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The US hadn't hit peak oil in 1921, also the major cut in government spending came in 1919 ... preceding the depression. In 1921 local spending actually increased to more than offset any reduction in federal spending (much smaller than 70%).

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1910_1930USk_13s1li011mcn_F0xF0fF0sF0l

At the beginning of the 20th century debt was equally divided between federal and state and local debt, totaling less than 20 percent of GDP. After World War I, the federal debt surged to 35% of GDP. But by the mid 1920s federal debt had declined to below 20 percent of GDP with state and local debt rising to 16 percent of GDP. Then came the Great Depression, and President Roosevelt decided to spend his way out of trouble, boosting federal debt to 40 percent of GDP. So did the local governments, with state debt peaking at over 5 percent of GDP in 1933 and local debt peaking at over 28 percent in 1933. Government debt, including federal and state and local debt rose to 70 percent of GDP. But it was World War II that really entered new territory. After the end of the war in 1946 federal debt stood at almost 122 percent of GDP, with state and local debt adding another 7 percent. For the next 35 years successive governments brought down the debt, but then came President Reagan. He increased the federal debt up over 50 percent of GDP to win the Cold War. President Bush increased the debt to fight a war on terror and bail out the banks. President Obama is increasing the debt to fund a plan to revive the economy in the aftermath of the Crash of 2008.

The real risk from government debt is the burden of interest payments. Experts say that when interest payments reach about 12% of GDP then a government will likely default on its debt. Chart 5 shows that the US is a long way from that risk. The peak period for government interest payments, including federal, state, and local governments, was in the 1980s, when interest rates were still high after the inflationary 1970s. Of course, the numbers don’t show the burden of interest payments from Government Sponsored Enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. -- United States Debt and Deficit History

Reading the entire analysis, including the pages on U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP, was very interesting.

the military budget it pales in comparison to the amount that is spent on social programs

I'm assuming you're talking about welfare. If so, have you checked your facts recently?

Or are you trying to argue that anything that benefits people (social security, healthcare...) contributes to "paying people to stay home and watch TV"?

Source: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_budget_2011USbf_13bs1n#usgs302

As to giving Obama credit for what he's accomplished please look at this:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html
I think you will notice the significant increase in DEFICIT under his term.

Didn't you read the page you linked to? Bush's last deficit was higher than any of Obama's deficits so far. From your own link: Bush -$1.413T, Obama -$1.299T.

Again, refusing to give Obama credit for doing things you agree with makes you sound like an anti-Obama reactionary and your attacks suspect.

All those bailout and stimulus plans cost lots of money and may just be extending the recession instead of getting us out of it. In contrast say Donald Tusk (Prime Minister of Poland) was praised for his handling of the economic crisis which was basically leave things alone and let the markets sort it out (as is the premise of capitalism in general). BTW, Poland was the only EU country to avoid recession in 2009. Odd, isn't it?

I'm no expert on the Polish economy, but how does all that EU development aid for Poland fit into your theory? Sounds like stimulus to me.

Call me a Ron Paul shill if you like but I ask you once again, point me to a link that shows Obama's plan in anywhere close to the detail of Paul's (one with numbers). If he's as prepared a candidate as you say he is that should be an easy task. I'm not singling out Obama here I'd be happy if you can point me to a plan nearly as detailed for ANY other candidate. I'd really like to think there's more than one out there that isn't just flapping their gums but has a real plan in place and eagerly await a response that can show me a link to one.

If you're so eager, why didn't you do a simple search for the jobs bill I mentioned?
http://www.americanjobsact.com/
Since Ron Paul bases his projections on the CBO, I suppose you'll want to know what they say about the plan:
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=2875
And about the economic outlook in general. Pay special attention to what continuing the Bush/Obama tax cuts do to the deficit:
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12316

I am not saying that Ron Paul's plan will work in fact I believe if you look at the original post I specifically stated that to get it passed you'd need to toss out most of the democrats AND republicans. All I was saying is he was the only one to put up a rough plan WITH CITED NUMBERS to show exactly how he intends to get there.

As to giving Obama credit for what he's accomplished please look at this:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html

I think you will notice the significant increase in DEFICIT under his term. All those bailout and stimulus plans cost lots of money and may just be extending the recession instead of getting us out of it. In contrast say Donald Tusk (Prime Minister of Poland) was praised for his handling of the economic crisis which was basically leave things alone and let the markets sort it out (as is the premise of capitalism in general). BTW, Poland was the only EU country to avoid recession in 2009. Odd, isn't it?

Call me a Ron Paul shill if you like but I ask you once again, point me to a link that shows Obama's plan in anywhere close to the detail of Paul's (one with numbers). If he's as prepared a candidate as you say he is that should be an easy task. I'm not singling out Obama here I'd be happy if you can point me to a plan nearly as detailed for ANY other candidate. I'd really like to think there's more than one out there that isn't just flapping their gums but has a real plan in place and eagerly await a response that can show me a link to one.

