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Economics C‑class Mid‑importance

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Inclusion of POV material from the New York Times and Obama Administration

Surely it is imbalanced when we have our main sources as

1) a newspaper that hasn't endorsed a Republican candidate since Eisenhower 2) a democratic Administration

I mean seriously, would it be NPOV if everything came from Dick Cheney and Fox News? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.177.205.223 (talk) 21:22, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I don't understand your concern. Is it honestly that the information is coming from the New York Times and the Federal Government? -Achowat (talk) 22:38, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we have information on partisan political questions from a newspaper that will stoop to the level of supporting an attempt to frame innocent criminal defendants. And we are backing it up with statements from political appointees of an Administration which claimed that there was no political involvement at Solyndra, and that Inspector Walpin was fired because he was "confused" and "disoriented."

Does that represent a neutral point of view?

In the article we are not 'taking sides' on any Partisan Political issues, just merely stating the facts that help frame a partisan political discussion, which I'm sure you can agree is different. We're not getting this from the Cato Institute or the Daily Worker, we're getting this from the US Federal Government and the New York Times. I'm sorry, but the fact that you may disagree with some of the openly political statements of the Editorial Board does not make the news reported in the Times POV. -Achowat (talk) 12:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

No, the whole point is that the study cited does not refer to facts; it refers to the NYT's interpretation of facts, which is another matter entirely. And you seem to be ignoring the whole multiple-front-page-articles-supporting-a-frame-of-three-rape-defendants-in-spite-of-videotape-of-one-of-them-at-another-location-while-the-"crime"-was-supposedly-occurring angle. Are you comfortable with taking at face value reporting from a newspaper that did that? 140.177.205.223 (talk) 22:45, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

On Misplaced Pages, the NYT is widely accepted as a reliable source, and so is the US government. If you wish to argue otherwise, I suggest taking it up at the appropriate venue, the reliable sources noticeboard. LK (talk) 03:57, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Crucial Data Removed

In addition to a few responses I made to the other topics addressed, the three columns that were removed are GDP, Beginning and Ending Debt. These really need to be added so that the entire table becomes more valid. Not only would it allow users to easily find the information they seek when they look up national debt, but allow them to check it against their own data. The table becomes meaningless when the data is removed. Ghanima1971 (talk) 12:03, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I came here looking for ending debt numbers. Why remove them? Gearspring (talk) 17:59, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Including Obama

Can someone revise the graph to include a blue field for Obama's tenure? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Erowe1 (talk • contribs) 15:18, 7 October 2010 (UTC) --Erowe1 (talk) 15:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Most of the graphs on this page that include Obama are incorrectly including the 2009 budget numbers as being his. The 2009 budget was passed before he was sworn into office. The federal budget starts on October 1st.--Toyotabedzrock (talk) 03:38, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Obama signed $862 Billion stimulus, which was not included in the budget. I did revised the table using $15.007 T/$14.961 T (debt/GDP) in percent at end of fiscal year 2011, noting that the US debt on January 20, 2009 was $10.627 Trillion. I thought since 2011 Fiscal year ended, those ending numbers be included. They can be revised when 2011 ends. Ghanima1971 (talk) 03:19, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

biased chart

Hey, why not start the chart in 1929? Now the Democrats would look terrible -- we can blame them for the Great Depression! This would make just as much sense as the current charts, which effectively blame Republicans for the collapse of the internet bubble and the aftereffects of 9/11. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.222.48.17 (talk) 00:04, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I edited the page, someone is putting the year (2010) in the wrong column for only Obama, next to all of his figures. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Micfri (talk • contribs) 18:09, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I wish Misplaced Pages had a Like button. Excellent job of putting the data together. It is not biased. It is funny, I remember the republicans arguing that "the budget does not matter" and pushing hard against Clinton's leadership to reduce it. What is completely crazy about the comments on this page of the president not having a say in balancing the budget is that Clinton actually on a platform to balance the budget. Really, do you have such short memories? On the other hand,(since I am not as biased as many of the people who are commenting on this page) Clinton's platform to reduce the budget actually was pushed during infomercials by the republican guy in Texas with the big hat (forgot his name). Since the republicans seem to always want to take warp the facts, I think we should just give the guy from Texas 100% of the credit. I on the other hand will give Clinton credit for learning from the texas guy and making it part of his plan.

I am in a social economic class where there are way more republicans than democrats. I am very tired of hearing them criticize the democrats with half baked truths and not standing up for things. Face the facts guys. The republicans, starting with Reagan, felt that it was totally fine to spend money we did not have while pretending to be fiscally responsible. In addition, the crisis that we are in right now can be laid at George W.’s feet for getting us into the Iraq war under false pretenses. Anyone who does not think that this is a huge contributor to the situation is delusional. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.239.26.127 (talk) 13:25, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

the chart is biased in that it starts right at the peak of WW2 / New Deal debt. the chart suggests that FDR reduced the federal debt, which is misleading.

it should also be noted that looking at the "percent of gdp" side of this debt is problematic, because gdp contracted during the depression, making debt look much larger in relation to gdp than it would normally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.81.255.254 (talk) 10:56, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the best data starts in 1947 . . . DOR (HK) (talk) 06:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

It's completely biased in that it attempts to lead people to believe that Democrats are good and Republican are bad. If not, how about updating this with the Obama/Pelosi numbers? And/Or contrast the comparison with the amount of debt by makeup of congress. I've done this before and have some data available. Jkjfoley (talk) 20:26, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Or maybe look at the fact that the graph pegs Bush at 40%, even though the chart says its at 60%. Someone fix the graph? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jincongz (talk • contribs) 15:19, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Quality data didn't exist prior to the 1940s. Obama/Pelosi's data isn't yet available since the first time of Obama has not yet finished, and all of these numbers are based on the end of the terms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.112.192 (talk) 18:54, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

