The president labeled the debt-ceiling compromise "an agreement that will reduce the deficit and avoid default." It will do neither. It enables the government to borrow more atop its massive debt. And as I write @ FrontPageMag, it's not a phantom default but more borrowing that jeopardizes America's AAA-rating, a downgrade of which will make the cost of doing business-as-usual more costly.

Exactly. Well put. This is not a victory but an allowance to move us further towards perdition.

One has to ask how a spending limit of $14.2 Trillion was reached so fast in the first place (hint – a little GW and a LOT of 2006 Democrat Congress and a socialist President). The increase only prolongs letting the good times roll and to maintain business as usual and even if in the satchel rating agencies in this country are not honest enough to admit our weakened credit, the world markets will.

Will the Tea/GOP scum admit their own culpability for the accumulation of this debt? You could ask your common stock Tea Bag scum how the debt was accumulated, and they would lay all the blame at the feet of Obushma. But let's look at the facts, which are important.

It is an indisputable fact that before the beginning of the Reagan administration, the United States was the world's leading creditor nation. After massive tax cuts and binge spending, all signed into law by Reagan, the United States became the world's leading debtor nation. Oddly, Tea Bag scum have deified the man and administration responsible for turning the United States into a debt peon, and for changing the tax structure which allowed corporations to liquidate their manufacturing bases for short-term individual material gain. That's just a cold, hard, indisputable fact.

When calculating the actual dollar amount of debt accumulation each administration is responsible for, the indisputable facts are as follows: approximately $1 trillion dollars of our current debt was accumulated by administrations before Reagan, from October 1981-September 1989 (the Reagan budgets) 1.9 trillion was accumulated by Reagan, from October 1989-September 1993 $1.5 trillion by Bush 1, from October 1993-September 2001 1.4 trillion by Clinton, from October 2001 to September 2009 6.1 trillion by Bush, and from October 2009-July 2011, 2.4 trillion by Obushma (as a direct result of the financial crisis, which was the impetus for the bailouts, the impetus for the stimulus, and which led to lower revenues.)

So we see that the vast majority of the blame, when using facts, can be placed on Republican presidents signing irresponsible budgets into law. It's a fact.

PMA: If we're talking about presidents, the worst offender by far is Barack Obama. The scary part is that he isn't even finished with year three. By the end of his first term he will have presided over more debt than his predecessor did in two terms. That's no easy task given the profligacy of the last administration. I wonder if you, like most people, err in believing a president a dictator. Congress is a coequal branch of government. Might they share some blame in all this? In other words, there are mitigating factors: divided government usually is a positive for keeping spending down. Alas, your fetish for seeing the president as all powerful is shared by some members of Congress, who routinely turn over their powers to the president.

I don't think the President is all-powerful, and certainly wish every day that Congress would rise to become the preeminent branch that the Founders intended it to be.

However, as a political force, the President wins hands-down, particularly in a country with a disengaged, uninformed electorate. Obushma gave away the game, and has continued to do so, since the day he announced that the Geithner/Rubin/Summers crew would be running the show, along with neo-con Rahm.

Obushma is a disaster and a failure, but the blame for deficits cannot be placed on his shoulders. The reason for the deficits was the worst recession since the Great Depression that caused massive losses in revenue. If the country was more fully employed, and was producing at capacity, and if corporations and oligarchs actually employed their capital instead of hoarding it, and demand was vibrant instead of scant, we would be looking at much smaller deficits. If the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy had never been passed, we'd be looking at a much smaller total debt burden, because the tax rates at passage were far to the left of the crest of the Laffer Curve.

This whole Debt/Deficit hand-wringing is pure Tea/GOP claptrap. The majority of the U.S. debt is held by state and local governments, the public, and the federal government. Only a small amount of it is held by foreign countries. There should be a renaissance of public spending to build a 21st century infrastructure we can be proud of, just as our grandparents bequeathed to us. If the $700 billion dollar stimulus hadn't contained pork giveaways and tax cuts for the wealthy, and had instead been a pure stimulus (and a much bigger one), we'd have an improved infrastructure for our people and the market, state and local governments would be in a better position to meet the needs of the citizens they know best, and we'd maintain our competitive advantage throughout the world.

But that's not important to the market worshipers and your servile Teabag scum begging for scraps from their corporate masters. They're content to continue worshiping their golden calf on Wall Street.

It's clear that PMA is immune to reality or the facts. And, btw - that Obushma stuff is getting old and just makes you appear stupid.

Scary part? Yes, it is. Not even finished with his term and he now has another $2.4 Trillion to spend before he's done. And based on just two and half years of complete and utter disrespect for our rule of law and budget process, he will try to hit that number if possible. Hell, before 11/2010, he was talking about more Stimulus!

Now it's up to Congress to shut him down.

