (like China) – and raising the interest it needed to pay for same. Imagine if the US govt had needed to borrow twice as much from China as it has (or whatever) – perhaps at twice the interest rate. So it seemed like a good match.

  This would have been fairly sensible if the SSI surplusses were for some much smaller country, eg: Peru investing their surpluses in US government securities. The amount they would put in, and later withdraw, would not greatly distort the system; and the profits needed to pay it back with interest would be a small fraction of future US government revenues. The problem with a surplus as large as SSI (anticipating a huge deficit as boomers retire) is that it’s too big to put anywhere without radically changing the recipient, not always in good ways.

  Maybe the SSI rates should have been reduced decades ago to just cover real expenses – avoid a surplus that’s too hard to invest collectively and let people invest it separately. But that probably would not have worked either. Maybe the surplus should have been invested in a mixture of US Gov’t securities, other government securities, and both US and foreign stocks – diversified.

  I do agree that providing a windfall of cheap loans to finance general fund deficits was and is a bad option, as it encouraged overspending. The Iraq was has been funded pretty much entirely out of SSI borrowings, for example.

  In a sense, the surplus was invested in the US economy, with the philosophy that a healthy economy is required to pay back the money someday. A huge balance on the books at banks, or in the stock market, is meaningless unless there is an economy from which those trillions can be extracted (whether via taxes or bank withdrawals or corporate dividends or stock sales the money has to come out of the then current economy). But there might have been better ways to so invest.

• Mark Says:
  December 24th, 2009 at 7:23 am

  Pointing fingers at who’s at fault doesn’t solve the problem even when we’re right. Let’s forget about who’s at fault…it doesn’t matter. What is important is fixing the problem…nothing else! The problem is worsening all the time while we take no action. The problem:

  The publicized federal deficit is now $12.4 trillion dollars as of 12-24-09. If there are any mortgage people out there, consider putting this into a 30 year mortgage scenario to repay the debt within 30 years (including compound interest). Now consider the total number of people actually paying taxes of the (approx) 350 million US population. Do the math…if this doesn’t scare the hell out of you…you’re already dead!

  What’s important is to solve the problem that got us here. I have some ideas but they will require getting “out of the box”. Our nation in sinking just as sure as the mighty Titanic. We need ACTION, not blame, and we need it now.

• geldpress Says:
  December 24th, 2009 at 10:46 am

  Actually, it’s the published “debt” that is over $12 trillion. The published deficit (yearly imbalance) is about $1.4 trillion. The ACTUAL deficit (increase in debt year over year) is well over $2 trillion.

• Private Worker Says:
  December 24th, 2009 at 8:33 pm

  There’s a good reason that we seldom hear much about fixing the problem – there are currently no politically feasible “fixes”.

  Basically, either our economy needs to expand at rates that would amaze the Chinese for the next few decades (such that a demographically declining workforce can be hyperproductive) and extract their surpluses (via direct taxes or via changing the ratio of costs and wages) to satisfy the debt, OR we need to write down the debts to a payable level.

  How would it be reduced? Well, the people “owed” the intragovernmental debt are future SSI and Medicare recipients, who have been paying extra their entire lives and are now aging and about to need it back. So we could default on them – slash social social security and medicare and let the chips fall where they may. With those folks comprising a huge part of the voters in coming decades, cheating out of what they’ve been promised (and what they’ve paid for through withholding) is going to be politically difficult until there is no other choice.

  Or there’s the other traditional option – inflation. Suppose we had approximate 10 fold inflation in a decade (which doesn’t hold candle to the real hyperinflation that other countries have experienced). That means that goods and services now cost about 10 times as much, so you are paying your maid $200/hr and your lawyer $2000/hr and cars cost hundreds of thousands of dollars – but wages have gone up too, and the poverty level is $200,000/yr. Your legacy long term debts – measured in numeric dollars not in buying power – can now be paid off 10 times more easily.

  Besides the major problems that that causes to an economy, in this case it’s also difficult because so much of the money is owed to retirees, who will rightfully and appropriately press for cost of living raises to keep up. So this approach really comes down to the same thing – default on the obligation to the elderly. They can’t repossess the nation which betrays them in such a way; all they can do really is vote.

  We can blame this on our leaders, but it’s not quite that simple. We refuse to elect leaders who would face up to this dillema. That doesn’t let the ones who pandered to this off the hook for oversimplifying and selling popular but untrue fictions – but we can’t claim full innocence.

  The more recent politicians are the less culpable overall; they inherited an untenable situation. Often by then the only apparent way out of the immediate crisis was a Faustian bargain that made the long term problem worse. For example, many economists believed that we were on the verge of a long term depression recently; if that had happened, the economy would have been far from able to afford the debt. (The only thing worse than an exploding debt, is an exploding debt with an imploding ability to pay it!). So the gov’t borrowed like crazy, as the lesser evil. Whether it was the lesser evil will be debated for decades (and popular but untrue fictions will abound in the political marketplace), but nobody dispute that it was evil. That is, the massive borrowing will make things worse that they were previously projected (altho possibly better than if a depression – also outside the projection – had taken hold.

  If anybody has a real way out of this mess, I’m listening. It’s clear that we’re going to have to consume less overall; the nation has been living beyond it’s means. Stiffing the retirees alone won’t be enough. I think the big question is going to be how the pain gets distributed. If we have tens of millions of homeless elders literally starving (say, trying to live on SSI which in todays dollars comes out to the purchasing power of $300 a month), while the top 1% continues to get wealthier, there could be social disorder as well.

• geldpress Says:
  December 25th, 2009 at 11:53 am

  Just one point on Private Worker’s idea of inflation making the debt burden insignificant. That can be true of household debt if that household is spending within their means and not running up more debt in parallel with inflation. With government, unfortunately, since they are incapable of a real balanced budget, inflation will only exacerbate the problem.

  I think the solution is to work towards a long term sustainable, and REAL balanced budget. And by REAL I mean a budget where the total government debt does not increase one single penny from year to year. Painful? Absolutely! Necessary? I used to think that we either need to face a little pain now as a country, or a severe pain in decades to come. That time is over. We need some serious pain now, rather than face an inevitable collapse sooner than people can fathom.

• Private Worker Says:
  December 25th, 2009 at 1:44 pm

  @ Geldpress – I don’t disagree with you about that. I regret if it sounds like I was advocating inflation as a real solution! To the contrary; in fact I was pointing out that even at best (in terms of budget balancing), it’s really the same as defaulting on retirement benefits indirectly.

  However, inflation is a traditional response which may indeed happen.

  The problem is that no politician will be elected or stay in office on a platform of serious pain now to avoid collapse later. Jimmy Carter tried to get the country to take conservation seriously, and many people resoundingly turned to Ronald Reagan who promised that the magic of the market would painlessly solve our problems. Obama proposes to finance health care through efficiency savings (which may be hard to push through the political process and/or may not save as much as hoped) combined with letting the Bush tax cuts for the upper percentiles expire – ie: promising the majority very little pain. And so on.

  I do get that your intent is to awaken enough people to the need to take difficult measures now, rather than buy yet another promise that there’s a magical way out which won’t be very painful. What else can one do?

  Have you posted a proposal about how to spread around that serious pain you advocate? What would it really look like on the ground? It’s clearly more than just postponing the carribean cruise and buying a cheaper car this year. Does it mean dramatically raising taxes until the debt can be paid down? Slashing social security? Reducing the military budget? Or what?

• geldpress Says:
  December 28th, 2009 at 9:58 pm

  I don’t claim to have the answers with exactly how to fix the fiscal mess we are in. But at a minimum, we need to be honest about the way we report it, and the main stream media has to do a better job with calling foul on the government under reporting of the debt and deficits. The whole intent of the original post was to show just how wrong the main stream media gets it – over and over again. In fact, I have never once seen any main stream media source report accurate deficit or national debt numbers.

  As for the long term solution for fixing the fiscal disaster, there are others way more qualified than me. In fact, the United States government has commissioned dozens of consultancy organizations over the years to propose real solutions. Our tax dollars have shelled out billions in national debt studies and solutions. And then every time the summary reports are issued, they are promptly ignored.