The real problem with this whole article is that the seated congress often creates entitlement programs that account for decades of massive FUTURE spending... this should be attributed to the congress that passed it (e.g. Medicare) and we would see where the real "spending" is taking place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DerekMD (talk • contribs) 09:54, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this article tries to do too much without explaining what it cannot do. For example, it does not report that "debt" is the amount of Federal Treasury notes issued, not the amount of debt that should be recorded on the balance sheet of the Federal government. For example, under GAAP, a corporation must record the CURRENT actuarial amount of its pension obligations, even though it may not be required to make those payments for several years. Corporations do not record the true value of that actuarial debt (they use a larger discounted amount than the amount that will actually accrue to their pension assets, they are only required to record 80-90% of the liability, etc.), but they still record something under GAAP that makes it easy to compare corporations to see how much future obligation is coming.

The federal government does not record ANY amount of its future obligations as "debt." As a consequence, it looks like debt increased at a slow rate during the Clinton years, when in fact it was ballooning on an actuarial basis because Clinton was using the increased taxes from Social Security (remember when he taxed 50% of Social Security benefits for the "rich" in the 1993 Act?) to have to borrow less -- he was essentially borrowing more from the "Social Security trust fund" -- and from future generations -- for his entire tenure.

To be fair, George W. Bush added Medicare Part D, which decreased the cost of Medicare, but increased the overall amount of the unrecorded actuarial indebtedness of the Federal government. To be fair again, when Barack Obama proposes a payroll tax holiday, he is further creating an actuarial imbalance in Social Security and Medicare.

So any article like this needs to explain the difference between current account balances and actual indebtedness. While the US debt limit may be $16 trillion now -- which at roughly $49,000 for every man, woman and child in the country is probably unpayable -- the amount of actuarial debt for Social Security and Medicare ranges from around $70 trillion to $114 trillion. No one really knows what the number is. That means that the actual amount to be paid by every man, woman and child in the country is really closer to $300,000. Since roughly 50% of the population is not paying any taxes other than FICA taxes, and 50% of the remainder are paying at a pretty low level, the taxpayers that are truly going to pay this debt probably owe something like $1.2 million per taxpaying individual. Truly staggering.

But this article does not really try to be objective. The first footnote -- that records that Congress rarely approves the full amount of the President's budget -- is sourced from 1990 and ignores recent history.

Neither this article nor the comments capture the true magnitude of the debt. I know there is no way to resolve this dilemma since the debate seems to be joined between partisans on this page, but there are some serious economists who have looked at these issues, and it may be worth asking them to weigh in. Perhaps a liberal economist and a conservative economist could see if they could write this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CRBarker3 (talk • contribs) 20:07, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I would like to see more about actuarial debt in this article too. It currently seems to be written by a Democrat partisan. Where is NPOV? Gearspring (talk) 17:55, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

nearly meaningless chart

All spending originates in the House of Representatives. A similar chart based on the party in control of the house would be more in tune with political realities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.244.5.31 (talk) 15:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not true that spending originates in the House. They don't START the budget process, but are the second step in the process.

Step 1) The President, as head of the Executive Branch, sends over a budget request every February, just after the State of the Union address.

Step 2) The House then starts begins debate on the President's budget request, makes changes, then passes their suggestions on to the Senate. The Senate makes further changes, and the differences between the two houses are nailed down in committee. Once the differences are nailed down in Congress, the budget is sent to the President.

Step 3) The President either signs off on the budget, or vetoes it. Reagan and Clinton both had historic government shutdowns because of their vetoes. A veto has to go back to Congress, and the veto is either overwritten with a two-thirds majority, or changes are made and sent back to the President.

The reason this page is appropriate is because 1) the President starts the budget process, and 2) he signs off on it, regardless of the changes made by Congress.

Finally, a fiscal year runs from October 1 of the prior year to September 30 of the fiscal year. Budgets are enacted BEFORE elections. Consequently, the first year of a President's term actually falls under their predecessor's final budget (for example, fiscal year 2001 started Oct 1, 2000, before G.W. Bush was elected; that made it Clinton's final budget).

Well, the buck has to stop somewhere, so I don't have a problem with that issue. However, the chart Image:Annual federal outlay.png isn't adjusted for inflation, which does make the chart meaningless. I move to delete it.Notmyrealname (talk) 20:07, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The whole thing seems to be an exercise in Misplaced Pages-as-original-statistics-compilation. An actual article, with references, about the relationship between national debt and presidential terms, might be useful. There are plenty of references arguing both sides of that, so one could be written. But this sort of original research isn't very useful. --Delirium (talk) 11:30, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Little known fact: adjusting for the President's party controlling one, two or no houses of congress doesn't change the simple fact that Republican'ts are fiscally irresponsible. Try it yourself, and see! DOR (HK) (talk) 09:04, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Then how can you explain that it was the GOP congress' budget that was nearly in balance during the Clinton years? --68.212.10.233 (talk) 04:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

