Reply #30 By: COL Gene - 10/2/2004 6:59:04 AM Some help for drmiler and the Budget Surplus I believe the problem may be that drmiler expected the national debt to drop when the surplus existed. He did not see that on the treasury link. The reason for this is that our government did not apply or use the surplus in 98,99 and 2000 to reduce the National Debt but spent it on other things. However, the surplus did exist and my statement that" Bush turned a surplus ( 3 years running) into the largest deficit in our history", IS TRUE. To find the budget surplus and the OMB web site with that data, go to Google and type in "Budget Surplus 2000" You will get a lot of sources . The OMB info is one of the first references.. I hope this will help.

Hey *col* I did what you said and found something I thought you should read.
Link

Thanks drmiler for the Link. How do you add them to your replies? I am new at the machanics.

That article points to a " projected surples" Bush had a projected surples of $5.7 Trillion when he justified his first tax cut. If we did have a real surplus in that amount, I wouold agree with a tax cut. The peoblem was, fist the assumptions Bush used to get his $5.7 Trillion projected surplus were not realistic. He used spending increase assumptions that heve never been achieved and assumed we would have a growing economy like most of the 90's forever no business cycles. He also ignored the national debt when he took office of about $5.7 Trillion The same amount of his projected surplus. So even if the Bush projected surplus had come true, we had nothing to give as a tax cut until we paid the debt which would have taken all his projected surplus.

I too have an MBA and I can not understand how little Bush seems to know about the economy and financial management. Iknow Harvard is the best gard. school in America. I wonder why Bush did not learn anything?

You have to copy the link and just hit the link button paste it in, and presto.

- GX

Reply #32 By: COL Gene - 10/2/2004 2:59:25 PM Thanks drmiler for the Link. How do you add them to your replies? I am new at the machanics. That article points to a " projected surples" Bush had a projected surples of $5.7 Trillion when he justified his first tax cut. If we did have a real surplus in that amount, I wouold agree with a tax cut. The peoblem was, fist the assumptions Bush used to get his $5.7 Trillion projected surplus were not realistic. He used spending increase assumptions that heve never been achieved and assumed we would have a growing economy like most of the 90's forever no business cycles. He also ignored the national debt when he took office of about $5.7 Trillion The same amount of his projected surplus. So even if the Bush projected surplus had come true, we had nothing to give as a tax cut until we paid the debt which would have taken all his projected surplus.

"col" your just a LITTLE offf track! The link was for "1999" *Clinton* was in office not GW. Look at the date on the top of the page.

OK just to be clear are the deficit and the debt two different things ? like is deficit interest and debt the principal ?

Debt is the amount of money we have taken loans for, so yes the principal. The deficit is the difference between the revenue and the expenses of the budget. The interest is included in the budget.

To Drmiler

You are correct, the article was written July 29, 1999, prior to the attack of 9/11/01 and
during the Presidency of Bill Clinton. However, you seem to think that the article refutes
what Col Gene has been saying, not just in this blog, but in several of his blogs. In fact, the
article supports what he has said. Col Gene has stated the there were budget surpluses in
98, 99 & 2000 and there were. The article was written in summer of 99, before the surpluses
of 99 & 2000 materialized. Also, the article is referring to the PROJECTED budget surpluses
over the ensuing decade and that those surpluses would never materialize (1) IF Congress
did not learn to curb spending (which they did not), (2) IF no unforseen "emergency spending"
was needed (obviously it was needed, and to assume that there will be no "emergency
spending" is naive for ANY budget projection whether it is made by a Democrat, a Republican
or an Independent) and (3) IF any accurate prediction of a future economy were possible (it
is not).

The article goes on to say that even IF all of these projections came true, the
responsible course of action would be to use the surpluses to pay down the National Debt,
precisely what Col Gene has been advocating, rather than enacting a tax cut, precisely what
President Bush did.

As to Gol Gene's response, you are correct, he used Bush II's budget projections instead of
Clinton's budget projections. The fact is that BOTH budget projections ignored all the
"what if's" of the article, and that all of the "what if's" of the article came to pass. In the
final analysis the article you linked him to is strongly supportive of what Gol Gene has been
saying all along. It makes me wonder if you read beyond the headline before you sent the
link.