• Mark Says:
  December 31st, 2009 at 1:32 pm

  Herein lies the problem doesn’t it. The experts are not in charge. Politicians are in charge…and the people have no conduit to change this. The system is flawed.

  The train has crested the apex of the hill and is picking up momentum. It’s on the downside to oblivion, but there are no brakes to stop it, or even slow it.

  I’m not trying to be prophetic…I just see it as fact. Unaddressed, I see failure of our country’s monetary system as inevitable (if left up to politicians).

• Private Worker Says:
  January 3rd, 2010 at 7:19 pm

  Geld, we agree about the need to honest reporting. You lose me when you say the US Govt has shelled out “billions” for studies and solutions. What evidence do you have for that? What are the best few resulting reports to read?

• geldpress Says:
  January 4th, 2010 at 10:09 am

  Glad you asked. For starters, check out the 1981 study by the national commission on social security reform.
  http://www.socialsecurity.gov/history/reports/gspan.html

  There have been many similar reports since then, and as I said, they all cost a lot of money, and they are all ignored.

  Also, take a look at the history of the debt ceiling:
  http://www.geldpress.com/2008/07/united-states-debt-limit-joke/

  We put so much emphasis on making laws that put an absolute high on the national debt. In theory, it is like a credit limit on your own personal credit cards. With the United States, however, every time we get within half a trillion or so of that ceiling, congress swiftly acts to vote on a few trillion dollar increase of that ceiling. The last increase was just about a week ago.
  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/senate-approves-short-term-debt-ceiling-increase-2009-12-24

  For other costly studies on runaway debt, just google for “social security studies” and grab yourself some strong coffee for a days worth of reading (and perhaps laughing and crying).

• M Colins Says:
  March 2nd, 2010 at 11:39 am

  Interesting how these comments began in 2008 when it was very fashionable to indict Bush and the GOP for the growth of the deficit during his term. Now 20 months later, the Democrat brought in to “fix” Bushes mess has quadrupled that deficit and will have tripled the debt by the end of his term.

  I continually stand amazed that the two latest tax reductions by Reagan and GW Bush directly and almost immediately resulted in economic recovery and increased tax revenue but the current custodians of the Presidency decide the best way to tackle the problem is to do exactly the opposite. To disastrous results.

• geldpress Says:
  March 2nd, 2010 at 4:46 pm

  Actually, M Colins, this post is not intended to favor or blame any one party. I blame the republicans and democrats equally and find them both equally irresponsible. Look at the title of hte post again. Not since 1957 has the United States had a real balanced budget. There have been plenty of republican and democrat presidents and congress majorities since that time.

• M Colins Says:
  March 2nd, 2010 at 6:49 pm

  I’m with you on that, both parties have used the same dodgy accounting trick of using the IOU in the empty Social Security Trust fund to help obscure the actual deficit. I was trying to point out that in context of when this article appeared, the natural inclination for some of the commenters was to go after Bush. Well its 20 months later and Bush doesnt come of too badly by comparison.

• Mark Says:
  March 3rd, 2010 at 5:35 am

  Colins statement was on the money…as was yours, that this site is not about blame (that’s good). You also stated there have been many alternating party doninations since “57″. True. We keep ousting one party for the other to rebuke them for their failures (it’s cyclical). WE need to fix the problem, and it’s not the politicians…it’s the democratic method that we’ve installed 200+ years ago that hasn’t evolved. Wipe the slate clean and think about how YOU would correct the problem of administering fair demacracy from scratch…and you will find the answers are evident!

• George Says:
  April 13th, 2010 at 6:55 am

  Your actually incorrect in the whole assertion and post.

  a balanced budget is one in which you take in what you spend in one year. It has NOTHING to do with the debt. and we have had several budget surpluses over recent and not so recent history.

  See the budget is a yearly figure — it does not take the debt into account… so Yes Clinton did have a budget surplus, see what you did, (btw so did Nixon) you changed it from a yearly fiscal statement (the one CNN made) to a overall debt discussion – and that is like comparing apples to oranges…

  You can have a budget surplus and a deficit debt all in the same time… or vica versa a surplus debt and deficit budget.

  It’s like this, if you make 50K a year and spend under 50K a year then your budget for the year is positive, but you may have 100K in debt for let’s say your home mortgage — that does not mean economically you are in bad shape, it means economically you spend less than you made and your debt may or may not increase depending on interest rates, payments toward the debt etc… see the difference?

  So while Clinton had a debt, he also had a balanced or surplus yearly budget which would allow for the payment of debt… hmmm kinda changes the view doesn’t it…

• geldpress Says:
  April 15th, 2010 at 10:14 pm

  Sorry George you are wrong about this one. But we can agree to disagree.

  BTW, if you ever find yourself out of work, Im sure CNN is hiring.

• Mark Says:
  April 16th, 2010 at 2:41 am

  Whether George is “technically” correct or not is unimportant to me. A balanced budget to an accountant may be interpreted exactly as George states, however, all that the rest of us (non-accountants)laymen care about is that the income is far surpassed by the debt, meaning (glub, glub) we’re going down! That does matter to me! It also matter to me that there’s no life preservers on deck. In any language that spells disaster doesn’t it George?

• M Colins Says:
  April 16th, 2010 at 9:49 am

  George you are asserting others don’t know theres a difference between the debt and deficit but it appears you dont understand that if the national debt rises from one year to the next it means that previous year we operated at a deficit. Note that at no time during Clintons term (or previous Presidents) does the debt reduce it always goes up. It should be enough to admire the deficit got quite low during that time but youre simply one species of liberal (the other includes Lefties who insist the surplus was $100s of billions of dollars) who undermines their own credibility with provably false propaganda. Further, if you check back to periodicals of the time, it was a “projected” surplus over the next 2 years which never materialized as the economy began to falter soon after. No matter, as the Democrats claimed economic victory and the myth became the gospel narrative.

  The next part of the Lefty Bush meme is that he squandered this mythical surplus and increased spending and the deficit. Apparently Bush was supposed to take an economy which was already contracting at the end of the Clinton years, get hit with 9-11 which plunged the entire world into recession for two years and somehow run surpluses which Clinton himself didnt even achieve until after 6-7 years of growth. Meanwhile the non fiscally conservative Bush was aided and abetted in massive spending increases by Democrats whose only complaint with Bush was that he wasnt making these programs big enough. And to further add to the irony those same Liberals castigating Bush for his increase in the deficit are silent when their own guy triples it in his first year and is scheduled to quadruple the national debt by the time he is out of office!

  I hope this clarifies things for you.

• Who said their taxes wouldn't go up? Says:
  July 5th, 2010 at 4:19 pm

  [...] to know. Depending on whose voodoo economics you believe, the books were balanced 10 years ago. The United States has not had a balanced budget since 1957! | Geldpress In September 27, 2000, CNN wrote that that:the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted [...]

• Ken Stufflebeam Says:
  July 6th, 2010 at 10:54 pm

  The premise of the statement is “balanced budget” not level of debt. Market man is twisting the facts to discredit Clinton for acheiving a balanced budget or he doesn’t understand finance 101. Obviously politically motivated or maybe Marketman needs to go back to business finance school. A budget is a plan for a specific time period showing revenue and expenses. If your revenues match or exceed your expenses for the time period you have “balanced” the budget or exceeded it on the revenue side putting you in the black (which is better than balanceing it). The fact that you have loans out and they’re not all paid off yet does not matter as long as your required payments on that debt fit within the budget.

• B. Stewart Says:
  July 9th, 2010 at 7:00 pm

  I see Clinton getting at least some credit for reducing the deficit, but wasn’t there a Republican congress at the time who resisted efforts by Clinton to increase spending?

• Troy Says:
  July 15th, 2010 at 1:48 pm

  “WE need to fix the problem, and it’s not the politicians…it’s the democratic method that we’ve installed 200+ years ago that hasn’t evolved. Wipe the slate clean and think about how YOU would correct the problem of administering fair demacracy from scratch…and you will find the answers are evident!” – Mark

  My comment may be a bit off subject, but I felt I needed to respond to Mark’s comment above.