The same way it can be explained that it was the same GOP Congress that ran up debt under Bush. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.112.192 (talk) 18:55, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you include it then (or regardless of whether or not it enforces what the first graph suggests)? There don't seem to be many graphs that take it into account available. This is rather curious... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.65.212.68 (talk) 19:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The fact is that politicians aren't fiscally responsible, and that's true on the state, local, and national levels. Party doesn't enter into it, except that, it's pretty obvious that they're out to trump one another as to which one can be the most fiscally incompetent group in human history before the whole thing falls apart. Considering that Obama & the Dems are now on track to overspend by a trillion dollars EACH YEAR for the next 10 years (http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/85237-cbo-estimates-huge-deficits-average-1-trillion-per-year-for-the-next-decade), I think the Dems are going to win that sorry-assed award. OBloodyHell (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The first comment was correct. The "buck" stops at Congress. This entire wikipedia article is willfully misleading, politically based and biased. A breakdown by who controlled Congress at the time is a good deal more interesting (and actually does not particularly favor Republicans or Democrats, which I guess is why you Democrats continue to support this false page.) 128.222.37.58 (talk) 20:37, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Apart from your own partisan personal preference, do you have any supporting evidence for your view? There are several reliable sources cited on the page that point out that the total size of the budget is essentially determined by the president. Additionally, if what you say is correct, won't you expect a systematic relationship between congressional party control and the size of the deficit? LK (talk) 01:24, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I got news for you: Its the Presidents office that writes the budget that submitted to Congress, staffs the regulatory agencies, and sets the overall economic policy. Spending approved by Congress that is not a part of the overall budget would have a relative ding to the size of overall spending. That being said, I'm not opposed to adding two collumns to the chart that would measure the spending approved in the budget, and total spending for the fiscal year as a comparison. If anything, we'll at least get numbers on how bad each Congress was at adding on pork after the budget passed... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamerk2 (talk • contribs) 15:11, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

It's true that the buck stops with Congress when it comes to federal budgets. But why bring that up here? This is an article about the national debt during for presidential terms, not congressional makeup? If somebody wants to have comparable information for congressional makeup, then they should just make another article for that.--Erowe1 (talk) 15:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I think you all are missing the point. It's not up to you to decide who is responsible for the budget it is the reader's responsibility. You are responsible for providing the facts. I think the budget numbers are fairly accurate. Let them stand on their own. You do not have to highlight the data by president. I think the fairest way to present the facts is to present two charts. One by who is president and one by who is in control of the House. Let the reader decide who is more responsible. Of course, which ever chart you put first would suggest they are more responsible. Perhaps another option is to put the president in office in the first column and highlight the rows based on who is in control of the House. I do believe the budget is generated in the House. The president submits a budget but when the House is controlled by the other party it is pretty much Dead On Arrival. The president does have the power to veto budget items. Maybe a discussion of the federal budget process would make the article more complete. What you leave out is often time more important than what is said in an article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.35.44.24 (talk) 19:45, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Time series plot?

It would be nice to see a plot of the year-by-year GDP and public debt, with shades indicating which President's party was then in office (similar to the one now used on the United State Public Debt page). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.239.215.69 (talk) 19:42, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Using GDP for any comparison creates a false picture of economy activity, you may ask why? Well the formula for the GDP adds in "government spending". GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)

Democratic spending will typically increase government programs, while republican spending typically funnels more $ to private firms and is more aligned with tax cuts. The GDP is not capable determining private sector growth from government growth. For the record while I'd admit to being fiscally conservative and perhaps more libertarian, neither republican or democrat (they are all as bought and sold like sheep) I desire accurate measures of how our economy is doing. Ever really look at a GDP chart? Its meaningless, and I think meant to be .... its a misleading picture. Thus, measuring deficits and federal debt against it doesn't reveal anything meaningful. Deficits and total debt do carry meaning. And I'd agree that it is congress rather than the president who set the stage for most spending. harmles2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.66.111.165 (talk) 17:31, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm just going to throw out there that conventional wisdom agrees with the above comment (Democrats spend more Republicans tax less) but these are not cited facts. Also, GDP is GPD, it has to be supported by the country in question and measures the size of their economy. The criticism applies only in the very short run, there is no long run way of expanding the economy by manipulating government spending, otherwise there would not be poor countries. 0 (talk) 15:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

The line of data for Obama in the Table of Federal Spending, Federal Debt, and GDP is incorrect. The first entry is $3,991. The second entry should be $3,991/1.29 or $3,094. Changes all the percentages sharply in the rest of the line. Accidental or intentional?

No Special Appropriation Spending

This doesn't include the additional money being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan as seperate appropriations. Adding it will significantly increase recent debt. Also, it is not clear if this spending is included in these debt numbers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neepster (talk • contribs) 02:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Public Debt Chart

The Public Debt Chart is confusing because the colors for the Democrat and Republican presidential terms in office do not match the colors of the words Democrat and Republican.

I don't think it is appropriate to remove value-adding content that has been requested by other readers, before it has been duly discussed.