They are already cutting the defense budget by half and the social security / medicare budget is already twice that of the defense budget. I'm all for some sort of safety net and taking care of old folks but holy shit thats a lot of money.

Really? Take your lips away from the Fox News kool-aid. Presently, the US defense budget is $671B for fiscal 2012, which is 20% higher than the highest year of the Bush II era. With the exception of 1998, US defense spending has increased every year that it has been reported, with Obama significantly out spending Bush II, even if you factor in the supplemental spending for the Iraq and Afghan wars (listed as OCO, ongoing combat operations, in the cited sources). The only time the US defense budget actually changed downwards from the previous year was in 1998, when it dropped by a whopping 6/10 of one percent.

"All around the country, police forces are being cut."

Total local, state, and federal spending on policing per year has risen from $50 billion in 1990 to over $300 billion today (source).

Do we really need over 1 million full-time police in the US?

Do you favor a smaller public sector but oppose austerity because you fail to understand they are the same thing?

Well, they are not. They certainly have a relationship, but no, they are not the same thing.

If, in this context, "austerity" means something other than "reduced government spending" or "size of the public sector" means something other than "total government spending", you should provide whatever (weird) definitions you are using.

there are roughly 700,000 law enforcement personnel in the US and 7 million teachers.

Citation needed.

I gave one: 20 seconds of Googling; they are just the first numbers I found. Not a great citation, but the amount of research I'm willing to do in response to your doing none is limited. Now you've done more, and found numbers that say you were wrong by a factor of 3 instead of 10. Well, OK. Personally, I think total spending is a better measure than employees, so this: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year2011_0.html tells me total spending on Education is more than twice total spending on "Protection", which includes the things you worried were left out and firemen to boot.

Will you concede that these thing indicate some serious issues with law enforcement and education that should be addressed in some way?

I'll concede there are problems that ought to be addresses in both our criminal justice and education systems. Indeed, I have never argued otherwise.

Would you consider any proposals that do not involve spending increases? I won't hold my breath, either.

You won't have to hold it long. Certainly good ideas that will improve things should be done even if they don't cost anything. Of course, when your economy is deeply depressed due to shortfall of demand, and particularly when monetary policy is exhausted by the zero lower bound, what you desperately need in the short term is for the government to spend more on something. So solutions to societal problems that do involve spending increases would be particularly welcome, especially temporary increases. Personally, I'd go for infrastructure improvement, (because you can do something useful with temporary increases) and an enhanced social safety net (goes away when the economy recovers, automatically comes back next time). Education wouldn't be temporary, but, in my opinion, good solutions are likely to involve spending increases (the other countries that you point out we are doing worse than tend to spend more). I wouldn't go for criminal justice because I don't think the things that are wrong there need spending to fix.

But frankly, if I wanted to have a serious public policy discussion, I wouldn't pick someone who uses North Korea as an example of what a larger public sector would look like, or who says "low wage jobs are plentiful" about today's economy. Sometimes I just take guilty pleasure in pointing out that other people are saying something inane. But I've got my fix now, so I think we're done. Next time, if you want people to take your ideas seriously, don't start off by saying something stupid. By the time you get to "What I actually meant was this totally different thing."... nobody cares. HTH.

There's 1.4M people in the top 1%, according to your stats, who take in over $1.6 TRILLION, paying an effective income tax rate of 23.27% on it, leaving them with $1.3T. The Federal deficit was $1.17T in 2010. Based on income alone, just the top 1% could eliminate the deficit and have $130 BILLION left over (about $88,000 each - over double the gross median income). So your statement that there aren't enough is simply, mathematically and objectively false.

Except that's only for one year, and after you do it once, it's over, because all that money will be gone, along with the homes, lifestyles, and wealth-creation activities of all those people. Talk about killing the goose!

Your figures are off, too. I noticed that Wikipedia also made the $1.17T claim, so I added a [citation needed] tag to the entire. It's actually $1.293T, and the source reference is right here.

When I read your statement that the US is not nearly as indebted as other nations, I thought that cannot be correct, the US is topped only by Greece and Iceland. Europe is much better off. So I go to the wiki, and see, US only at 58% of GDP... pretty impressive. That's CIA and Eurostat. Right next to it, there's IMF: wow, 92% of GDP. That's more than Portugal (though still less than Italy). A bit more digging, brings me to a site for which I don't have a clue how reliable it is. More than 100% of GDP. So how big is GDP, according to some world bank data about as big as the US debt.

