I've collected quite a few charts, graphs and articles on this topic so I'm going to post them here. This way, anyone who is not interested can skip this page.
US National Debt Graph: What They Never Tell You |
| The National Debt — Where Did it Come From? In 1981, the country had just elected Reagan to cure the "all-time-high, Trillion-Dollar debt." But compared with the size of the American economy, the debt was at its lowest point in fifty years (see graph just below). Reagan was duped by the "supply siders" and his greatest "disappointment" was adding $1.6 trillion to the $1T debt he said was catastrophic.  The full slide show is right below. In a hurry? Check out the short version: The Supply-Sider's Debt on Google, or e-Mail it to a friend. |
( And, if you like the video, please "Like" it. —Thanks much. ) Here's the link to email to your friends: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1bZ-TiX8rA Or, Start a chain e-letter here by mailing to one friend. |
 |
The green line shows what would have happened if Reagan and the Bushes had just kept the debt growing at the same rate as the economy. That would make their parts flat. Many conservatives claim Congress increased Reagan's budgets, but this is not the case as you can see documented here. WWII caused the debt to shoot up, starting in 1942, and reach 30% higher relative to the country's wealth than it is today. The economic stimulus of that government spending pulled us out of the great depression and into high gear to win the war. (When to save / when to borrow.) |
... The green line in the graph shows what would have happened if Reagan had proposed budgets that let the debt increase in step with inflation and the economy—if he had kept it at a constant fraction of GDP. That's not much to ask of a president who said he'd do far better than those before him, since every previous post-war president had actually reduced the debt as a fraction of GDP. By the end of the Reagan-Bush 12-year "revolution," the extra debt they had piled on the country was costing the country an extra 2.6% of GDP in interest—$300 million a day. Without that interest working against him, Clinton would have paid down the debt a bit faster. That helps the green-line goes down in the Clinton years. That's what would have happened without the Reagan-Bush interest burden. Now if W. Bush had held the line as all non-supply side presidents had done, the national debt would have been only 21% of GDP, and the country would have been ready to pull itself out of the Great Recession with ease. In fact when W. Bush's last budget year ended we would have had $9 Trillion less in debt. So how did Reagan, the great debt-slasher, go so far wrong? Partly it was his belief in supply-side "economics." This "theory" claims that when the government cuts taxes, especially taxes on corporations and the rich, it makes them so happy to keep more of their money that they work much harder, get richer, and pay even more taxes than before the tax cut. So the lower the tax rate, the more money the government collects to pay down the debt! Believe that happy talk, and you can run up quite debt. Of course the rich loved this "theory" and fed the press many stories about the wonders of the new supply-side "economics" (cooked up by Laffer, as a graduate student). Money talks, and a lot of people listened. It's time to rethink what radical conservatives have done and are doing to our country. The Reagan-Bushes National Debt now totals $9.2 trillion. That's the lions share of our present debt. |
This chart is clickable if you go there, what you see is astounding.
http://www.lcurve.org/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Politicians Lie, Numbers Don't
And the numbers show that Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans.
...The only point is that if you find the Republican mantra of lower taxes and smaller government appealing, and if you care only about how fast the economy is growing, not how that growth is shared, you should vote Democratic. Of course, if you do care about things like economic inequality and children's health, you should vote Democratic. http://www.slate.com/id/2199810/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Socialist thugs are better at creating private sector jobs.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Socialist thugs are better at creating private sector jobs.
In other words, during the four years of a Democratic administration, private sector job creation has, on average, grown more than twice as quickly as it has under Republican administrations.
Take a look at the numbers:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scary New Wage Data
Now for some really scary breaking news, from the latest payroll tax data. Every 34th wage earner in America in 2008 went all of 2009 without earning a single dollar, new data from the Social Security Administration show. Total wages, median wages, and average wages all declined, but at the very top, salaries grew more than fivefold.
Scary New Wage Data
Now for some really scary breaking news, from the latest payroll tax data. Every 34th wage earner in America in 2008 went all of 2009 without earning a single dollar, new data from the Social Security Administration show. Total wages, median wages, and average wages all declined, but at the very top, salaries grew more than fivefold.
Not a single news organization reported this data when it was released October 15, searches of Google and the Nexis databases show. Nor did any blog, so the citizen journalists and professional economists did no better than the newsroom pros in reporting this basic information about our economy.
The new data hold important lessons for economic growth and tax policy and take on added meaning when examined in light of tax return data back to 1950.
The story the numbers tell is one of a strengthening economic base with income growing fastest at the bottom until, in 1981, we made an abrupt change in tax and economic policy. Since then the base has fared poorly while huge economic gains piled up at the very top, along with much lower tax burdens.
http://tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-8AGMUZ?OpenDocument
http://tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-8AGMUZ?OpenDocument