Please be specific about your complaints: (remove erroneous chart. It does nor reflect table 7.1 in the cited source; also grammatically incorrect. please correct it before reinserting)

I have double checked the numbers and they seem ok. Bear in mind that this is public debt, not gross debt. Since other readers may share the same confusion, I have adjusted the text for more clarity. Dejo (talk) 02:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The table immediately above the new chart shows that the estimated gross debt in 2009 is 68% of GDP. Public debt is a completely different figure - with the chart showing about 40% of GDP. Where is the primary source for this chart? And "Democrat" is a noun. "Democratic" is an adjective. Having a chart with data that doesn't match the adjacent table, no footnotes, and a glaring grammatical error makes Misplaced Pages look terrible. Although an anonymous reader did ask for a chart showing "public debt", "gross debt" is a much more important measure, since Social Security will have to be paid out of the difference.--Appraiser (talk) 13:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

You are deleting valuable content that has been requested. The graphic was contained within its own section on 'public debt' which was clearly distinguished from gross debt. You may think gross debt is more important, but that is your opinion (this is not an article about social security). NPOV says when in doubt, that it is better to present multiple sides of the story rather than deleting the ones you don't agree with. The money that the government owes to itself is clearly easier to pay off than the public debt. You have questioned the source twice now, which is baffling because it is cited both within the graphic and linked at the bottom of the page. I agree with you that there is a grammatical error on the chart, but Misplaced Pages's editorial policy favors keeping imperfect content if it adds knowledge. I am putting the graphic back. Do not delete it again unless you come up with an economist consensus that public debt is a poor metric. Dejo (talk) 06:50, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

It looks as if you are the creator of the chart. Do you have the capability to fix the grammatical error?--Appraiser (talk) 14:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

On what basis do you think that "The money that the government owes to itself is clearly easier to pay off than the public debt?"--Appraiser (talk) 14:27, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I created the original chart and then someone else added the colors and the Democrat/Republican labels. That makes the fix a little more time consuming and I am also facing a software constraint at the moment. At the time, it seemed like the public debt was the more significant indicator of health. I haven't seen any compelling evidence to overturn that notion.

I recently heard economist/journalist Robert Kuttner describe the current debt as 40% on Fresh Air, so he thinks that the public debt is the more relevant figure. Concerning my reasoning, it seems rather obvious that money owed to self is not too bad. Actually, I would turn the question on its head, and call for justification for including self-debt. For one thing, I would assume that you don't have to pay much interest on it - seeing as these are just IOU's from one department to another and not actual debt instruments. Often it is said that the use of gross debt is a way of exaggerating the amount of debt. The public debt is also known as "real debt" or "actual debt". Here is an article on that sort of thing.

I would say that your assertion about Social Security being paid out of the difference needs substantiation. That doesn't really make sense as you cannot use money owed as a source of revenue. I think I know what you are talking about and yes Social Security is going to be a problem in a couple of decades, but that probably does not bear on this point.Dejo (talk) 05:55, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Long before Social Security "runs out of money", the program will need to cash in its internal bonds, straining the general budget, which currently is subsidized by the program's surplus. This will cause either much higher taxes or inflation, or both. I don't see this internal debt as being "easy to pay off". An alternative is to slash promised Social Security benefits. We'll see if that's a political possibility.--Appraiser (talk) 23:07, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

That sounds about right. What fraction of the self-debt is borrowed from Social Security? That would help understand this further. The social security self-debt is clearly worse than other self-debt since it is systematic. However it is not quite as bad as public debt since it does not incur financing charges. When the new budget comes out, I will make a graphic which includes both gross and public debt curves on it. Dejo (talk) 06:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The last column looks like it is mislabeled. The changes given are in percentage points not percent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.124.254.20 (talk) 04:51, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the chart is a pretty good idea in principal but is poorly excecuted. The House controls the budget and the data really needs to summarize for Republican controlled Houses and Democratic controlled Houses. The deflation indicator is also incredibly misleading. Between 80 and 81 the indicator shows a change from 50 to 56. This is a 12 percent inflation rate. The period from 2009 to 2010 shows a change of 1.27 to 1.29. This is a 1.5% rate of inflation. The indicator changed 6 points versus 2 points but the actual inflation rate was almost 8 times as much. I was a kid in the 70s. I know how high inflation was and I know why Jimmy Carter wasn't elected president again. 192.35.44.24 (talk) 20:05, 25 February 2011 (UTC)PJB

The chart is misleading for the year 2010 which has "split control of congress." In 2010, the Democrats had complete control of Congress. Republicans did not control the House of Representatives until January, 2011. The 2010 graph should be blue, not purple. 2011 should be the first purple graph. JCM — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.47.87.132 (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

On "Borrowing from Social Security"... The Social Security Trust Fund has lots of money, which it has to keep somewhere. This money could be stored as gold (which has been quite volatile in recent decades, so that would be irresponsible investing), or as cash (which degrades through inflation, so that would be irresponsible too), or in the stock market (again, volatile and subject to accusations of political market manipulation), or in government bonds (which earn interest and are reasonably safe). In fact, SSTF invests most of its money in government bonds, as seems appropriate for a government agency. But another name for "SSTF investing in government bonds" is "government borrowing from SSTF". If the government isn't going to borrow from SSTF, who will? Is there a better place for SSTF to put its money? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbloch (talk • contribs) 16:55, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Misc

Hello Does anyone take into consideration all of the events or catastrophes.crises,etc,natural or unforseen that took place all through the Bush terms 2001 thru 2008, and that both houses were Democratic controlled.Which certainly accounts for a good portion of the spending and debt excluding the Iraq war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.221.94.183 (talk) 21:44, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

You're wrong. The Republicans controlled both the House and Senate for the first six years under Bush. They lost control in the 2006 elections, handing both over to the Democrats.