And if it weren't for new members of Congress including many members who either identify themselves as Tea Party members or who were strongly supported by the Tea Party, would the GOP establishment have done anything resembling a pushback on the most corrupt and profligate President that we’ve ever seen? I doubt it.

At least other Presidents and Congresses have taken budgets seriously. 800 days without a plan or a budget from this socialist crew. No plans but to raise taxes when discussing the debt limit, total disregard of his own debt commission after which submitting the only budget the Dem leadership has tried to come up with at $3.8 Trillion which was unanimously rejected by the Senate.

The bigger problem is that we have a complete failure of leadership and, from where I stand, the only ones looking to take some semblance of responsibility for leadership are members of the GOP, many of them with a Tea Party tilt.

I love it when atheists burst in the rooms and start hurling golden calves around...

Btw….how is it that we are still spending money to support an illegal war in Libya? The War Powers Resolution was passed after number of go arounds in 1973, mostly to curb future Executive shenanigans. But we now have a President who has completely bypassed Congress (well, in fairness, he did consult with the Arab League and the United Nations) and we are into way more than the 60 day requirement that Congress is to take control.

Just asking.

PMA: You can check the federal budget historical tables. The deficit in 2007 was about $160 billion. It's now about $1.6 trillion. What accounts for the dramatic rise? Revenues are down a few hundred billion dollars. Spending is up over a trillion dollars. The numbers just don't agree with you laying the deficit blame on "the worst recession since the Great Depression that caused massive losses in revenue." The losses in revenue are dwarfed by the massive rises in spending by about a 3-1 ratio.

In 1980, the federal debt totaled 32.6% of U.S. GDP. The federal deficit that year was 2.65% of GDP. The last time we had regular surpluses was late 40s to early 50s. 1969 was the most recent year with a budget surplus; we certainly never had such in the 70s. You have to go all the way back to 1919 to find the last time debt was less than 10% of GDP, and to before the Civil War to find it less than 3%. We haven't been a net "creditor" nation for ages, going way back before Reagan.

Today, the federal debt constitutes 102.63% of GDP -- up from 69.5% in 2008. Add all public debt (fed/state/local) together, and we are now at $18 trillion, or $120% of GDP. Our current 120% debt burden is up from 86.61% in 2008 and 71.15% in 2000. By comparison, bankrupt Greece’s debt load stands at 144% of its GDP. Zimbabwe is at 149% with a currency emptied of all value. Needless to say, America is on a dangerous course – one that is growing exponentially worse by the moment.

Dan, there's a difference between the debt and the deficit. Do you think expenditures would be as high as they are if it hadn't been for an increase in food stamp costs, unemployment benefits, TANF, and states needing assistance because their revenues are down? You haven't thought this through beyond a couple steps.

The increased deficit is a result of the worst recession since the Great Depression, with the sole exception of the stimulus and Bush bailouts.

Eric,

I didn't say that the U.S. was a "net" creditor nation. I said that before Reagan the United States was the leading creditor nation (as in, we loaned more money to other countries than any other country on earth.) After Reagan, the United States was no longer the world's leading creditor nation, but it did manage to become the world's leading debtor nation.

Dan,

You're sort of right but mostly wrong. I defer to Dr. Sachs to explain it to you.

"Every part of the budget debate in the U.S. is built on a tissue of willful deceit. Consider the Republican Party's double-mantra that the deficit results from "runaway spending" and that more tax cuts are the key to economic growth. Republicans claim that the budget deficit, around 10 percent of GDP, has been caused only by a rise in outlays. This is blatantly untrue. The deficit results roughly equally from a fall of tax revenues as a share of GDP and a rise of spending as a share of GDP.

On both sides of the ledger -- spending and taxes -- part of the shift results from the weak economy ("cyclical factors") and part from long-term trends. Spending, for example, is higher in part because of unemployment compensation, food stamps, and other federal spending to help the downtrodden in a weak economy. That's the "cyclical" component. Part of the higher spending reflects long-term patterns, such as rising health care costs and an aging population, as well as America's chronic addiction to wrongheaded wars and military occupations in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia." -Dr. Jeffrey Sachs

Well then if I may quote Marx:

"I think you've got something there, but I'll wait outside until you clean it up"

"Will the Tea/GOP scum admit their own culpability for the accumulation of this debt?"

How can the Tea Party (that is not necessarily synonomous with the GOP, by the way) admit culpability for something it had nothing to do with?

Clueless.

PMA: Why would some guy with a "Dr." prefixing his name saying something settle the matter? He doesn't cite any numbers. He just makes an assertion unsupported by any facts. Does a guy with a "Dr." prefixing his name saying something settle things for you?