Reply #37 By: American_girl65 (Anonymous) - 10/2/2004 6:39:49 PM To Drmiler You are correct, the article was written July 29, 1999, prior to the attack of 9/11/01 and during the Presidency of Bill Clinton. However, you seem to think that the article refutes what Col Gene has been saying, not just in this blog, but in several of his blogs. In fact, the article supports what he has said. Col Gene has stated the there were budget surpluses in 98, 99 & 2000 and there were. The article was written in summer of 99, before the surpluses of 99 & 2000 materialized. Also, the article is referring to the PROJECTED budget surpluses over the ensuing decade and that those surpluses would never materialize (1) IF Congress did not learn to curb spending (which they did not), (2) IF no unforseen "emergency spending" was needed (obviously it was needed, and to assume that there will be no "emergency spending" is naive for ANY budget projection whether it is made by a Democrat, a Republican or an Independent) and (3) IF any accurate prediction of a future economy were possible (it is not). The article goes on to say that even IF all of these projections came true, the responsible course of action would be to use the surpluses to pay down the National Debt, precisely what Col Gene has been advocating, rather than enacting a tax cut, precisely what President Bush did. As to Gol Gene's response, you are correct, he used Bush II's budget projections instead of Clinton's budget projections. The fact is that BOTH budget projections ignored all the "what if's" of the article, and that all of the "what if's" of the article came to pass. In the final analysis the article you linked him to is strongly supportive of what Gol Gene has been saying all along. It makes me wonder if you read beyond the headline before you sent the link.

I read extremely well, did you?

The extra $1 trillion in federal surpluses over the next decade that has magically appeared in recent presidential and congressional budget projections are real only if you believe three unbelievable things:

Unless I've gotten real stupid (which I doubt) They are in essence saying there is no surplus. That is unless you believe the unbelivable!

To Tugger1967

Yeah, what Sandy2 said, but also there are a couple of different "deficits" that are mentioned.
The word deficit is often used in conjuction with other words (budget deficit, cumulative net
deficit, gross deficit) to specify which "deficit" is under discussion. For what it's worth, I wrote
an analogy about how these terms would apply to the finances of an average person a few
replies back.

To Drmiler

Of course you are not stupid Drmiler, but neither am I. I will do as you did to Col Gene and
refer you to the date of the article, as I stated in my previous response, the article refers to
PROJECTED budget surpluses, meaning budget surpluses that would not yet have occured at the
time of the article, therefore the article could not be saying that they DID NOT happen (as they
were in the future at the time of the writing), but rather that they WOULD NOT happen. In 99 &
2000 budget surpluses did happen (and 98, but that predates the article). We have not had
any budget surpluses since 2000 for many of the reasons that the article predicted.

The essence of the article was: We won't have the budget surpluses that are predicted, but
if we do we should use the money to pay down the National Debt rather than to cut taxes.

all you Bush supporters just don't get it! Bush doesn't like America. he likes power. i would vote for anyone but Bush!

Reply #41 By: Politically Active - 10/3/2004 4:15:40 PM all you Bush supporters just don't get it! Bush doesn't like America. he likes power. i would vote for anyone but Bush!

As usual you lefties got it ALL wrong! Kerry is the one in love with power, NOT Bush.

To Drmiler

You never responded to my last reply. So, do you now accept the fact that the budget surpluses existed and that you misinterpreted the article? Well, just in case you still don't, I did some research on your behalf. I searched in Google for "George W. Bush"+"speech"+"budget surplus". As you can imagine there were tens of thousands of hits. Unfortunately, most of them were for anti-Bush sites, which I enjoyed reading, but I can hardly expect you to visit them. So, I kept looking, and looking, and looking (it really is amazing how many anti-Bush websites there are) and looking. Finally, I think I found something that will satisfy you. At the 2000 Republican National Convention, in his nomination acceptance speech, George W. Bush said, "America has a strong economy and a surplus." The quote appears approximately a quarter of the way into the speech and he refers to the surplus again about half-way through. I didn't read any further than that, so I can't tell you if he mentioned it again that night. Naturally, I don't expect you to take my word for it, and I thought you might actually enjoy reading the speech. Link Or, perhaps you would prefer to hear the speech. Link

Reply #43 By: American_girl65 - 10/3/2004 7:33:48 PM To Drmiler You never responded to my last reply. So, do you now accept the fact that the budget surpluses existed and that you misinterpreted the article? Well, just in case you still don't, I did some research on your behalf. I searched in Google for "George W. Bush"+"speech"+"budget surplus". As you can imagine there were tens of thousands of hits. Unfortunately, most of them were for anti-Bush sites, which I enjoyed reading, but I can hardly expect you to visit them. So, I kept looking, and looking, and looking (it really is amazing how many anti-Bush websites there are) and looking. Finally, I think I found something that will satisfy you. At the 2000 Republican National Convention, in his nomination acceptance speech, George W. Bush said, "America has a strong economy and a surplus." The quote appears approximately a quarter of the way into the speech and he refers to the surplus again about half-way through. I didn't read any further than that, so I can't tell you if he mentioned it again that night. Naturally, I don't expect you to take my word for it, and I thought you might actually enjoy reading the speech. Link Or, perhaps you would prefer to hear the speech. Link

Okay I'll go along with that. It seems that I must have misinterpreted the info.

To Drmiler

Oops, sorry about that, I did the links wrong, I'll try again. For written transcript Link For recording

Link