Can you come up with some objective measure of the clamaties that show that Republican Presidents have been hit with more than Democratic Presidents. For 911, the impact and implications of Pearl Harbor is at least a match, yet the result wasn't a recession and increased unemployment. The first oil embargo occurred during Nixon's term and the second during Carter's term, but the economic impact wasn't as bad as the possible impact of increased oil prices in 2008. The real problem with presenting the data in this fashion is we don't gain an understanding of the specific policies that have positive and negative impacts on the economy. However, if you are correct in arguing that wars and embargos, and other similar factors are the cause of the different economic metrics, then the question would be, what is it about the polices of the two parties that cause there to be more or less international conflict. What I notice in the conservative literature to justify their position that their policies are best is to engage in data analysis and explanation that is applicable to only specific periods. Eg. Reagan cutting taxes was responsible for the growth that followed, ignoring all the tax hikes that followed, but the poor performance of the Bush administration even after unrelenting tax cutting to levels well below any during Reagan's term is explained by a whole host of things, for which similar things were seen during JFK/LBJ/Nixon. Mulp (talk) 19:00, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Unless we consider all federal budgets to originate from the rabbit hole of Alice in Wonderland we must have some confidence in the federal budgetary process and in the numbers, be they from the OMB or the CBO, reflecting reality and it should be only a matter of arithmetic including whether they are or are not inflation-adjusted - we can take that all away back to the First Continental Congress. The Bush43 Administration, and on occasion past administrations, have employed what is euphemistically termed "off-budget appropriations" but in the end they come out of some pocket and must be accounted in the fiscal year. The Bush43 Administration has employed the technique of off-budgeting, emergency and supplemental budget requests numerous times and this is a matter of the historical record. The comment that Bush faced a crisis, presumably to justify deficit spending, is understandable but unnecessarily defensive. Washington, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt (Franklin not Theodore) and Bush41 among other presidents also managed a crisis; they had budgets to content with and the justification for the spending - Washington had the Revolution, Madison had the War of 1812, Jackson (who lowered the deficit to thirty three thousand dollars plus change) had accumulated a debt during a severe depression in 1837-44, Lincoln had the Civil War, Wilson had World War I and Roosevelt had the Great Depression and War War II. Massive budget deficits were accumulated by purported fiscally conservative Republicans: Ronald Reagan, Bush41 (George Herbert Walker Bush - first Iraq War, savings and loan crisis) and George W. Bush (Bush43) with only William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton, the 42nd President, reining in the national debt and leaving office with a surplus. George W. Bush has had a Republican Congress to rubber stamp his agenda in both Houses of Congress from January 3, 2001, when he entered office (Inauguration on January 20), through January 3, 2007, when the off-year elections saw the Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives and obtain a slim 51 vote majority (with the help of two independents) in the U.S. Senate. Spending requests, while originating in the House of Representatives, represent the Fiscal Year Budget of the Administration. Not withstanding "checks and balances", the Executive Branch is exceptionally difficult to thwart because it exercises direct control over every department of the federal government. This, allied with the threat of a Presidential Veto requiring a 2/3 majority in both houses to overturn, the absence of 60 or more votes to force cloture in the U.S. Senate, giving the minority the power to obstruct the passage of any bill simply by threatening a filibuster, we can clearly see that the Republicans continued to hold sway (and continue until the 111th Congress convenes on January 3, 2009, and the Inauguration of the 44th President of the U.S. on January 20, 2009). So, George W. Bush has been in thorough control, in concert with a Republican Congress, for eight years. Bush43 has had the War on Terror, the Iraq War and the financial meltdown on Wall Street, as a justification for his profligacy. History will record, not us, whether it is (and was) a morally and ethically justified expenditure of the trillions of dollars (not to mention lives). I expect that he will be treated like Warren G. Harding of whom the poet E. E. Cummings said on hearing of his demise "The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead.". Kenfowler1945 (talk) 22:55, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

LBJ had his Great Society programs and the Vietnam War to pay for, but still reduced the deficit. I think its because he had control of Congress like no other President - before or since. Steven1992 (talk) 15:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Spending

The third section which talks about spending could use some improvement. The two plots could ideally be replaced by a single plot with three curves that all span the same period. It is also not clear whether these are adjusted dollars or not.

Moved the two plots to the last section; they probably should not be included on this Wiki page because the plots are not delineated by U.S. presidential terms. The plots should be on a more general page, in all likelihood. Sicjedi (talk) 20:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Second, the table is two wide and unwieldy. I propose deleting the "billions" and "inflation adjustor" columns. It might also be good to delete the GDP and debt columns. It would be nice to add a column specifying the party holding power in Congress. Dejo (talk) 06:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

The table has been reduced some, partially by fixing the "citation needed" requests. The "billions" and "inflation adjustor" seem to contain highly relevant information: What was the federal debt exactly at the end of GWB's first term, for example? Inflation could be viewed as a hidden tax, so it is also important to see how this changes during different presidential terms. Sicjedi (talk) 20:53, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I have been trying to update the last table "Federal spending, federal debt, and GDP", but am unable to figure out what year the inflation adjustment is adjusting to. The closest I can come to is the assumption for example for the 2007 numbers that the adjustment to 2004 was used. Can the originator of this table please comment and/or update to the present fiscal year (2009).--Neepster (talk) 22:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Notes

All the links under Notes link back to this very page--should they be links at all? Kcor53 (talk) 15:40, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Federal spending, federal debt, and GDP

The percentage figures in the summary (top) portion of the chart show the total increases in spending, debt and GDP during the terms of Presidents and totaled over the times each party has held the Presidency. This is misleading; it would be better to show the average per year for at least the time each party has held the job, and in my opinion for each presidential term also.JakartaDean (talk) 07:09, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The percentages you are talking about are from "the average of the values for all the presidents in that party," as is indicated by the notes. They are not "total increases." The average is of the percent increase for each 4-year presidential term of each party. Sicjedi (talk) 21:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