So, maybe the 58% of GDP number is a bit of an underestimation... or there's something really weird going on here. Two public sources, almost a factor of two difference, and a completely different ranking. In the CIA/Eurostat ranking, US is 36th worst of in the world, with most of the EU even more in debt. In the IMF ranking, US is 11th worst off, with only the EU-members Greece, Italy, Iceland, Belgium and Ireland (not even 25% of EU economy) more in debt than the US.

There's some major number juggling going on here.

You really ought to try the internet.

For example: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/

So this can be laid almost entirely at the feet of the GOP and the crazed fanatical Tea Party extremist wing that seems to completely control it these days.

We could be solvent quite easily, ...if it weren't for republicans and the tea party.

So much delusion, so little time.

Yeah, it's the people against bailouts, runaway health care spending, and stimulus to prop up bloated government payrolls that are the problem.

The unsustainable part of government spending is health care and pensions. Since 1953, total spending at all levels of government, as a percentage of gdp, has remained essentially flat for the combination of all other spending categories (including interest payments) except health care and pensions, which went from 2% to 14% of GDP.

You can go here to play around with the data:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/index.php

Debt/GDP ratio has been worse in history

Only for a brief period just after WW2, according to this graph:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/include/us_fed_debt_full.png

A world war seems like a good excuse, though. What's the excuse this time ?

What I don't get is why now ? The debt has piled up in good times and bad under administrations of both stripes.

Because the debt has only been this bad once in the entire existence of our nation (in the 40s during World War 2).

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_debt_chart.html

What's worse is that projected debt (as in "taking into account future expense of SS/Medicare") has never been this high in this history of our country.

Heh... Folks, downmod me all you want- the reality is there for anyone to see for themselves. Defense spending (which is where the money comes from for paying for those wars...) is at 25% in the US for total Federal expenditures (from the Office of Budget Management...) and less than that elsewhere in the Western world. 23% of that is spent on Medicare and Medicaid (of which roughly 1/2 of that is Medicaid...), 21% on Social Security disbursements, 13% purely on Welfare, and 18% comprising the rest. Of that 18% NASA's budget (1% of that 18% slice...seriously...) is a pittance- and they've been slashing Defense and NASA for a while and GROWING the others.

Here...go look it up for yourselves...

You might view what I said in the parent post as a troll- but the truth is the truth.

That would require the government to only spend 6-11% of GDP. We're a long way away from that. Government spending The 90's were in the right direction but still way off.

Not exactly. We'd be OK spending up to about 18 of GDP. For the past ~60 years, tax revenue has been about 18% of GDP, regardless of the rate of taxation.

That would require the government to only spend 6-11% of GDP. We're a long way away from that. Government spending The 90's were in the right direction but still way off.

Actually, Defense still counts for almost 2/3rds of the federal budget. http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/

Your numbers are incorrect. According to the source itself, defense takes up about $965 billion of $3,818 billion worth of spending, or about 25%. Pensions ($793 billion), Health Care ($882 billion) and Welfare ($496 billion) take up $2,171 billion, or 56% of the budget.

To give some perspective, the interest payments on our debt alone are $207 billion, which is more than we pay on Protection, Transportation, and General Government combined.

I just can't take it. I have to say it. Troll me if you must but all of you "typical Republican" or "Leave it to the Democrats" people are just that. Idiots. You look at the opposing party and shake your head and condemn them for mindless, greedy, morally bankrupt actions as if your party would do any better. They won't. I've sat in Senate Arms committee meetings and heard both parties pander to their own constituencies. They will spend every dime we have buying votes from their own state. There is no long term vision among them.

You blame the republicans because they won't cut defense spending. Well, at least providing for the common defense is a part of the governments clear responsibility. It's only 25% of the budget . Healthcare and pensions make up a whopping 46% of the budget. I'm not sure the Constitution supports that. In fact, the 10th amendment would seem to support the contrary. In fact, for every $1 we spend on the military we spend 50 on welfare (another 12% on top of the aforementioned 46%). Why is the federal government spending money on welfare (see 10th amendment)? So screw you Democrats.

But wait, G.W. Bush and the Republicans had 6 years controlling every aspect of government, didn't they? How much streamlining did they do? Did they cut the budget? No. Screw you Republicans.
In fact, did Reagan get rid of the then recently formed Department of Education? My best friend works for the Dept. of Ed. I can't believe the horrible waste going on there. And what the hell is the federal government doing getting involved in education? That's a state matter if not a county matter. Refrain (screw you republicans and democrats)

But wait, the Democrats (and some of you sub-geniuses on slashdot) want to fix the deficit by increasing taxes. In fact, some have criticized republicans for funding wars without tax increases. But, in 2011 the federal budget was ~3.8 trillion dollars while the income was less than 2.2 trillion dollars. That means we would need to increase our income (READ TAXES) by ~73% in order to balance the budget. THAT's a 73% tax increase children!!! If the average American is taxed ~18%, their new tax rate would become ~31%. Do you have any idea what would happen to the American economy? Worse, we don't get any new benefits from this tax increase and we don't even pay off the debt, we just keep it from getting worse. Oh and those of you who want to tax the wealthy consider that their tax rate would be over 60%. How many wealthy people would simply take their money and go elsewhere at that rate? Remember, that's just federal income tax. Add state income tax, sales tax, property tax. How close to 100% can you get before even the wealthy become poor?