  First the “problem” is that America was never intended to be a democracy, it was to be a Republic system government and enterprise. Unfortunately, at the turn of the 20th century, around 1900 and the formation of the IIS progressive movement, our educational system, banking system, and political system was attacked. With the passage of giving banks the right to print money, then the 16th amendment to allow the federal government to tax income,, and probably the most damaging one the 17th amendment that moved all elected power to Washington and removed all balance of power from the congress… this allowed what was an ideal governmental setup by our founders to move to the bastardation of what we call America now… for anyone that thinks for one moment that we live under the constitution as it was written and respected for over a hundred years is sorely mistaken… As for the national debt and / or deficit…. Until we straighten out our constitution “we the people” simply do not have the power to do anything at all…. sorry to say… I would say Support your local governments are best you can and stock up on sustainable goods….

• geldpress Says:
  July 16th, 2010 at 1:21 pm

  Sorry Ken, but you are wrong, despite issuing one correct statement in your comments – “If your revenues match or exceed your expenses for the time period, you have “balanced” the budget…”

  Yes, during the Clinton era, he did have “revenue” that exceeded expenses. However, this is only because the government definition of “revenue” includes social security surplus’s. Remember, those surplus’s were only there due to a temporary condition in the nation’s demographics. Every corporation in America by law must maintain separate books for pension programs and for general operations. The US government will count the surplus (TEMPORARY!) in social security as if it were the same as general tax revenue.

  Also, I will remind you that even during Clinton’s era, the national debt did INCREASE every year. Look at the links I have provided and it will become clear to you. We separate our national debt into 2 components – debt held by the public and intragovernmental debt (theft from social security “trust” fund). It’s simply laughable that the debt held by the public goes down, and the intra-governmental debt goes up by a more than larger amount, and yet the media calls this a “surplus”.

• Robert Cooper-Spring Lake, NC Says:
  September 7th, 2010 at 6:35 pm

  I am grateful for your posting of this information. As a former CPA, I certainly should have been aware of these facts, and the ease of changing reality when reporting financial information, but had ceased looking at the details and took the word of people.

  Now that I can see the whole picture, I understand Al Gore’s concern to not spend the surplus.

  This will also influence my opinion on budget considerations by Congress and the President. It is time to quit living on a time bomb that will eventually explode in the future on our children or grandchildren.!

• M Colins Says:
  September 16th, 2010 at 9:11 am

  @Ken Stufflebeam, you appear to be missing the relationship between deficits and debt as well. If the debt rises from year to year (as it has now for dozens of years including during the Clinton years) then only two things could have happened and one of them is unlikely. If the national debt is not serviced (interest paid on outstanding debt) then the total owed to others goes up. This did not happen. If the US was not making interest payments to its bills, notes and bond holders then our credit rating would drop off the map and we would be no better than many smaller floundering nations. More than a third of the annual budget of the US goes to pay interest on the outstanding debt.

  The only other possibility we are left with is that we have spent more than we took in and had to finance the shortfall. (HINT: This is NOT a balanced budget by anyones definition)Further, the amount of that shortfall is always understated by both GOP and Dem administrations through the technique of adding back in the mythical Social Security Trust Fund even though it exists only as an IOU. The same folks who annually overspend, went into the SSTF years ago and looted it.

• Schedule Says:
  October 29th, 2010 at 9:54 pm

  Best you could change the blog subject The United States has not had a balanced budget since 1957! | Geldpress to something more generic for your blog post you write. I loved the the writing still.

• Senator-Elect Mike Lee Calls for Balanced Budget Amendment | Axis of Right Says:
  November 8th, 2010 at 5:55 pm

  [...] Some argue, persuasively, that even with the relative fiscal discipline of the late 1990s, there was no real budget surplus at all.  As for today, the fiscal disaster caused by the Pelosi Congress and Obama Administration is [...]

• Slotemaker Says:
  December 1st, 2010 at 4:45 am

  good post….please keep writing

• Steve Lindsey Says:
  January 6th, 2011 at 1:05 am

  I am 65 years old and have lived in hyper-inflation all of my life. My grandfather paid 5 cents for a lunch and 25 cents for a dinner in a nice restaurant. In my restaurants (1971-1985) the most expensive meal was $2.95 and a beer was 75 cents. When I was in college (1963-69) a gallon of gas was 21-25cents. I paid $125.00/mo. for room and 3 meals. A new car was $2,000.00. The government does not include food and fuel in their inflation figures; but what is not affected by food, water and fuel? Today with the national debt over 14 trillion and the debt increasing by 1.27 trillion in 2010 how will our children pay for that? Here is how: if you divide 14 trillion by 310 billion (approx. population of the U.S. in 2010) each living individual owes $44,000.00. How will our children ever pay that debt? The same way I have paid for the debt of the “Great Generation” : with inflated dollars. That debt paid for and won WWII, conquered polio, whooping cough, TB, built roads and bridges, put us on the moon, paid for the Martial Plan, educated and fed millions of people and on and on. I say we got our moneys’ worth and then some. My portion of the federal debt this year is a little over $4,000.00 (1.27 trillion divided by 310 billion people). Historically the highest marginal Federal tax rate was 91%. For years it was 77% and then our rich and greedy demanded that the rate be dropped to the 36% it stands at today. Since we won’t pay as we go paying our debts with inflated dollars is the only answer. The Chinese and others have loaned us trillions of dollars and we are paying them back with phony money. When you bought that new Toyota you got a tangible good and the Japanese got an electronic transfer. Pretty good Yankee trading if you ask me. The only way for them to re-coup value is to buy something back from us. Inflation is a hidden tax that is paid by every citizen. Just think that if we had inflation like Germany before WWII you could pay your mortgage off with inflated dollars. The American dollar is still king so stop being fearful.

• geldpress Says:
  January 6th, 2011 at 8:26 pm

  Inflation will only render the debt insignificant if we have a balanced budget, which we are far from.

• Steve Lindsey Says:
  January 6th, 2011 at 9:19 pm

  If we cut govt. spending and raised taxes then we could have a surplus; maybe pay Social Security benefits ahead. Of course when we cut spending lots of people would be put out of work and politicians would be fighting over the surplus.

• Doug Beaudoin Says:
  January 21st, 2011 at 8:13 am

  Marketman, What CNN reported was true. You are talking about National Debt carried over by previous Presidents vers. Government Annual Budgets. Your are also wrong about Eisenhower paying off the National debt as well as a annual budget, We have had a National Debt every year since the Revolutionary War when we financed our Independance and borrowed money from the French to fight the war. We have never had a “0″ national debt…. Doug

• Thomas A Brown Says:
  January 21st, 2011 at 4:09 pm

  The biggest threat to our country is not China or India…it’s US! Look at what we are doing…one party is doing everything so that the US President fails! These clowns think that we do not understand that failure of our president, is also the failure of US as a nation. I do not think we understand that based on who we voted for in the last election.

  Yes…we all talk about ‘cutting government spending’…easy talk. The question to answer is What are we willing to give up? What services? Policemen? Firefighters? National Security staff? Education? yes…cut someone else’s spending…don’t take anything from me! Now watch as the budget cutting party starts cutting services for those who do not have a voice and protect themselves and their anonymous fat cat donors. They already added to the deficit by giving these donors fat tax cuts! All the cuts are going to be coming on the backs of us lower middle class people, while the fat cats keep their money in foreign banks and foreign countries. All the best America!

• geldpress Says:
  January 27th, 2011 at 12:44 pm

  Give it another read, Doug. There is nothing wrong about the article. Our budget was balanced in 1957, but obviously, the debt was NOT paid off. There is a difference and the article does not claim otherwise.