There is this thing called Congress

i just wanted to make another post on this discussion page asking why whoever wrote it did not include congress. seeing as how they approve the budget.Decora (talk) 09:04, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The President proposes the budget and often gets basically what was asked for. But I think the real reason is that with 537 elected and hundreds of more unelected officials having a hand in the budget, this is a necessary simplification. Basically, the President sets the tone. O (talk) 14:50, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I would also add that this descriptions of the data is what it is. It is certainly flawed in the sense of thinking of the President as making a unitary selection of the debt level, but the President is not only a politician but also the leader of the country and so they define their era broadly in terms of how people thing of a time. i.e., "That was during the Carter administration, so we were all wearing broad lapels." Obviously Carter didn't change lapel size, but he is a touchstone for the time period. O (talk) 18:00, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Your answer is dismissive and clearly the result of either political bias or a lack of knowledge about the way our government works, neither of which have any place here. As Decora (and others here) have pointed out, it is congress that spends our money and what they actually spend each year only vaguely resembles the budget that is initially proposed by the executive branch.

Take a look at this chart. The data comes from two government sites: one for the Senate and one for the House of Representatives

If this data was presented as part of the charts in this article it would present a more realistic picture of which party is more or less fiscally responsible. Far from complicating the presentation, if the data was color coded red/blue as it is in the chart above it would actually simplify things, IMHO.

One more thing: the first two lines of the graph in the last section of the article should be removed completely as they present a politically biased conclusion based on incomplete data. Eegorr (talk) 07:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that if you want that sort of page (one that lists all three affiliations of two of the branches of government) then you should be bold and create that page. This page regards debt by presidential term.

However, I think that your comment does raise a good point that a little arguing for this type of analysis is called for. I wonder if there is a reference that shows the similarity between the Presidents proposed budget and the eventual law. 0 (talk) 20:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

General Comments

I changed the dates of Eisenhower's first term from 1953-1959 to 1953-1957.

In general, I find this article informative, and the reader can draw his own conclusions from the information presented. I don't think it takes any genius to see, for example, that the reduction under Truman was due to an economic boom and the military build-down after WW2, whereas the increase under GW Bush was due to slow economic growth, combined with a tax cut and two wars. An explanation would surely break down into partisan debate, which is inappropriate here.

We already have articles on the United States budget process and the United States federal budget which partisans would do well to read before commenting here.

One thing which is not clearly explained in these articles: Preparing a budget is a VERY involved process, involving requests and reviews of these requests in every branch of government. This is pretty well beyond the capabilities of the Congress; they don't have the staff nor the time. This was the reason for the United States federal government shutdown of 1995: Gingrich couldn't simply pass the budget he wanted, he demanded that Clinton prepare a new one. Despite much heated debate in Congress, the total federal budget always comes in within about 1% of the president's request.

--Forrest Johnson (talk) 22:13, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Misleading Chart

The chart was very good and informative why did you guys delete it? I might readd it unless I get a good reason. 1.31.12 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.24.66.33 (talk) 19:19, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Even though Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 and took office in January 1993, the presidential year 1993 is attributed to George H.W. Bush. George W. was elected in 2000 and took office in January 2001, the presidential year 2001 is attributed to Clinton. I assume it was done this way by Democrat-leaning editors to make Democrat presidents appear more fiscally prudent. While the preceding president does have a role in preparing the first year budget of his successor, the any budget deficit or surplus belongs to the president in office during that year. I am sure the next thing we will see on this page is an attempt to assign 2009 to Bush despite Obama's $800 billion stimulus package. I wish to put other editors on notice that I intend to correct the years on this article and restore a neutral point of view.Mcfly007 (talk) 18:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The chart is NOT misleading. You just don't understand one thing: The Fiscal Year runs from October 1st of the preceding year to September 30th of the year in question. Therefore, fiscal year 2001 was IN PLACE October 1st, 2000, BEFORE the election, and is therefore Clinton's last budget. Fiscal year 2009 was in place October 1st, 2008, BEFORE Obama was elected, and is therefore Bush's last budget.

It's that simple.

Myfly007, I didn't make the chart, but I am going to ask you to assume good faith on the part of the other editors. Please see WP:AGF. I think putting the data behind the chart and the program that made it on the page would be a good idea, but I don't really see how it is biased. I think that having the color spread to where the president is in office is not only honest but also factual. However, the US government's fiscal year is October to October, so the budget year is already 1/4 over when the president takes office, and changing it radically (especially without even a full cabinet) is extremely difficult. I think you make a good point that even the year after might really be chalked up (at least partially) to the prior president. 0 (talk) 19:19, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Mcfly007, As far as I know, these are US Federal BUDGET years, not calendar years, hence it is correct to attribute 1993 to GHWB since he was the president who signed that year's budget.--Neepster (talk) 22:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

NOT TRUE: GHWB refused to sign the FY 2010 budget that was created by Democrat controlled congress. One of the first things that Obama did was sign the budget that included the first round of huge Federal Debt runups.