Now some brilliant people like to say "tax the corporations." Well guess what. Corporations aren't people. They are entities. If Exxon makes 100B profit and you tax 50% of it, that's a free 50B in taxes, right? Wrong! Where do you think that money was going to go? Some was going to R&D. You know research and technology advancements. Something slashdotters seem to love and something that benefits pretty much everyone as advancing technology eventually tends to do. Well the rest goes into the pockets of the employees in the form of bonuses and is paid out to shareholders in the form of dividends or price increases. No fair, the government doesn't get that oh wait they all get taxed and what is left tends to stimulate the economy. If you don't believe that last part then you MUST be dead set against any form of government stimulus so you are already saying screw you democrats. In other words, taxing corporations takes the money out of the hands of people who would have paid taxes on the additional income so there is little or nothing or less than nothing to be gained there.

I'm sorry to be such a jerk about this but you slashdotters forgot a very simple saying: "The more you learn, the less you know." Hopefully a few facts, a few calculation

Cutting welfare is something I don't think is a good idea, but I wanted to correct your numbers. According to this welfare is $700b, 11% of total spending, making it the 5th largest category, behind Health Care, Pensions, Education, Defense.

So let me get this straight. The statement you are contesting says "the USA has had a deficit for almost every year of its existence." Your reference to "misleading" aside, you say the statement is "completely" false. Well, it is false for any reasonable definition of "almost every", but suppose it had said "a majority of the years" instead of "almost every year." Then it would be true, wouldn't it? And it would certainly be true for "almost every" when restricted to the range from 1960 through 2011, with covers the entire lifetimes of a majority of slashdot readers. Anyway, the simple fact is that, while significant deficits have been run in the past to cover the War of 1812, Civil War, WW I, Great Depression, and WW II, since 1970 we have had a huge run of deficits incurred without any such excuse, simply to cover normal operations.

As for the rest, let's leave tweedledee Democrat and tweedledum Republican out of it, shall we? Both have been approximately equally destructive and craven in the way they will not face reality.

There is no need to be vague or uncertain with the facts; the information is readily available right here. Here's the summary one can make of that data:

Longest run of DEFICIT years: 28 (1970-1997), integrating to 81.91% GDP
Longest run of surplus years: 18 (1875-1892), integrating to 72.30% GDP
Do you see a trend in terms of timeline?

First year of DEFICIT >10% GDP when not fully mobilized for an existential war: 2009. Didn't happen in the Great Depression, or at any other time since the founding of the Republic. We're going to duplicate that feat again this very year.

Integrated value of (DEFICITS as %GDP) since the founding: 301.69
Integrated value of (surpluses as %GDP) since the founding : 40.52

Years of DEFICIT since the founding: 117
Years of surplus since the founding: 104

Years of DEFICIT since 1960: 46
Years of surplus since 1960: 6 (SIX) (1 Bush 2, 3 Clinton, 1 Nixon, 1 Eisenhower)

Decades of net DEFICIT since the founding: 13
Decades of net surplus since the founding: 8

Decades of net DEFICIT since 1960: ALL OF THEM!!!

Decades of >10% integrated value of (DEFICIT as %GDP): 8
Decades of >10% integrated value of (surplus as %GDP): 0 (ZERO)

In the following tables all DEFICIT values are expressed as positive numbers and surpluses as negative numbers.

NOTE: I couldn't include the tables because slashdot has a STUPID AS SHIT lameass lines-too-short filter. I'll see if there's some way to put them in my profile.

Remember, government tax rates above ~17.3% of GDP reduce total revenues by slowing growth and the US is already at about 27%.

Amazing notion, given that for the period of our nation's greatest economic growth (post WWII to the 1970s), the top tax bracket was never below 70%, and was at times over 90%.

% of GDP. Here's the data you're talking about.

Based on this period of time you identify as optimal, what should be the federal spending as % of GDP? It looks to average at about 18%. Can we agree we're talking about roughly the same number then?

A climb to over 20% results in the end of that period of prosperity.

The federal budget deficit peaked in 2009 at $1.4 trillion. budget deficity

Total AGI for all taxpayers with adjusted gross income over $200k in 2008 was over $2.4 trillion. IRS Tax Stats

A trillion dollar surplus is going to make a nice impact on the debt too.

