Deficits
Some numbers for people who hear all the lies and false images painted by both sides at the debate:
Congressional Budget Office projected FY 2004 deficit: $422 billion ($23b under the mid July estimate and $56b under the march estimate, $100b under the project deficit when the President released his February budget).
Big question, how big is that? Measured against U.S. Gross Domestic Production (GDP) it's only 3.6%. That's honestly nothing special. It's large in real dollar terms but when measured against our economic strength (currently about $12.5 trillion) it was exceeded 9 times since 1982 and 1993, six of those times the deficit was over 4.5%.
The FY 2005 outlook is better too, it's down to $348 billion, 2.8% of GDP. The reason this is declining so much is because government revenues are increasing. As you would expect (since government revenues are based upon taxes and duties/fees) the economy is growing much faster than previously expected. Overall we have an economic decrease under Bush...but only because of a huge economic shock on September 11, 2001. Since then we've had large growth that has accounted for most of those revenues.
So what does this mean? Greenspan's smart. It's hard to say how much an administration is responsible for economic growth. Greenspan has been advising Reaganomics however (along with several other advisors). In otherwords, don't worry about government deficits and spending, make sure that the incentives are in place for private investors to offset that by increased revenues. It does work, with an economy the size of the U.S. one no one really cares about our deficits, it's not like people won't lend us money. So tax cuts are effective, they provide more incentive to the people who drive our economy. But only when the tax cuts are across the board. Tax cuts on middle and lower class with increases to upper class actually tend to hurt economic growth because guess who has enough economic weight to drive the economy.
In the end at least now you know what the numbers are, not as good as Republicans try to paint them but not anywhere in the same realm as being as bad as Kerry and Edwards have stated. Again, remember these don't come from either party, they're from the CBO "Budget and Economic Outlook" which is available for anyone to read (if you're that bored).
Congressional Budget Office projected FY 2004 deficit: $422 billion ($23b under the mid July estimate and $56b under the march estimate, $100b under the project deficit when the President released his February budget).
Big question, how big is that? Measured against U.S. Gross Domestic Production (GDP) it's only 3.6%. That's honestly nothing special. It's large in real dollar terms but when measured against our economic strength (currently about $12.5 trillion) it was exceeded 9 times since 1982 and 1993, six of those times the deficit was over 4.5%.
The FY 2005 outlook is better too, it's down to $348 billion, 2.8% of GDP. The reason this is declining so much is because government revenues are increasing. As you would expect (since government revenues are based upon taxes and duties/fees) the economy is growing much faster than previously expected. Overall we have an economic decrease under Bush...but only because of a huge economic shock on September 11, 2001. Since then we've had large growth that has accounted for most of those revenues.
So what does this mean? Greenspan's smart. It's hard to say how much an administration is responsible for economic growth. Greenspan has been advising Reaganomics however (along with several other advisors). In otherwords, don't worry about government deficits and spending, make sure that the incentives are in place for private investors to offset that by increased revenues. It does work, with an economy the size of the U.S. one no one really cares about our deficits, it's not like people won't lend us money. So tax cuts are effective, they provide more incentive to the people who drive our economy. But only when the tax cuts are across the board. Tax cuts on middle and lower class with increases to upper class actually tend to hurt economic growth because guess who has enough economic weight to drive the economy.
In the end at least now you know what the numbers are, not as good as Republicans try to paint them but not anywhere in the same realm as being as bad as Kerry and Edwards have stated. Again, remember these don't come from either party, they're from the CBO "Budget and Economic Outlook" which is available for anyone to read (if you're that bored).