• Mabery Says:
  January 31st, 2011 at 3:28 pm

  Hi, great stuff to read, keep up

• Thomas McMaster Says:
  February 3rd, 2011 at 8:37 pm

  This is a problem that must be addressed and must be cured NOW! I know a lot of people out there will not agree with me, but I’m sure that a lot will. There are two things responsible for this misleading of the American public and this spending money like a child, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. When you look at politicians and their action or inaction concerning the budget, deficit or national debt, ask yourself one question: Why did they do this or why are they doing nothing about this? I believe the answers to these questions are relatively simple. First, it benefited them personally in some way, they got something out of it for themselves. And second, it benefited their party, Democratic or Republican, in some way. I guarantee you that either the first answer I stated is true or the second, or both. The mess that we are in is not the Democrats fault, and it’s not the Republicans fault, it’s the Democrats and Republicans fault! And these two parties are just going to keep on piling up the deficit and national debt until we the people stop them. I truly believe that in order to stop them we have to either get rid of these two parties, which would probably almost be an impossibility, or we need to get a very strong man/woman in as President, like Eisenhower or Clint Eastwood(seriously), that won’t be pushed around by anybody. I was hoping that perhaps Barack Obama might be this man, but obviously he is not. I believe a better choice in the last election would have been Hilary Clinton. Unless we the people do something about this, and do it soon, the US dollar will someday be worth nothing. We need to get these idiots out of political office and kick the Democratic and Republican parties in the can so hard that they will NEVER forget it! If you don’t want to see this country fail, and you don’t want to see your children stuck with our mistakes, then do something soon. Write your congress person and senators today and demand the truth, demand that they do something positive about reducing the deficit and national debt, and tell them that you are not going to take their BS anymore!

• Bill Says:
  February 3rd, 2011 at 10:26 pm

  So what you’re saying Thomas is that we should support the President’s policies even if we don’t agree with them and believe that they will lead the country to ruin?

  Why is it that whenever liberals (which is what you sound like) critizise cutting the budget that they bring up Policeman and Firefighters that get the bulk of their budget from local government, not Federal?

  There are plenty of places to cut in the federal government that have nothing to do with “services” to our citizens. Department of Education would be a start. Education is already taken care of on the local level and creation of this huge federal boondoggle hasn’t improved education in this country. This is obvious as we continue to slide when compared to other countries.

  Foreign aid, and not just the money that we give a country directly, but our meddling in the affairs of other countries by sending our military all over the world engaging in “nation-building” and promoting “democracy” to people who aren’t ready for it. There is a tremendous amount of waste going on in the Department of Defense. Bring the troops home. Let them protect our own borders and let other countries take care of themselves.

  How about DEA. What a mess that is. Spend billions of dollars fighting “The War on Drugs”. Talk about hypocritical. Some drugs are legal and others aren’t just because the government needed a way to keep people employed when prohibition didn’t work out. Give me a break! If a person wants to get high what difference does it make if it’s alchohol or some other drug. Isn’t it their body and their choice? Portugal de-criminalized drugs years ago and drug use did not explode. It remained virtually unchanged. We should take a lesson from them and get a clue! Abuse of drugs (that are currently illicit) should be handled the same as abuse of alchohol. Through medical treatment. The legal system shouldn’t get involved other than when that use or abuse endangers others (as is the case now in drunk driving as an example).

  The government should quit trying to be all things to all people. We can’t afford a “nanny state” and many of us do now want it! Keep going down this path and the government will go bankrupt and will crumble along with most of the country! I’ve given only a FEW examples. They need to start cutting NOW!

• Bill Says:
  February 5th, 2011 at 1:43 am

  Thomas Brown, not Thomas McMaster. Thomas McMaster I agree with most of what you are saying, except about Hillary Clinton, although she would have been a better choice than Barrack Obama, not by much. I didn’t think much about John McCain either. My own beliefs more closely mirror Ron Paul although I think that a lot of what he wants to do is not politically feasible right now. You’re on the right track though. Throw ALL the bums out and start fresh! Term limits and no retirement benefits for serving in Congress! Those people have lost touch with reality! Let them struggle like the rest of us!

• Mark Sanborn Says:
  February 5th, 2011 at 7:22 am

  Thomas McMaster and Bill…you both seem to have a grasp that our budget problem, along with most of our countries other problems, originate in the political arena. However, it’s not the individual candidates that are the problem. They are interchangeable without significant difference. The problem is the “Parties” themselves…and those that pull the strings of the individual politicians. We see our politicians and either like or dislike them and what they espouse. But they are controlled by the unseen individuals (behind closed doors)that control the direction of the nation. They are controlled by the ever powerful campaign financing. What you hear in pliticians “promises” is nothing more than political rhetoric used until they get elected…and noone gets electd without it! It controls them. The more money spent on a candidates election campaign, the higher probability of election. It’s a well known fact, not opinion. They either “play ball” with the Parties dictates or they don’t get campaign financing. And, those providing the campaign financing set the course for the parties. Look at Nancy Pelosi. She was the Democrats front man to the money. She had control of all the candidates money.

  Our political system (how politicians get elected) is the first, and most important thing that needs to change before you’ll see any significant change of direction in America. The ever important money (campaign financing) must be taken out of the equasion of electing politicians if we want real change. If you’re interested in more of this subject visit my website for more on the subject: partyfreevoting.org

• Bill Says:
  February 6th, 2011 at 1:30 am

  I agree Mark. Money has a lot to do with it. Sometimes the candidate that spends the most money doesn’t win (Meg Whitman in California comes to mind) but without major backing (or being independently wealthy again Meg Whitmans comes to mind) many candidates who would be a better choice than the people actually getting elected will never make it into office.

  Both parties have screwed us, that’s a fact. Some elections were likely decided when the National Party refused to support the candidate chosen by the people in their own state. Walk the party line or get left out in the cold seemed to be the message there.

  The amount of money being spent on election campaigns is ridiculous. In addition to that though is the real travesty. The number of people who decide to vote based on political ads and not educating themselves on the issues!

  Yes, I would agree in addition to term limits and removal of retirement benefits and other perks (the founding fathers did not envision a professional politician class) campaign finance reform would be a good thing. I’ll check out your site. Thanks

• Bill Says:
  February 6th, 2011 at 2:02 am

  Took a look at your website Mark. You have a lot of great ideas. Thanks for sharing.

• M Colins Says:
  February 6th, 2011 at 3:26 pm

  All this talk puts me in mind of the continuing public fights between parties about who is smart and who is dumb as though that is important. Remember all that geniuses have put us in this mess.

• Zeph Says:
  February 8th, 2011 at 9:31 pm

  Get the big money out of politics first. Even many politicians would like that, so long as it was across the board – spending more time fund raising and dealing with donors wanting “access” than governing is not something that everyone seeking office wants either. It’s not really easy to do that though. Politically, in the US we would probably need a constitutional amendment, as the Supreme Court now considers political money as “free speech” – and not only for flesh and blood citizens.

  Term limits have been a mixed bag, unfortunately, rather than a clear win; these have been enacted in enough places to allow some comparison with locations where they have not, and deserve some objective evaluation to see if the plusses outweigh the negatives.

  As for not giving politicians any retirement – while that appeals on some level, you can be very sure they WILL have a retirement fund, it’s just a matter of what they do for whom to earn it. While providing a comfortable retirement doesn’t prevent buy-offs, at least it doesn’t make politicians fully dependent on well cultivated special interests to “take care of them” after leaving office.

  Ask yourself – if YOU wanted to honestly serve your community for a number of years and forgo building your own retirement meanwhile, would you want to have to make special scratch-your-back you-scratch-mine deals while in office to provide for yourself afterwards, or would you rather be able to retire without that?

  On the other hand, maybe they should have to use the same medical system they provide for others – and pay the same taxes to support it – so as not to be too isolated from the masses. Government of by and for the people means not being so isolated that your interests are disconnected from the people.

• Zeph Says:
  February 8th, 2011 at 9:39 pm

  Thomas McMaster – Jim Hightower responds to suggestions of a third party by noting that we don’t need a third party yet, we just need a Second party; what we have now is two branches of the Money party.

  This is true on some level, with shared responsibility for our financial problems. The parties do cater to different “values voters” on the social front, but neither deviates very far from the big funding sources. And no, that doesn’t mean just unions and church groups – the large financiers have a lot of power in both parties and not rarely contribute to both sides to gain influence either way.

• Zeph Says:
  February 8th, 2011 at 9:53 pm

  Bill: “So what you’re saying Thomas is that we should support the President’s policies even if we don’t agree with them and believe that they will lead the country to ruin?”

  I cannot speak for Bill, but I believe it’s possible to advocate for different policies when appropriate, but not to demean the presidency nor seek to undermine the country’s health to cause dissatisfaction.