Of course the idea is preposterous, but nobody ever suggested taking all the income of the wealthiest people in the nation, and nobody is expecting to repair 30 years of brain dead tax and economic policies in 2 years.

And if we are going to use your ridiculous anecdote as a measure of increased taxation effectiveness we should also take the alternate scenario. Taxes are bad and cutting taxes is good so we should cut taxes on anyone making over $250k / year to 0% and then everyone will have the incentive to stop being poor or middle class and they'll do the work necessary to make $250k per year to avoid paying taxes. Utopia, LOL.

And you base that claim on stated income tax rates without consideration for tax loopholes and other things? There's been a dodge for all that time, trust funds. Multimillionaires were using that for a long time to shelter their wealth and income.

As to total government (including state and local) spending, it's around 40% of US GDP. That's higher than it's been since the Second World War. Taxes may be lower than that, but someone has to pay for the debt that's built up (that is, debt is deferred taxes).

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html

Nice and objective on that one. You make it sound like the US military budget is the only element involving wasteful spending. Because, of course, there can't be anything wasteful in the government employee pensions, social and medical programs currently implemented. Take a look at the current budget numbers:
US Defense Budget

Yes, there are wasteful programs in the defense budget. In all honesty, the government implemented program management techniques make it impossible for any of those projects to be cost competitive with an equivalent effort made in the commercial world. As far as their 'usefulness'? Well, that's debatable on a program to program basis. Many of these are budget sinkholes that should be cut out, but please don't make it seem as though there isn't a single person who takes advantage of welfare. We need a little more objective insight here.

"the US government expanded at the highest rate in recent history." Citation needed.

Seriously, i can't find evidence of this. I started off checking federal spending as a percent of gdp and didn't see it. After poking around on the site a bit, I looked up per capita government spending in 2005 dollars. There is no pattern like you are suggesting.

"the US government expanded at the highest rate in recent history." Citation needed.

Seriously, i can't find evidence of this. I started off checking federal spending as a percent of gdp and didn't see it. After poking around on the site a bit, I looked up per capita government spending in 2005 dollars. There is no pattern like you are suggesting.

a nearly equal government budget to GDP ratio

Government (at all levels) takes 44% of GDP today. It was 22% immediately after WW2. Not sure why you think it has remained 'nearly equal'.

about the same level of workforce participation

The labor force participation rate increased from 59% to 67% from the end of WW2 to ~2000. Not sure why you think it has been 'about the same.' At 67% you've pretty much tapped out the work-capable reserve. This reflects putting the wife to work to make up for shortfalls in real earnings; competing with third-world labor ended real wage growth and employee leverage as evidenced by the annihilation of industrial unions.

What has changed fundamentally that it's impossible now?

The capital that funded growth in the workforce and kept people employed and credit worthy has evacuated to Asia. It isn't just the 9%-10% unemployment or 18% 'underemployment'; the people with work have no leverage and are seeing no wage increases because there is another 700 million Chinese in reserve and a business friendly government one freighter trip across the Pacific.

Government spending, meanwhile, grows unabated, thus giant deficits that crowd out lower priority spending in order of political feasibility (i.e. entitlements, defense last.) This nonsense will keep spinning until the debt gets past 150% or so of GDP (5-6 years) and the creditors walk away. Then the fed prints money to keep the bennies flowing. Then the currency collapses.

That is the only politically feasible future we have.

Did you not look at the post by Anonymous above?

Here, from the beginning. Sorry, I remembered it incorrectly. I should have said 5%, not 2%, although ti was under 2% for a good portion of that time.

First google result

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html

Next time fucking google it yourself

It's appropriate, since the entire "social security trust fund" is nothing but IOUs from a government that's deeper in debt than any other government has ever been in all of recorded history.

-jcr

But the US also has an economy that's larger than any other economy in recorded history. How large is the debt in proportion to the economy? How much of that debt is owed to the social security trust fund?

Year, Debt (in $B), Debt/GDP
2005 12638.4 62.77
2006 13398.9 63.49
2007 14077.6 63.99
2008 14441.4 69.15
2009 14258.2 83.29
2010 14623.9 94.27 (projected)

There were precisely six years in our nation's history when our debt-to-GDP ratio was over 90%: 1944-1949. Of course, we had a huge jobs program back then, which was pumping up the economy. We were able to leverage that momentum to pay down the debt to 50-year debt/GDP lows by the mid 1970s (although the absolute size of the debt kept increasing through that period).

Source: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_debt_chart.html

The net present value of total OASDI costs over the next 75 years is estimated to be about $5.3T, or about 37% of the present value of the debt. On the other hand, the net present value of Medicare part A costs over the same window is $13.4T, or 94% of the present value of the debt. As anyone who is familiar with the numbers will tell you, Medicare is a much larger and more immediate problem than Social Security.

