Here’s the key point to remember when debating these clueless right wing pawns. They will ALWAYS pull up the GROSS national debt figures when they try to lie about Clinton’s great economic acomplishments. They will NEVER pull up the OMB or CBO debt figures and here is why. The GROSS national debt figures include intragovernmental borrowing and all trust fund obligations. The CBO and MBO figures show only the ON budget items a president has control over including SPENDING. No president has any control at all over the federal government’s trust fund obligations and therefore no president’s ecnomic achievements or failures can be linked to the GROSS national debt figures. Trust fund surpluses and intragovernmental borrowing are listed as OFF BUDGET items.

Click this link.

http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/United-States-PUBLIC-FINANCE.html

Notice on the table that in 2003, the year used as an example, 560,812 million dollars of Social Security receipts are OFF BUDGET and 462,658 million dollars in Social Security outlays are OFF BUDGET. Off budget means just that, off budget

Pay particular attention, to the sentence above the Office of Management and Budget table which reads………….”. In the table, the term off-budget refers to receipts and outlays that are excluded from budget totals and are not subject to Congressional budget control mechanisms, such as oversight and review..”

“NOT SUBJECT TO CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET CONTROL MECHANISMS SUCH AS OVERSIGHT AND REVIEW” means the Congress and THE PRESIDENT who must work THROUGH CONGRESS HAVE NO CONTROL over OFF BUDGET receipts and outlays. If President Clinton HAD NO CONTROL over the off budget trust fund figures then OBVIOUSLY those figures can not be used to measure his budget, can they? BUT THOSE TRUST FUND FIGURES ARE INCLUDED in the gross national debt figures. Remove them from the GROSS national debt figures and you will get the CBO figures which show Clinton’s budget and which reflect the real surpluses and debt reduction he accomplished by reducing ON BUDGET government spending.

Here is a page from the Bureau of Public Debt:

Check out the years 1997 -1999 when Clinton was in office. In all three of those years the debt held by the public WENT DOWN while the gross national debt went UP. Why do you suppose that happened? It happened because the debt held by the public is the true debt, including budetary spending which presidents have control over and the gross national debt includes off budget debt the government owes itself WHICH PRESIDENTS DO NOT HAVE CONTROL OVER. Also notice that when Clinton left office and President “Blood for Oil” was appointed by the Supreme Court BOTH the Debt Held By the Public AND the Gross National Debt started heading STRAIGHT UP again.

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm

The truth about the national debt always makes republicans look tererible. That’s why they ALWAYS use the Gross National Debt figures which include OFF budget debt when talking about the Clinton years.. They know the ON BUDGET figures prove what a success Clinton was compared to the miserable budget busting Repugs.

what about what SGP says? the reason debt/gdp is going down is because the money is worth less. that can’t be a good trend.

i still think you’ve been listening to rush or someone and just parrotting what he said. you found this link, but you don’t know what it says or what it means.

who or what is bueno arbusto? are you in some club that makes answering questions illegal?

debt/gdp ratio, less than 90’s, holding steady, decreasing trend. Bueno Arbusto.

One must remember that the value of money is only the common denominator of percieved values. This administration is not concerned about the size of the the debt because they don’t believe its their money. As the POTUS likes to say “Its your money”. Our fiscal problems won’t really begin until the Chinese, British, Japanese, and Saudis begin to think “your money” isn’t worth buying. When and if that happens hold on to your butt.

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~www/opdpen.cgi

Enter in the dates for Pres. Bush’s time in office, and watch how it goes up, up up.

It goes up under Pres. Clinton as well, but much MUCH slower, and if the Pres. Clinton trend had continued during Pres. Bush’s term, it would be MUCH lower than it currently is.

“And does anyone really understand why public debt is decreasing?”
Comment by Creepy Jackalope Eye — March 28, 2006 @ 10:46 pm

I don’t understand this either. Please explain.

I’m still waiting for your link to data proving that the “public debt” is lower as % of GDP under Pres. Bush.

I’ve given numerous posts to information about the Public Debt, both governmental and private, and they all show the same thing: Pres. Bush has a higher % of Debt (ALL debt) in actual dollars, and as a percentage of the GDP.

I think you’re being confused by the semantics of the argument by trying to separate “Public Debt” from “other debt”. Don’t allow others to feed you the line that things are just rosy and wonderful as we “borrow” ourselves to death.

You use the key words: “its current interest does not have to be financed by taxes
or other means”. Do tell, when will it be paid back? To whom will the final bill for the “other debt” fall when it comes due? How long will our current state of “deficit spending” take for us to crawl out from underneath the “debt”, both “public” and “other”?