  An example. Improving the economy is likely to help the sitting president’s re-election chances – so it could be in the narrow interests of the party out of power to keep the economy in the doldrums until the election, but not in the national interest. This could apply to either party, by the way.

  Remember the concept of the loyal opposition?

• Zeph Says:
  February 8th, 2011 at 10:10 pm

  Troy: “First the “problem” is that America was never intended to be a democracy, it was to be a Republic system government and enterprise.”

  Troy, this is an rubber stamp clone of a very common meme which doesn’t have much substance upon examination. If you look back at how the founders used the word, they intended a “republic” to be a “representative constitutional democracy”, which is pretty much what all state/province or national level democracies around the world practice (a few new england towns have “direct democracy” instead). There are a few partial exceptions in western US states for citizen initiatives (beloved of the non-mainstream), which might have seemed radical to the founders; are you against those? So you are making a meaningless distinction politically and semantically, between “democracy” and “republic”.

  And you won’t find “enterprise” in the constitution, much less in conjunction with “Republic”. You might want to do more checking of original sources and be careful to check what political advocates tell you.

• Mark Sanborn Says:
  February 26th, 2011 at 7:52 am

  Zeph: I like what you have to say and the clarity in which you say it. I agree with all your points.

  Bill: Thanks for the valued comments.

  All: It should be noted that when we talk about our Founding Fathers “intent” to be a Republic, that we understand that there were no options available to them for a true democracy. Our Fore Fathers couldn’t leave their farms unattended for months while they trekked over hills and mountains to Albany, just so they could vote. They instead opted to pick a trusted friend from their community to represent the entire communities’ interests. Their intent was to provide a government that was “as close as possible” to being a true democracy. Thus, they chose to the only form of government that enabled Democratic principals: a Republic.

  Much has changed since then. They (our Fore Fathers)couldn’t even concieve of the technology that we have at our fingertips today. This was a time when Ben Franklin was experimenting with a kite and a key to prove the existence of electricity. The internet, cell phones, jet airlines, and so forth, coulndn’t even be imagined by them. I ask you, if they did have all these things at therir disposal, might they have done things differently when designing our nations form of government? These were brilliant and principled men. Would they have ignored all this technology and kept our governments format as it is now? Think about this…why did they include a process to “amend” the constitution, if they didn’t see the need to allow it to evolve?

  We have the technology in our hands to build the first True Democracy, while retaining all the honored principles contained within our Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Maybe it’s time to take the blinders off and do some experimenting of our own!

• rendell Says:
  April 14th, 2011 at 2:05 pm

  God bless you,you know not what you are talking about

• Craig Says:
  April 14th, 2011 at 7:04 pm

  Tax revenue of 2 Trillion, and a budget of 3.5 Trillion….these are the only numbers we need to be concerned with….

  How do we fix these numbers?
  Mandatory spending: $2.009 trillion (-20.1%)
  $695 billion (+4.9%) – Social Security
  $571 billion (−15.2%) – Other mandatory programs
  $453 billion (+6.6%) – Medicare
  $290 billion (+12.0%) – Medicaid
  $164 billion (+18.0%) – Interest on National Debt
  $11 billion (+275%) – Potential disaster costs

  US receipt and expenditure estimates for fiscal year 2010.Discretionary spending: $1.368 trillion (+13.1%)
  $663.7 billion (+12.7%) – Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
  $78.7 billion (−1.7%) – Department of Health and Human Services
  $72.5 billion (+2.8%) – Department of Transportation
  $52.5 billion (+10.3%) – Department of Veterans Affairs
  $51.7 billion (+40.9%) – Department of State and Other International Programs
  $47.5 billion (+18.5%) – Department of Housing and Urban Development
  $46.7 billion (+12.8%) – Department of Education
  $42.7 billion (+1.2%) – Department of Homeland Security
  $26.3 billion (−0.4%) – Department of Energy
  $26.0 billion (+8.8%) – Department of Agriculture
  $23.9 billion (−6.3%) – Department of Justice
  $18.7 billion (+5.1%) – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  $13.8 billion (+48.4%) – Department of Commerce
  $13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of Labor
  $13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of the Treasury
  $12.0 billion (+6.2%) – Department of the Interior
  $10.5 billion (+34.6%) – Environmental Protection Agency
  $9.7 billion (+10.2%) – Social Security Administration
  $7.0 billion (+1.4%) – National Science Foundation
  $5.1 billion (−3.8%) – Corps of Engineers
  $5.0 billion (+100%) – National Infrastructure Bank
  $1.1 billion (+22.2%) – Corporation for National and Community Service
  $0.7 billion (0.0%) – Small Business Administration
  $0.6 billion (−14.3%) – General Services Administration
  $19.8 billion (+3.7%) – Other Agencies
  $105 billion – Other

  Right now Mandatory spending (all our social programs, welfare, unemployment, SS, Medicare/caid, etc…etc..etc..) takes up ALL of our current revenue (that from both taxes, outlays from other countries etc…) The answer is pretty drastic…either we significantly increase taxes across the board (which no one in power has the will to do politically), or we SIGNIFICANTLY reduce spending, both Mandatory AND Discretionary (Which no one in power has the will to do politically). Or we do a high MODERATE on both fronts (Which no one in power has the will to do politically).

  So it’s a catch 22 for these people. And that’s how it is suppose to be. The Federal methodology of government has trickled down to states and even to the local levels at this stage of our existence. Even City Councils are wrought with corruption, number shifting, and career fostering to the higher more lucrative government positions.

  It is no wonder we are in the situation we are in, our politicians start off and grow up in this crappy method of running things. And since we don’t really have the power to elect anyone we aren’t “allowed” to elect (who gets to decide who are on the voting tickets, if you think the people choose you are crazy!) the system is massively flawed. The way our system currently works you would need the right people to be in office for 15-20 years and have a dedicated approach to reducing debt and operating at a budget surplus (not balance, SURPLUS) EVERY single year. This will never happen.

• Ron Says:
  April 22nd, 2011 at 8:03 am

  Very interesting but we digress.

  The US Debt and US gov’t deficit are two different animals.

  The US Debt is the aggregate of what the US owes.

  Deficit, as stated here, is as it relates to the US gov’t annual budget. The annual budget is the gov’t operating budget for that fiscal year, which includes a manadory allotment to the US debt. It is calculated as the amount of money the gov’t takes in vs. the amount that goes out over one fiscal year. That number, though it has been historically a negative number, can be zero or a positive number. When it is a negative number it adds to the debt. When it is a positive number, it doesn’t necessarily reduce the debt but can be refered to as a budget “surplus” for that year. If it comes in at zero it can be claimed as a “balanced” budget for that year.

  In any event it is still separate from the deficit (again that is not to say it doesn’t or can’t affect the debt).

  I agree with your definition of what the US debt really consistes of, however, to convolute the issue by mixing deficit with debt really does the reader a disservice. What we really need to do right now is look forward, because thus far looking back has done nothing to improve the plight of our children.

• Mario Says:
  April 27th, 2011 at 4:49 am

  I have a question. Is it possible for All the countries together, to have a budget surplus ?
  Thank you.

• geldpress Says:
  May 2nd, 2011 at 12:42 pm

  Budget surpluses are of course possible but they are very rare. Even oil rich countries who should have a very easy time to produce balanced budgets do not do so. Instead, they continue down reckless paths of deficit spending.

  I do not know of one single and accurate site that portrays ACCURATE world information on individual countries budgets. nationmaster.com has some information but it is very misleading, out of date, and often inaccurate.

• geldpress Says:
  May 2nd, 2011 at 12:45 pm

  Lets agree to disagree, Ron.

  I believe the disservice is from the main stream media when they report grossly understated annual deficit numbers. You believe the main stream media is reporting true deficit numbers.

• M Colins Says:
  May 2nd, 2011 at 12:55 pm

  The debt rises from year to year because the nation needs to borrow to cover its expenditures that exceed the amount of revenue it brings in, because the budget is NOT balanced. There is no other conceivable reason the debt would rise as interest on that debt is paid faithfully ot the holders of it.

  Ron does not provide an explanation then why the nation borrowed when we apparently had more revenue than was necessary to cover the expenditures.

• Mark Sanborn Says:
  May 3rd, 2011 at 8:01 am

  I applaud Craig for his comment dated 4/14/11.