Source: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2010/rpt/2010-R-0197.htm

Next time, look up the numbers yourself, ya lazy bum.

I'm sorry, what? In what conceivable way are you kept in slavery?

What, precisely, would you call a class of people who are denied a real education, stuffed into ghettos and barrios, and forced into lives full of working dead-end jobs or languishing on public assistance in "exchange" for the guarantee that they will vote for the political party that the slave-masters tell them to vote for?

How have they lied about improving education?

Despite all the money put into education over the years, has even one Democrat program done anything but spend more money with no repeatable results on any appreciable scale? NO. Even the "stellar magnet schools" and "stellar charter schools" work well for about 5 years before sliding back down into the toilet.

So, I'm confused. You think it's ok to have racially based attacks on people? Or maybe its attacks on gay people that you are ok with?

I don't agree that attacks on anyone are a good idea. But neither do I believe that the punishment should be any different whether you attacked someone because of their skin color, or their sexual preference, or the fact that they were your competition in a drug gang, or because they slept with your wife, or because you wanted to steal their car, or any other reason someone would have to do violence to another human being.

It's the ACT that is to be punished, not the thought. When we start regulating thought, we slide into a very, very, very bad place.

Bush and Reagan have been the biggest contributors to the national debt.

Bush and Reagan's major debt contributions come from times when DEMOCRATS HELD THE CONGRESS. Remember, you idiot, it is the CONGRESS that makes the budget and controls the purse strings - all the President gets is an up-or-down, veto/pass vote.

It would be different if we had line-item veto, but it's not. Reagan passed the budgets he passed that came from DEMOCRATS, because the alternative was to shut down the government. Clinton DID shut down the government because he wanted MORE spending. Bush passed the crap that Pelosi and Reid handed him rather than shut down the government.

Look closely at this graph I am about to link:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1900_2010&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=fy11&chart=G0-fed&bar=0&stack=1&size=l&title=US%20Federal%20Deficit%20As%20Percent%20Of%20GDP&state=US&color=c&local=s

Pay attention. Not just to who was president, but go year by year. What do we find? The correlation in debt increases is not by who was President, but by WHO CONTROLLED THE CONGRESS. This is not a surprise: Constitutionally, CONGRESS WRITES THE BUDGET.

Under Reagan, through Bush, and - here's the important part - THROUGH THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF CLINTON WHEN THE DEMOCRATS CONTROLLED CONGRESS - the debt went up. Only when the Republicans took control of the purse strings did that trend reverse.

Likewise, where is the large spike in debt during the years of Bush II? That's right - 2006-2008 WHEN THE DEMOCRATS TOOK CONGRESS. And the trend continues through Obama.

If you think you can blame any President for the budget, you're a fool. He's the last line of defense, and a pretty fucking weak one absent a line-item veto. When you want to know who fucked us over and increased the debt, you need to look at the Congressional leadership instead!

Checks and balances are not there to prevent a dominant ideology.

Again, you are a fool. Checks and balances are there to counteract ambition with ambition, counteract greed with greed, counteract power with power. The whole point is to stop things that should not be going on. If your entire government is m

Government spending as a percentage of GDP.

I used to think the same thing, but then I realized something.

This thought occurred to me around 8, while I was sitting in grade school observing some students diligently studying while others screwed around. The difference is upbringing. I am certain a hundred well behaved kids in a leaky barn with a brand new teacher and fifty tattered copies of a twenty year old algebra text would annihilate whatever that half billion dollar monument to public sector corruption will produce. Diligent, responsible parents is all it would take.

We pay for Taj Mahal schools, crazy lavish teacher union pensions, tenured wages at double private sector income levels, book rackets, etc. and we get pitiful results. Let us continue to ignore the one factor no politician, no teacher union representative or anyone else is going to mention publicly; parents.

US parents (both, almost universally) are too busy paying off education debt while leveraging their next 30 years of earnings to get into the McMansion and simultaneously covering a part (the rest being public debt) of the 44% of GDP being spent by government to fund the teachers union contract wages, lifetime heath-care and 9/10 full pay pension benefits.

Somehow the kids get forgotten... I can't imagine why.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html

Irrespective of military spending and the reduction of the progressive tax burden, the federal government now spends more than 40% of the US GDP every year. Back in the supposed heyday of science funding, the fed spent less than 30% of GDP. The REAL reason that science funding isn't higher is the entitlement state. Medicare alone costs more annually that the entire budget of NSF, NEA, DARPA, and DOE inception to date. NIH is funded in the Medicare budget.