Here are the numbers from the White House's own website:

In 2007, the federal government ran a deficit of $160,701 billion. They project a deficit of $1.65 trillion this year--in other words, ten times the 2007 amount. Revenues in 2007 was $2.567 trillion. Revenues in 2011 are estimated at $2.173 trillion. So, a decline in revenues accounts for about $400 billion of the expanded deficit. This is a substantial difference, but very minor relative to the dramatic change in spending. In 2007, our outlays were $2.7 trillion. In 2011, our outlays will be more than $3.8 trillion. That's a roughly $1.1 trillion increase in spending.

PMA, you do the math. You can even ask Dr. Sachs to assist your computations. Here's the puzzle: Which is greater? $1.1 trillion or $400 billion.

I'm not sure why you're incapable of recognizing the fact that these added expenditures are due to the greatest recession since the Great Depression and demographic trends related to an aging population. Do you think that we would be spending this additional money on unemployment benefits, TANF, food stamps, and other programs if millions were not unemployed and the economy was not under-producing as it is today? Our government would be running these deficits today whether John McCain, George Bush, Ron Paul, or Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino was President. That Obushma is President is incidental. The law is that these entitlement obligations must be met, and he is mandated to execute those laws, therefore the money has to be spent. Dr. Jeffrey Sachs cogently explained it to you in the previous post. What about his cogent, factual, and indisputable explanation don't you understand? How many more times must these facts be repeated before you understand that the deficit is directly related to demographic trends and the worst recession since the Great Depression, which causes government expenditures necessarily by law to increase?

I defer to the liberal Dr. Jeffrey Sachs for the same reason I defer to the conservative Dr. Keith Hennessey in matters of economics: because they've devoted their lives to the study of economics and have practical experience dealing with real-world economic problems. It's for the same reason I defer to a medical doctor who uses science to treat illnesses: because he knows what he's talking about. The facts are important, and I want to listen to people who deal in facts, not opinion.

Keith Hennessey is not technically a doctor, but holds a Masters in Public Policy from Stanford, and served in the Bush administration from 2002-2009.

Wow, he must be wicked smaaaaght!!!

We just *had* to explode the size of government. And look where it got us:
• Two million-private sector jobs have been lost.
• Unemployment jumped from 7.8 to 9.2 percent with a simply terrible 2011 first-quarter economic growth rate of just 0.4 percent.
• A record 1-in-7 Americans are on food stamps.
• Gasoline prices have more than doubled, from $1.83 to $3.74 per gallon average nationally.
• National debt increased 35 percent, to $14.5 trillion, or $137,000 for each taxpayer.
• National unfunded liabilities increased 47 percent, to $114.9 trillion, or a cool $1 million for each taxpayer (and this does not yet include Obamacare).

This latest debt ceiling vote was the 74th time we have raised the debt limit since 1962. (The budget grew dramatically when George W. Bush was president and it has exploded exponentially since Barack Obama took power. The debt limit has gone from less than $1 trillion in the 1980’s to $14.694 trillion today, with another automatic increase to $16.2 trillion later this fall. Just seven years ago, Congress raised the debt ceiling to $6.4 trillion, which means the U.S. debt has grown 2.5 times larger in less than a decade.)

Clearly, Obama isn't doing enough. We just had to do it to get to the wonderful place we are in now. And for same reason, we just have to do more! Listen to Krugman! We won't get out of this recession until we double or triple again our rate of spending. National debt $30 trillion or bust! It's just a number ... Onward!

Are they stupid or is there a method to this madness?

Alinsky tactics dictate that if someone wants to change the system, the existing one has to be torn down in order to re-build it as a Socialist or Collectivist Utopia. And we know that Obama is a student of Alinsky and Cloward-Piven where the intent is to force political change through manufactured crises.

Everything that’s been done by this White House since February 2009 has been contrary to our political process and good government and in many cases by dismissing our rule of law seemingly designed to provide for the opposite of healthy economic and social growth.

What we’ve witnessing here is chaos while the instigators fiddle.

PMA- please tell some more fairy tales!
Maybe like how Roosevelt saved the country with his "New Deal" economic programs,forget the fact that unemployment was still 20%.

Maybe tell us how the western euro socialist economic policies have actually benefited (i.e. jobs that were saved,or it could have been worse)
Italy,Spain,Ireland,etc.

You are a talker,as opposed to a doer. An individual who wants to be judged not on results,but good intentions.

Why is it that the vast majority of those who heap criticsm on the TEA (tax enough already) have never created a job nor have so little experience in the private sector.

The only difference between the academic left and a four year old who believes in Santa Claus is this, eventually a four year old grows up.
Same with your faculty lounge garbage about the wonders of Keynesian economic theory. BTW, are you really that whimpy Paul Krugman.

Lastly PDM, when did it become out of the mainstream to believe in the private sector creating jobs and small business being the back bone of US economic growth?
I guess if you believe the real world exists in some university faculty lounge.

Time to grow up PDM.