  I applaud Craig for his comment dated 4/14/11: “…Tax revenue of 2 Trillion, and a budget of 3.5 Trillion….these are the only numbers we need to be concerned with….”

  It’s also nice to see that there is actually some agreement by opposing sides (Craig and Ron) regarding what the deficit consists of (see Craig’s entry dated 4/14/11 and Ron’s agreement with his figures posted, dated 4/22/11). This is immensely encouraging.

• sabian symbols Says:
  June 9th, 2011 at 12:21 pm

  Can I simply say what a relief to find someone who truly knows what they’re talking about on the internet.

• CalifGina Says:
  June 29th, 2011 at 9:40 am

  I don’t think it is fair or accurate to call the Clinton surplus a myth. There was a surplus for the years 98-2000 and even for W in 2001. However, definitely caveat that with the fact that the surplus wasn’t used to pay off the national debt and was therefore spent irresponsibly. No surplus + national debt decrease since Ike!

  Not to minimize this crisis, but it is interesting that inflation isn’t used as factor to compare our debt historically. Really the deficit of the early 90s is comparable to what we saw in the early 2000s which is extraordinary and not too bad considering it is an era of war time spending.

• Dear elvis, look how Obama has spent all our money! | Whatever Works Says:
  July 22nd, 2011 at 1:53 pm

  [...] post, kitchenmudge asked if this nation ever had a balanced budget. I don’t know, but this post says the last time we did it was 1957.  He has some nice clean tables there. In this one, note that [...]

• Dear elvis, look how Obama has spent all our money!….Whatever Works…. - Politicaldog101.Com Says:
  July 23rd, 2011 at 11:23 am

  [...] earlier post, kitchenmudge asked if this nation ever had a balanced budget. I don’t know, but this post says the last time we did it was 1957.  He has some nice clean tables there. In this one, note that [...]

• Raging Boehner: Bullies GOP to back debt plan - US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum Says:
  July 28th, 2011 at 11:38 pm

  [...] Quote: Originally Posted by whitehall Is there something inherent in the liberal gene that they refuse to recognize evidence that is presented to them? We owe China more than we can pay them in the near future and democrats think Obama should keep spending our grand kids fortune while the debt mounts up. Umm, you need to do some research. Obama was handed a huge deficit when he took office. The US technically hasn't had a balanced budget since 1957. The recession is lingering. Have republicans put anything on the table other than cuts? and no revenues? Can a country wage 2 wars and not take in additional revenues to pay for it? No revenues means no job creation in the past 10 years too. Tax cuts were supposed to be the incentive for corporations to create jobs, and has it? No. Instead, corporations moved jobs overseas, put Americans out of work, no new revenues coming in. Are you sure you want to blame this entirely upon Obama and democrats? The United States has not had a balanced budget since 1957! | Geldpress [...]

• Al Says:
  July 29th, 2011 at 9:50 am

  Why no numbers in the chart for 1980 to 1988?

• Mike Says:
  July 30th, 2011 at 12:26 pm

  Mark S, et al;

  Looking at this again, I am sorry it sort of rambles. Just on a roll.

  You note correctly that the founding fathers could not conceive of the technology that we have today. That has nothing to do with the reason for the founding principles of the republic. The reason for the formation of the republic are spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. It was tyranny and the confiscation of private property and wealth that people had worked hard to aquire. (it was about the money then too) That was the catalyst for the revolution. These were deemed to infringe on the “unalienable” rights granted by a creator. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

  What the founding fathers did seem to understand was that government needed to be limited and also have checks and balances to prevent the accumulation of power in the hands of a few. That prevents the tyranny.

  The confiscation of wealth only benefitted the King and his court so they could hold more power. In the socialist and communist view, the wealth should be confiscated and redistributed to others including (or especially)to those in power. This does not work either as history has indicated.

  Another key component is the trust that was placed in those that did the representing. Unfortunatly the basic nature of man has not and will not change. Dangle the forbidden fruit in front of them and they will take a bite. Greed, Lust, Envy, Hate, etc. are all on display and in full play. That is what makes this republic such a grand experiment in the history of man. That man (or woman) would do the “right” thing. What is the “right” thing is really the question. There is the hope that collectively this would occur as a result of putting all of the representatives together but limiting the one group of people with the ability of another group to say no. And then there is the final group that is supposed to mediate between the two should one group run rough shod over the other. Hence, three branches of government.

  It was a well thought out and debated system that addressed the basic nature of man and how to allow the best of man to prevail. It is just what I said it is…an experiment.

  I do not blame the president for the current problems and I don’t blame the last one either. Who I do blame are the ones that have been in congress for decades. They are the ones who have acted with total irresponsibility. They are people like McCain, Kerry, Reid, Bidden, Pelosy, Boxer, Feinstien, Kohl, Rangel, Hatch, Bohner and so on. (sorry for any misspellings) The corruption is on the scale of astounding and unbelievable. They have not protected my rights as a citizen of this country, they have sold them out to the highest bidder.

  Where is my right to privacy? If it is intact then why do I have to OPT OUT of the giving away of information. It should be a given that my information is protected and the companies should have to beg me to OPT IN. Our politicians (Dems and Reps) have sold them out to the highest bidder. In fact, the new laws passed by the dems say that I do not even have the right to OPT OUT. If I provided it then they can splash it around all they want. Stated another way…if you want to keep your right to privacy then don’t provide us the information. Now how am I supposed to do business when my bank has the RIGHT to spread my info to all of its affiliates, partners, siginificant providers and any other group they deem should have it? Why am I stripping at the airports if my right to privacy is protected? What you say? Don’t fly? My job requires I travel on airplanes to save the time it would take to drive. On a side note, why do the people that actually control where the airplane goes get to walk through security with little or no screening when I am essentially strip searched (scanners) and I have no control over where the planes go? Would it not make sense to strip search the pilots and attendants and do a modest screening of the pasengers?

  The list of my rights that have been sold to the highest bidder is a long as the bill of rights.

  They have spent this country into the poor house. They have robbed the social security trust that was in their care. I remember clearly the debate with Kerry and Bush. The question was “what are you going to do with social security?”. Bush mentioned allowing part of it to be controlled by the individual and Kerry said he would leave it as it is. Bush got attacked by any one with a media outlet and Kerry was left completely alone. They both should have been taken to task. What one of them should have said was they would stop the raiding of the fund so it will be there for the next several generations. That seems completely out of the question for some reason.

  It is not a debate about numbers anymore. The numbers speak for themselves. It is a debate about principles. Is it right to confiscate 70% of every dollar earned by an individual? That was the top rate when Carter was in office. (Carter represents a time period and I am not assigning 70% to him. That was what congress had in place) I do not think there is anything right or balanced about this level of confiscation of what is supposed to be private property.

  The dems were put back in power during the last two years of Bush to stop the war. They did absolutely nothing for two years except spend and blame Bush. When they got the white house also they really ramped up the spending. As I said, they (and all of the older repubs) are to be blamed for the current mess.

  The tea party is in there because people want the maddness to stop. There is a shread of hope that they will stop the spending and stop the war. It will not stop.

  It will only slow when we throw out ALL of the lobbyists. It will slow when we FORBID any memeber of congress from being paid (standard pay is 100,000 per speach) for 5 years for making speaches after spending time in congress. It will slow if we prevent anyone in power (elected or appointed) from being paid for writting books very few people will read. Should fall in the same catagory as the speeches. 5 years and no money. Cannot be paid in five years. No money period. That is one of most blatant method of payment for the favors they provide for the rich and foreign governments. How can you explain a 10 million advance for a book that lasts about 1 month on the charts if that. You can write the book or make the speech, you just won’t get any money for it, ever.

  It will slow when we DEMAND that our armies come home and quit this insane idea that by occupying countries and propping up bogus leaders with billions of dollars we will somehow “correct” their view of America.

  Who thinks that bombing a known former terrorist with tons of money, like the Libyan leader, is not going to cause him to renounce his renouncment of terrorism? He will plow as much money as possible into the terror orgs for the purpose of payback. No country will be off limits. Any of the NATO countries will be fair game. What kind of foolishness is this. “We could not stand by and watch them slaughter the freedom fighters” Well, we sure stood by and watched the Chinese Government run over students with tanks right in front of the world. The students (freedom fighters) did not even have guns, rockets, mortars, automatic weapons…you get the picture. Ever wonder why we stood by then but not now? I sure do.