"With an annual budget of about US $6.87 billion (fiscal year 2010), the NSF funds approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation NSF budget is currently the highest it has ever been even adjusted for inflation.

Medicare cost under existing law are $489.3 billion; the figure for Medicaid is $264.5 billion. Both will raise $58 billion in 2011.

Certainly our little excursions into Afghanistan and Iraq haven't helped the Federal Budget, but these are considered anomalies, not continuous spending. I think you really need to look at is Federal Spending as a percentage of GDP. Currently, it appears to be at about 45%, a level it hasn't been at since WWII. I think we need a constitutional amendment capping spending as a percentage of GDP, with an exception for war-time spending. But what percentage is reasonable limit? 10%? 25%? 50%? I'd like to see a maximum of 10% of GDP, but it hasn't been that low in a very long time.

As throwing more money at the military-industrial complex
 
It's a flase dichotomy; schools are financed at the local and state level while the military is financed at the federal level. Total spending by states on subsidized health care and transfer payments is double what is spent on education (click on the 'state' tab). How about less subsidizing the use of hospital emergency rooms as primary care physicians? That's a much better comparison than "military-industrial complex" spending.

This is pretty misleading. Total government spending went up pretty much lineraly at the same rate during both the Reagan and Clinton years.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1980_2000&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy11&chart=F1-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s
In comparison to GDP, it did go down somewhat during the Clinton years:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1980_2000&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=fy11&chart=F1-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s
But what really helped as far as the debt there was increased income tax rates and more money being made in the private sector.
Now, spending during Bush per GDP actually pretty much flatlined until 2006/2007. Does anyone know what happened then?
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=2000_2010&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=fy11&chart=F1-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s

Your point that both Bush and Reagan were big spenders compared to what they claimed is true, but you can't deny that the current administration is making no effort to reduce the debt, and it is exploding way faster than any previous president with no end in sight, while we are losing the surpluses of Social Security and Medicare that we had in the past. We can debate the past all we want but no one is going to change sides. I personally think it is worth noting that most of the companies that created the tech boom of the 90s really started in the 80s, and that the tech boom and Bill Gates had more to do with the Economic boom and surpluses of the 90s than did Bill Clinton. You would probably disagree. But surely we can all agree that we are headed in the wrong direction. If spending does not drastically slow down soon, we will be past the point of no return to becoming an insolvent nation within this decade.

This is pretty misleading. Total government spending went up pretty much lineraly at the same rate during both the Reagan and Clinton years.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1980_2000&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy11&chart=F1-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s
In comparison to GDP, it did go down somewhat during the Clinton years:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1980_2000&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=fy11&chart=F1-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s
But what really helped as far as the debt there was increased income tax rates and more money being made in the private sector.
Now, spending during Bush per GDP actually pretty much flatlined until 2006/2007. Does anyone know what happened then?
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=2000_2010&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=fy11&chart=F1-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s

Your point that both Bush and Reagan were big spenders compared to what they claimed is true, but you can't deny that the current administration is making no effort to reduce the debt, and it is exploding way faster than any previous president with no end in sight, while we are losing the surpluses of Social Security and Medicare that we had in the past. We can debate the past all we want but no one is going to change sides. I personally think it is worth noting that most of the companies that created the tech boom of the 90s really started in the 80s, and that the tech boom and Bill Gates had more to do with the Economic boom and surpluses of the 90s than did Bill Clinton. You would probably disagree. But surely we can all agree that we are headed in the wrong direction. If spending does not drastically slow down soon, we will be past the point of no return to becoming an insolvent nation within this decade.

This is pretty misleading. Total government spending went up pretty much lineraly at the same rate during both the Reagan and Clinton years.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1980_2000&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy11&chart=F1-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s
In comparison to GDP, it did go down somewhat during the Clinton years:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1980_2000&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=fy11&chart=F1-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s
But what really helped as far as the debt there was increased income tax rates and more money being made in the private sector.
Now, spending during Bush per GDP actually pretty much flatlined until 2006/2007. Does anyone know what happened then?
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=2000_2010&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=fy11&chart=F1-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s

Your point that both Bush and Reagan were big spenders compared to what they claimed is true, but you can't deny that the current administration is making no effort to reduce the debt, and it is exploding way faster than any previous president with no end in sight, while we are losing the surpluses of Social Security and Medicare that we had in the past. We can debate the past all we want but no one is going to change sides. I personally think it is worth noting that most of the companies that created the tech boom of the 90s really started in the 80s, and that the tech boom and Bill Gates had more to do with the Economic boom and surpluses of the 90s than did Bill Clinton. You would probably disagree. But surely we can all agree that we are headed in the wrong direction. If spending does not drastically slow down soon, we will be past the point of no return to becoming an insolvent nation within this decade.