Neepster, it look to me like that year is assigned to the break between GHWB and Clinton. Look for example at 2000, that is assigned to Clinton while 2001 is on the cusp between Clinton and GWB. 0 (talk) 22:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

A more honest chart would be to give a Senator 5 points, a Congressman 1 point, and the president equal to about 33 Senators and 200 Congressmen (veto power, but can be overturned by 2/3rds). Then redo the chart with sliding scale of power each party has; and put asteriks in areas where one party either has a big majority or super majority. If it's done this way I think you will all find that both parties are basically equally responsible for the deficit. Why won't anyone do it? Is anyone interested in honesty any more?98.165.15.98 (talk) 00:18, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

One of the most misleading things about the chart is the SUMMATION of what the "Republicans" did in 5 terms (20 years) versus what the "Democrats" did in 3 terms (12 years). Everything was totaled, and not taking into account what group did what on a yearly average which would have been fairer. Some of the data is wrong. I attempted to use data obtained from an audit, but someone reversed what I did. In my opinion at the very least the "Democrat" and "Republican" rows should be removed, but due to the fact that presidents are responsible for signing legislation impacting their presidency, the entire chart should be removed. Bush shouldn't be responsible for the $862 Billion Stimulus package Obama signed during the 2009 Fiscal Year. Yet in this chart, not only is he responsible, but every Republican is responsible for that. Ghanima1971 (talk) 03:19, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

questions

This entire article is nonsense and, I suspect, motivated by political bias. The US Constitution places the responsibility for budgets with Congress, not the President. Few Presidential budgets are even voted on, let alone passed. One of Clinton's was brought up for a vote in the Senate. It lost 99-0. It didn't even get any Democrat votes. It would be far more appropriate to track National Debt versus the majority party in congress. --68.212.10.233 (talk) 04:25, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You're wrong. The responsibility for the budget does NOT rest with the Congress. That rests with the President. The President sends a budget request to Congress every February. Congress then debates the President's proposed budget, making changes as they deem appropriate. They then send the budget back to the President before October 1st for his signature (or veto). If he signs off on it, the budget goes into law; if he vetoes it, it has to go back to Congress.

THAT is the reason this article is important: The President STARTS and ENDS the budget process.

Prior to the addition of the "Increase Debt ($T)" column in the first table, the table might have left the false impression that under some presidents, the national debt decreased. The new column clears that right up. The new data might be more meaningful were they adjusted for inflation.

It's also misleading in a separate way, in that it furthers the meme that Clinton actually reduced the deficit. This only works by the Fed's "funny money" accounting scheme. The numbers in question ignore off-the-books expenses incurred by "stealing money" from off-the-books Social Security revenues and using them to pay for on-budget expenses. The total actual federal debt on AND off budget increased under Clinton just like everyone else's did, and at similar rates/amounts. Any accounting scheme which uses GAAP wouldn't allow such BS to pass by. Try that as a corporation and your treasurer winds up in jail. OBloodyHell (talk) 01:16, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, just for the record, NPOV and citing sources technically covers the talk pages too. The fed doesn't keep the books for the USG, the treasury does (hence the name). The deficit was almost zero under Clinton and was projected to go the otherway before the 2000 election where the candidates were campaiging on what they were going to do with the surplus. The accounting scheme that is employed by the Treasury is not funny money, it is a valid scheme but has some (serious) problems that you need to be aware of--like all complex accounting schemes. Probably looking at both the gross and public debt would make the most sense. 0 (talk) 04:27, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Political Motivation and Synthesis of Material

The article is all politically motivated, original source synthesis. Until some academic research on the subject can be cited, the article is merely a forum for conflicting political agendas. The article has no place in Misplaced Pages. In the meantime, I'm adding the POV and Synthesis template tags.

Can you please point to the exact text in those policies that you think rules out this article? 0 (talk) 01:29, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

WP:Synth. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. I don't see a source that reproduces the figures given in the table. Someone apparently computed them from Source A div Source B. The section is entitled "Synthesis of published material that advances a position"

Fell Gleaming 18:23, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

So, if I find that, say has this as a figure, will you agree it is not synthesis? 0 (talk) 20:22, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

If you want a table, here is one . 0 (talk) 20:30, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't see actual percentages from the chart on either source. Further, since the home page of one site says, "Republican Extremists Threaten Congressman!", it's clearly a non-neutral advocacy site which raises issues with WP:RS. If the figures are accurate, you should be able to source them from a reliable source.

That was a news story, and actually did happen by the way. Anytime somebody threatens physical violence against a political figure they are accurately described as extremists, since that is an extreme course of action.

Also, as I said below, a much more appropriate metric seems to be Federal Debt as a percentage of Federal Budget (or Federal Tax Receipts). The article subject is federal debt, not debt as a function of economic output. Fell Gleaming 20:40, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree that an ad from Google on the side of an article can figure in an RS argument (it is not there when I click). That is also a valid news article, with those fact things backing it up. There are also two links. One tabulates changes in debt in dollars. The other has a figure in terms of GDP (that is debt over GDP). I would also point out that the fact of the debt and Presidency are hardly contentious. While this might be synthesis in the strictest sense, it is so mild as to be ignorable. If we really followed synthesis all the time we could only quote. These facts are just not that controversial. 0 (talk) 21:08, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

You're ignoring the point that the actual data in THIS table is not in THAT source. Period. The question about whether or not Zfacts is a side issue at this point (and no, that statement I quoted did not come from "a Google ad"). Fell Gleaming 21:15, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

If that were the requirement, all of Misplaced Pages would be copy and paste and the whole thing would be a copyright violation. The concept is not novel, the data is from a reliable source, therefore, it is within bounds. 0 (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

(undent) I'm not sure why this isn't sinking in. Every statement must have a source, period. The table makes claims that are not backed up by either source. Further, the table uses original research and a common math error to reach a flawed conclusion. Fell Gleaming 00:58, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I actually think this is worth a RFC or posting on a noticeboard. I think this is a gray area. 0 (talk) 02:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

table differences

Hi, what are the calculations used for the big table? i.e. the table does not appear as is (by POTUS term) in the linked ref., what is the method used to calculate the columns? 0 (talk) 00:03, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Would anyone object if I update the table so that it (a) included FDR's third term (because the source has the data) (b) used last year - first year instead of whatever it uses? i.e. for FDR's first term it would use 1945 debt/gdp minus 1941 debt/gdp. 0 (talk) 13:41, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Article problems

The article also contains a glaring math error. You cannot subtract percentages as it does; a percentage is a ratio; you must express differences as a third ratio. This is very basic.