  Leave the other countries alone unless they screw with us. Warn them once, maybe twice. The third time, make them regret they did not listen the first two times. The “correct” view of America should be “Don’t Attack Her Unless You Want Your Ass Kicked.”

  The founding principles of the republic was to attempt to allow the individual to be responsible for the success or failure of endevors they undertook. Personal responsibility without government telling us what are right and wrong morals, what food we can eat, what we can smoke, what words we can use, and so on. It is a completely corrupted government that must be replaced.

  There are one of two outcomes in all of this, the failure of the grand experiment or another revolution. Oh wait, there is a third one. Get back to the founding principles of personal responsibility and keep the experiment working. That is where I will cast my vote.

• geldpress Says:
  August 2nd, 2011 at 6:22 pm

  Just click on the referenced links and you can see all the details you need.

• geldpress Says:
  August 2nd, 2011 at 6:29 pm

  Sorry CalifGina, but you are wrong. Check the tables. The debt INCREASED every year during Clinton’s and Bush’s era. But I will say that your logic is unfortunately the same logic of 95% or more of congress, which is exactly why we are in the mess we are in.

• Mark Sanborn Says:
  August 4th, 2011 at 6:56 pm

  Mike, your 4th paragraph (“Another key component is the trust…) tells me we are on the same page, as are many of you. It states the essence of the point I was making (well done). Putting trust for our own beliefs in anyone else is, at best, a risky proposition. Whenever an individual gives proxy to another individual to vote his conscience (as in the case of a representative government…such as ours) that trust will inevitably be compromised because…
  1. No two people have identical views on every issue…let alone the thousands of other voters that he also represents. It is always a case of choosing the “lesser of two evils”
  2. Even in the rare case where the elected representative has impeccable integrity, he will at some point vote for something that you are dead set against.
  3. No politician at any level will be allowed to vote his heart on all issues, unless it is mirrors the direction his party. His very existence in the political arena is tied to his allegiance to the agenda of whatever party’s he belongs to…regardless of if it is what is in the best interest of the people.

  Restated, my point was…if our Forefathers had the technology we have at our fingertips today, might they have opted to do things differently? Especially if they were to witness how their intent for a Democratic form of government has evolved into what it is today. Would they possibly have chosen a different means to attain the elusive dream of Democracy? For instance…using our technology to allow individual citizens to vote on the individual issues themselves (Self-Representation). Each and every citizen could be given the ability to vote on any issue they wished to be heard on. We have the technology to make this a reality. We have the means to do away with the “lesser of two evils” concept of government; to allow every man the right to vote their own hearts’ desire instead of some convoluted bastardized version of it.

  I know that upon first hearing this, it might sound “Anti-American”. But is it? I think not…I think just the opposite. I think it is the most American thing we could possibly do. To allow every citizen to vote his own conscience is, in principle, what our representative government was intended to tryto accomplish.

  But has it? We often hear the excuse “…Yeah, but it’s the best there is”. This is nothing more than a cop out for being too complacent to do something about it. It doesn’t have to remain this way. Is our current political system representing you? Think about it…who are our representatives really representing? America can be better…a lot better…and I think our Forefathers would have been wise enough to recognize the potential that we have to make it better.
  The “Party” system of government is the cause for virtually every problem our nation is faced with today. Take each and every issue and ask yourself: “If politics weren’t involved, could this problem be resolved? We keep fighting “tooth and nail” to fix each individual problem one at a time (like the deficit) when instead, we really should be removing what’s at the stem of all of our problems…the Party System.

  Parties are nothing more than extremely large gangs that have taken control of our nation right in front of our eyes. Parties are not about you and I. They’re not about the citizens of this nation. Parties are about the party. They wage “turf wars” at your expense. They sell favors (government contracts) and make you pay for them. They force you to pay tax after tax all so they can play the game. All a big time businessman needs to do is contribute to either Parties’ campaign funds and the contracts fall into their pockets…again at your expense.

  What we have here isn’t Democracy. It isn’t even a Republic. It’s a theatrical play and we all have the role of the dupe. The Parties orchestrate the game and pull your strings to rile you up with individual issues when all along, they’re laughing at us behind closed doors because we’re so easy to manipulate. All they have to do is point their finger in the air and bad-mouth the other party for all your woes and we yell “We’re with ya Joe”…it’s simple, but effective. We follow them like sheep and nothing ever gets solved. To quote a friend: “When all is said and done…there’s hell of a lot more said than done.”

  Face it folks…the politicians are right. We are easy. We are sheep. We get cornered, corralled and sheared. It’s our role in their game. But I’m getting a little tired of it, aren’t you?

• Merged Credit downgrade threads - Page 41 - US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum Says:
  August 8th, 2011 at 2:15 pm

  [...] Quote: Originally Posted by LibocalypseNow It's pretty clear there has to be a massive landslide decimation of the Democratic Party in 2012. They need to be completely swept from power. Maybe then we can get a Balanced Budget Amendment. Because that's just not gonna happen as long as the Democrats are in power. They have to go. Hopefully this will happen in 2012. Hmmmm, no balanced budget since 1957, debt limit increases many times over and over, and now, suddenly conservative? what a switch. The United States has not had a balanced budget since 1957! | Geldpress [...]

• Wilson Says:
  August 31st, 2011 at 2:32 pm

  Don’t you people know that cutting taxes balances the budget? Look at the Bush tax cuts. Look at the great economy he left us. What we need to do is cut taxes further and cut all government jobs- or even just ten million. The 3.8 million cut since Jan 2011 just aren’t enough to save the economy. We will need nearly full government unemployment to balance the budget. It’s well known tax cuts will make everything better under every circumstance. Liberals want to advance their agenda by raising taxes for ‘jobs’. Everyone knows the Government doesn’t create jobs- aside from military, police and prisons. Look at the stimulus Obama pushed on us. The jobs created by it were quickly lost in 2011 in a patriotic attempt to discredit the stimulus and balance the budget for the first time in a decade. Thank God Republicans are talking about balancing the budget now. They didn’t need to balance the budget when Bush was President because he didn’t create any debt- it was the war and Liberals that did it. Bush cut taxes and that kept the budget balanced until Obama ruined the economy.

• geldpress Says:
  September 7th, 2011 at 5:11 pm

  Wilson, you should write for CNN. You would fit right in with those clowns who have no concept of government finance or economics.

  Go check the source. The national debt has increased EVERY YEAR since 1957. Last I checked, Clinton, Bush, and Obama were all part of the clown squad between 1957-2011.

• United States National Debt Limit | Geldpress Says:
  September 7th, 2011 at 5:26 pm

  [...] The United States last balanced budget was in 1957 [...]

• M Colins Says:
  September 7th, 2011 at 10:44 pm

  Wilson appears to be one of that species of Democrat who likes to believe that all problems started with George W Bush, and somehow misses the fact that the guy who supposedly was going to fix Bushes “failure” has instead increased it by orders of magnitude.

  At the same time he implies that Bush was a profligate spender (he was) as though the Left was fighting him on this when the fact is that the Democrats were his willing partner in every spending initiative, disliking them only in that they felt they didn’t spend near enough.

  Now we are told by the Keynesians that governmental spending is good and necessary…..but the same thing was somehow bad during Bush.

  The only logically consistent position one can take is that if Bushes spending was bad then the proper course for Obama would have been to slow or reduce it. Somehow the Democrats would have us believe that the fix for bad fiscal policy is to repeat it on an even larger scale.

• Mark Says:
  September 8th, 2011 at 5:11 am

  Well said guys (Geldpress/M. Colins) You hit it on the head. Nuff said about that one.

• The Return of Mercantilism « The Angry Sovereign Says:
  October 1st, 2011 at 8:52 am

  [...] Keynesianism creates another problem. According to Keynes, governments should run deficits during a recession, and run a surplus during times of high inflation. However, Keynes never mentioned stagflation or a solution for it. Could it be that stagflation is the end result for economies that adhere to Keynesianism? At any rate, the United States has not had a balanced budget since 1957. [...]