Please, for the love of (whatever you hold dear), please provide one link, just one link, that supports your argument.

Gross federal debt includes debt held by the public and Government accounts.
Debt to government accounts does
not have any of the economic effects of borrowing from
the public. It is an internal transaction of the Government,
made between two accounts that are both within
the Government itself. It is not a current transaction
of the Government with the public; it is not financed
by private saving and does not compete with the private
sector for available funds in the credit market; it does
not provide the account with resources other than a
legal claim on the U.S. Treasury, which itself obtains
real resources by taxation and borrowing; and its current
interest does not have to be financed by taxes
or other means.

Answer me this one: Is “public debt” the only debt that Americans will have to pay back?

Answer: No. All debt held by the federal government must be paid back, and the Federal Government does not generate revenue. Therefore, it’s the American taxpayer who will have to “foot the bill” for all Federal debt.

Your “semantical” argument is just a way to try and cover for the failed fiscal policies of Pres. Bush.

Also, you were the one that begin calling people names. When you stop doing it, I will. Retarda-con.

You’re confused and mixing public debt with gross federal debt. There’s a difference, and if you’re werent’ so shallow and miopic you would spend some time educating yourself on the difference. Then you might be able to figure out why public debt is less than it was in the average in the 90’s and is decreasing. What a moron.

…Red China will allow us to restructure our democracy under another name?

Public debt is defined as: The cumulatiive total of all government borrowings less repayments that are denominated in a country’s home currency. Public debt should not be confused with external debt, which reflects the foreign currency liabilities of both the private and public sector and must be financed out of foreign exchange earnings.

Out of 113 listed countries, the US is #34 from the top in PUBLIC DEBT as a Percentage of GDP.

The CIA calls it “Public debt (% of GDP)”

Now, go cry over your failed sematic argument. Again.

Full quote from this US Treasury report:

“The current financial reporting model does not clearly and transparently show the wide range of responsibilities, programs, and activities that may either obligate the federal government to future spending or create an expectation for such spending. Thus, it provides a potentially unrealistic and misleading picture of the federal government’s overall performance, financial condition, and future fiscal outlook. The federal government’s gross debt* in the consolidated financial statements was about $8 trillion as of September 30, 2005. This number excludes such items as the gap between the present value of future promised and funded Social Security and Medicare benefits, veterans’ health care, and a range of other liabilities (e.g., federal employee and veteran benefits payable), commitments, and contingencies that the federal government has pledged to support. Including these items, the federal government’s fiscal exposures now total more than $46 trillion, up from about $20 trillion in 2000. This translates into a burden of about $156,000 per American or approximately $375,000 per full-time worker, up from $72,000 and $165,000 respectively, in 2000. These amounts do not include future costs resulting from Hurricane Katrina or the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Continuing on this unsustainable path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately our national security.”

*The federal government’s gross debt consists of debt held by the public and intragovernmental debt holdings.

Federal Debt up $26 TRILLION Since Dubya Took Office !!!

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2186.html

Now, Since the United States has PUBLIC DEBT at “64.7% of GDP (2005 est.)” now you can’t really run back to your cooked numbers to try and paint Pres. Bush as anything other than FISCALLY IRRESPONSIBLE.

As for the countries with LOWER PUBLIC DEBT AS % OF GDP THAN THE USA:
Venezuela
United Kingdom
United Arab Emirates
Ukraine
Uganda
Turkey
Tunisia
Trinidad and Tobago
Thailand
Tanzania
Taiwan
Syria
Switzerland
Sweden
Spain
South Africa
Slovenia
Slovakia
Serbia and Montenegro
Senegal
Saudi Arabia
Russia
Romania
Qatar
Poland
Peru
Paraguay
Papua New Guinea
Panama
Pakistan
Oman
Norway
Nigeria
New Zealand
Netherlands
Namibia
Mexico
Mauritius
Malaysia
Macedonia
Lithuania
Libya
Latvia
Kuwait
Korea, South
Kazakhstan
Ireland
Iran
Indonesia
Iceland
Hungary
Hong Kong
Guatemala
Gabon
Finland
Estonia
El Salvador
Ecuador
Dominican Republic
Denmark
Czech Republic
Croatia
Costa Rica
Colombia
China
Chile
Bulgaria
Brazil
Botswana
Bangladesh
Bahrain
Azerbaijan
Austria
Australia
Angola
Algeria

Do you want me to list them in ascending order?