Thank you for your reply. I do question the quality of the data at nationmaster. For example, this chart suggests that the US has no military spending at all.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mil_exp_dol_fig-military-expenditures-dollar-figure

I am not sure looking at Military spending as a % of GDP is better, but it may be.

Annual US military expenditures have MORE THAN DOUBLED in the last 10 years.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/defense_chart_30.html

By any measure, that should be significant.

Don't you know what inflation is? Any time you hear "doubled over the last decade", it's JUST INFLATION.

Look at the same graph, but as a % of GDP. There's a little bump, but it's not some massive trend upwards. Considering the US is fighting two wars, and has actually increased it's Afghanistan troop numbers recently, that's actually quite a small increase.

Thank you for your reply. I do question the quality of the data at nationmaster. For example, this chart suggests that the US has no military spending at all.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mil_exp_dol_fig-military-expenditures-dollar-figure

I am not sure looking at Military spending as a % of GDP is better, but it may be.

Annual US military expenditures have MORE THAN DOUBLED in the last 10 years.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/defense_chart_30.html

By any measure, that should be significant.

Don't you know what inflation is? Any time you hear "doubled over the last decade", it's JUST INFLATION.

Look at the same graph, but as a % of GDP. There's a little bump, but it's not some massive trend upwards. Considering the US is fighting two wars, and has actually increased it's Afghanistan troop numbers recently, that's actually quite a small increase.

Thank you for your reply. I do question the quality of the data at nationmaster. For example, this chart suggests that the US has no military spending at all.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mil_exp_dol_fig-military-expenditures-dollar-figure

I am not sure looking at Military spending as a % of GDP is better, but it may be.

Annual US military expenditures have MORE THAN DOUBLED in the last 10 years.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/defense_chart_30.html

By any measure, that should be significant.

The problem with US education is NOT one of funding; governments have been throwing more and money at education over the past decades and it hasn't made any difference in outcomes:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1980_2020&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy11&chart=20-total&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=20-total

Of course, it's usually the people who stand to benefit from having even more thrown at this problem, who cry out about how the problem is "we need more money". Which makes me wonder if you're part of the system.

Bad joke. If California were a separate nation, it would be the eighth largest economy in the world, right after Italy and before Spain, Canada, Brazil, Russia, India, and on and on. Australia is an entire continent, and its economy is less than half the size of California's.

Big. Deal.

I hate to be the one to tell you surfer dudes this, but Texas ($1.2 trillion GDP) is also India-sized, and so is New York ($1.1 trillion GDP). Hell, New York + New Jersey (=$1.6 trillion GDP) is almost California's size. ($1.8 trillion GDP)

People pull out this "if California were a separate nation" stuff as if to say "California is SO HUGE" but it's really not compared to other states. It's the biggest, but not by that much.

...
the roaring twenties was borrowing against the future, the bubble collapsed, and we suffered, horribly, for a decade

...

Sorta like we're doing now, huh? (TARP, various bailouts, stimulus bills, "Jobs" bill, *increased government deficit spending, increased debt limit, etc)

* http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/breakdown?year=2008
2000: -0.2 trillion
2001: -0.1 trillion
2002: 0.2 trillion
2003: 0.4 trillion
2004: 0.4 trillion
2005: 0.3 trillion
2006: 0.2 trillion
2007: 0.2 trillion
2008: 0.5 trillion
2009: 1.4 trillion
2010: 1.6 trillion
2011: 1.3 trillion

Perhaps this recession is the small crash before the big one (like the early 1920s before the great depression).

Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain are the worst but not the least. Most of the countries in Europe have spending and Debt levels that (as a percentage of GDP) are double the US level everyone is worried about. ...

Uhm, the US federal deficit stands at 10.64%, only slightly lower than the 12.5% of Greece, the worst performer in the Euro zone at this time. Portugal seems to have a deficit of 9.3%, Spain 11%. The I in PIGS is Ireland with 11%, not Italy. Mind you, these are the worst performers in the Euro zone, and relatively small economies, the average figures of of the entire Euro zone are looking a lot better than the US right now, and definitely better than the UK. The market doesn't only look at cold, hard figures though.

About the Euro tanking vs the dollar, I remember almost a decade ago, the Euro was worth about $0.70, now it stands at twice that amount. Both those extreme values are unrealistic and harmful, it would be better to have a stable exchange rate close to 1:1

Compare that to World War II and consider that we use technology more and (as a result) less Americans have died (then include inflation..)
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/art14_world_war_ii_spending.html

Yeah. The feds should lead a charge to get standards set up for the states. Not demand but facilitate. A good example would be education data. There's no offical schema for that. Yet we're talking about a one trillion a year expense for the governments (Federal, State, Local) (according to this, anyway, which may not be correct).