• Daily Ball: Cheapest Cell Plan, Porn Ruins Real Sex, more (links) | Be on the ball Says:
  October 21st, 2011 at 10:07 am

  [...] The last time the budget was balanced was in 1957.  The President was Eisenhower.  The United States has not had a balanced budget since 1957! | Geldpress [...]

• guy hubbard Says:
  November 13th, 2011 at 8:15 am

  the answers are simple – have direct plebiscites on issues such as Afghanistan and tax rates, and have mandatory surpluses whenever unemployment drops below 6%. Oh, and put an extra dollar of tax on every gallon of petrol. That will help reduce both trade and budget deficits.

• Henry Molleker Says:
  November 26th, 2011 at 4:21 am

  While inflation is bad terrible in fact, stagnant close minded economic thought repeated by rote is worse.The same people who have engaged in a class war, bordering on genocide, on the working and middle class resulting in falling real wages for the last three decades are concerned about the working and middle class savings being diluted.This ignores the disastrous economic policies, which this Web site to its credit often details, that have led the working and middle not to have savings but higher credit limits. There is a reason the national saving rate from the 1970s crashed from the low teens to negative or close to zero since then.Instead of bailing out the incompetent rich and powerful in 2008, if we had used monetary instead of fiscal policy to enforce accountability the country would be on the road to a real recovery instead of a slow repeat of the fall of the Spanish and Ottoman empires.The financial services industry should have had to come clean that for the last 30 years, since deregulation, it has been engaged in criminal fraud and not living up to its fiduciary duty. The financial services industry should have been forced to write off the trillions of junk options and other junk paper that it has been generating for the last few decades.Let the losses speak for themselves on the replacement of capitalism with casino corporatism for the American and Western economic model that Wall Street had engineered since deregulation.Once Wall Street had to come clean on the trillions of losses it had incurred so as to maximize bonuses the Wall Streeters, the Fed would provide the equivalent in trillions in equity capital in losses that had just been generated.This would lead to no inflation as there is no increase in the money supply. The trillions that the Fed provided would just be a replacement for the trillions that had been written off as losses.The financial services industry would be full funded and strengthened as it would now be completely funded, have all the bad paper off its books, and be forced to be accountable to explain the trillions in losses the whiz kid and sharks of Wall Street had incurred upon their firms which lead Wall Street to act properly again. Win Win Win. Except for the incompetent and amoral former elites and the wealthy and powerful power brokers that were formerly richly rewarded for playing with paper and swishing money around.And the shareholders of the financial firms would be made poorer. But that is as it should be under capitalism. If you let incompetent people run unrestrained in running your companies, then you should suffer the consequences so as not to do so again.This model would also solve the European debt crisis. For some reason short sighted policy makers want to solve a monetary problem with a fiscal solution. Even if their fiscal solutions will sink every economy in Europe.Lastly about economic and monetary policy, why is raising interest rates considered to be the main policy option. Countless economic studies have shown a 1% increase in interest rates leads to an ¼ to 1/3 increase in inflation. Since capital is the most fundamental input in capitalism, making capital more expensive would make inflation worse not better.Yet in spite of all the studies that say otherwise, our economic decision makers still spout the same line and use the same failed policies.Lastly, the trauma of the civil war to be reinacted because of a 5% rate is ridiculous.Of greater concern is that real inflation rate since the 1980s is much higher that officially reported due to changes in method used to calculate economic growth, employment, and inflation.Using pre mid 1980s methods to calculate inflation whould show that the accumulated inflation rate since then to now thas been understated by 80%

• Obama will ask for ANOTHER $1.2 TRILLION Debt Ceiling Hike - Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Conservatives, Liberals, Third Parties, Left-Wing, Right-Wing, Congress, President - Page 19 - City-Data Forum Says:
  December 29th, 2011 at 12:31 pm

  [...] back when you've completed 5th grade History. No bob, I said it now YOU prove me wrong…. http://www.geldpress.com/2008/07/us-…ing-deception/ Last edited by chucksnee; Today at 01:10 [...]

• Get out Obama!!! - Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Conservatives, Liberals, Third Parties, Left-Wing, Right-Wing, Congress, President - Page 17 - City-Data Forum Says:
  December 31st, 2011 at 7:44 am

  [...] government….like it or not, 1957 was the last time we had NO deficit….clinton…yea right…. The United States has not had a balanced budget since 1957! | Geldpress Oh, and Bush made the ENTIRE 10T deficit by his self? Really, you sure about that? So all the [...]

• President Romney - Page 10 - R/C Tech Forums Says:
  February 2nd, 2012 at 11:37 pm

  [...] be a clinton proposed budget. you should stop being too lazy to post your facts. from your goons http://www.geldpress.com/2008/07/us-…ing-deception/ __________________ You cant make this stuff up!!! Losi Novarossi / Tekin/ Hitec/ Airtronics/ [...]

• Think diferently Says:
  February 7th, 2012 at 6:32 am

  Well, I have read all of the above, and I have also been paying a lot of attention to the issues. I believe both parties are to blame, so I agree with some of you. We have two parties that are made up of lawyers. They throw everything into the court systems and then use time as a weapon. If they settled issues quickly, there would be less in it for themselves. So drag on……..here we go. But keep in mind, they need a guarantee for the money, a continuous income…..the American people. Call it the 99 and 1 percent. They really don’t care how they play this game. They really don’t care who they blame. As long as they are stalling, it is working for them. Just an old lawyers trick being used at the highest level. Laws, taxes etc……..all will be put in place on the backs of the American people no matter what……and that’s a guarantee. Arguing about each issue will do nothing, as well as blaming one side over the other. We live in a country satiated with lawyers. They run and operate everything that will affect all of us. They know what they are doing”……..and fooling most of us.

• Think differently Says:
  February 7th, 2012 at 2:05 pm

  I meant to say “saturated” with lawyers………..And one more point. We are not on the worst roller coaster ride, we are on the worst and longest teeter totter ride ever……..back and forth……back and forth……4-8 years one way, 4-8 years the other way……..it’s been going on for years……..I know we have intelligent people in this country, and maybe a few are in Washington, but whenever money is involved, they all act quite the opposite………or maybe they actually don’t……hhhhhmmmm. Most people think race and religion are what devides us, but power and money. ( especially together) are a bigger evil……..once you have one or the other (or both) you don’t want to give it up, so as I said……..we have two parties…….two evil sides …..power and money hungry sides……they will tell you anything to get in there and to stay in there……hhhhhmmmm

• Think differently Says:
  February 7th, 2012 at 2:45 pm

  I have read all of the above comments and have been paying close attention to all the issues. I am thinking differently and yet I agree with those that have stated that both parties are to blame. We have two parties of lawyers. They have drummed up many laws in our lives and yes we need some of them. But I think both sides keep trying to out do the other. They throw things into the court system where time becomes a factor for which they benefit. Stalling is an old lawyers trick. But they need continuous money to keep it up. Call it the 99 and 1 percent if you wish, but all outcomes fall of the backs of the American people. We are the income source of this money. They don’t care how they do it, who they blame or who gets shafted in the deals. Huh mm….we are not on a roller coaster ride, we are on the worst longest teeter totter ride ever……back and forth……back and forth. Four to eight years one way…..four yo eight years another way…..and it’s been going on for many years. I know we have intelligent people in this country and maybe a few are in Washington, but when money and power go together, our parties act very unitelligrntly…….or maybe they don’t. Huh mm. Most people think race and religion are what divide us, but money and power (especially together) are a much worse evil. Once you have either or both, you will do everything to hold onto it(them). So as I said, we have two parties, two evils. They will tell you anything to get in there and they will tell you anything to stay in there. Huh mm. I think they know very well what they are doing. I don’t think they care and they think they have most of us fooled.

• A Simple Solution to the Debt Crisis: Work! — MD, JD So What?! Says:
  February 24th, 2012 at 12:53 pm

  [...] destined to build everything but wealth.  Think about it: the US has not had a true fiscal surplus since 1957.  Over 50 years (during which time federal revenues have increased from $ 80 billion to $ 2.2 [...]

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