Further, since debt is paid back not by GDP, but by tax revenues, a better column would be "debt in terms of revenues", or at least "debt in terms of total federal budget". Fell Gleaming 18:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

If you think of the GDP as a deflator, that addresses both of these issues. Debt as a fraction of GDP means how many years of output are owed. It is a very common measure of debt for cross country comparisons. 0 (talk) 20:30, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The real issue here is the math error in the table. Let me illustrate. If the debt is 1% of GDP when you take office, and 2% when you leave office, it hasn't increased by only 1%. You've doubled the debt/GDP ratio -- the actual increase is 100%. You can't blindly add and subtract percentages; you have to treat them as ratios.

Also, the person who calculated the figures apparently didn't understand fiscal years. The budget for fiscal year 1980, for instance, actually starts in 1979. If you're trying to assign responsibility to presidents, you need to roll the dates forward one year, as by the time a president takes office in 2001, the fiscal budget for that year is not only already approved, but the year is already four months over.

This is why original research of this type is so risky to do. Fell Gleaming 01:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad we agree that the table is dated correctly, with, i.e. 2001 assigned to Clinton who proposed and signed the budget for 2001. The one column that is not this way (and you could fix this) is the growth in debt column. I will get to that probably in a week or two.

As for adding and subtracting debt/GDP, I think the table would make more sense if it was growth in real debt rather than growth in debt/GDP or growth in nominal debt. However, if we want to keep debt/GDP, the statistic you propose answers one question, the statistic on the page answers another one--it's just a question of which statistic is relevant, neither is right or wrong. I find the one you propose difficult to interpret, but I don't really love the one that is on there either. 0 (talk) 01:40, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

No, you missed the point. Clinton was elected in 2000, took office in 2001, and then signed off on the 2002 budget. Fell Gleaming 01:43, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I can live with Debt/GDP; that's an opinion, not a policy violation. However, the data in the table is currently unsourced. I have looked for a valid source but been unable to find one. If one can't be located, the table is going to have to be deleted as unverifiable. Fell Gleaming 01:43, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Clinton was elected in 1992 and 1996. After the 1992 election he took office in January 1993 and most (all?) of the 1993 budget was signed into law. So the 1993 budget is the last year assigned to George HW Bush. 0 (talk) 02:03, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I meant Bush. His first budget was for the year 2002 -- but the chart starts him at 2001. All the presidents on the chart have the same problem. Fell Gleaming 02:26, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Right, isn't that the definition of start? It's like if I jump up in the air, and you want to measure how high I go, you will have to get an initial reading on how high I was before I jumped--you might call this the start position. That is what the 2001 number serves as, the jumping off point (or start) for Bush. 0 (talk) 02:34, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind that WP:SYN explicitly states that "routine calculations" do not constitute original research, so there is no need to find sources for the percentages provided that both the debt and GDP are properly sourced. Also, the statistic used, % of GDP, is used almost universally as a measure of debt (see List of countries by public debt for example) as it provides a convenient way to compare countries.

I think the confusion over the "fiscal dates" might be a result of the two different tabels in the article. In the lower table, GWB's first budget is 2002, just as you correctly state that it should be Fell Gleaming. However, in the top table the column lists not fiscal years, but "Term years". The question is, is the "start debt" in this table from the start of the term or the first fiscal year? I presume it's done as in the bottom chart, but 0 can comment on that. It might make the table clearer if the table lists "Budget years" or somethingn along those lines.

Finally, Fell Gleaming, please refrain from referring to a "glaring math error". There is no error. What you are preposing is to measure the percentage which the percentage increases. (IE 1%->2% is a 100% increase). What is currently done is to show the absolute value the percentage increases. Both are valid ways of showing the results. I happen to prefer the current format, as it makes comparing year to year results MUCH simpler. However, it's certainly not fair to call this a "mathematical error". (See for example List of United States presidential elections by popular vote margin which calculates the margin as Winner% - Loser%). TDL (talk) 06:32, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this isn't the case. It's a common error among those who don't understand percentages. You cannot determine an absolute difference between two percentages by subtracting them. They're ratios, and have to be treated as such. If you increase spending from 1% of GDP to 2% of GDP, you've increased spending by 100%, not 1%. Pull out a calculator, work with a few different values, and I think you'll understand. Fell Gleaming 14:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

FellGleaming, it's called a percentage point change , it is accepted and valid. The Percentage_point Misplaced Pages article on the topic also outlines this use clearly (but obviously itself is not a source!). 0 (talk) 14:38, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not only not a source, but its entirely unsourced itself. Percentage points are valid methodology in same cases, but they are not percentages. When used, they must be correctly identified as such. Fell Gleaming 14:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Math forum is not a source? I only added the wikipedia link so you could read more. So do you think that if the header were clearly labeled as a PP change, that would be okay? 0 (talk) 15:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Let me rephrase, with my recent edit adding this name to the column, can we remove the factual accuracy template from the top of the page? 0 (talk) 15:15, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

If you unambiguously label the column as percentage points and the figures as "20% PP", I think that will prevent any reader from being confused on the PP issue. Fell Gleaming 15:16, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, can you start a new section, state exactly what your problem is there AND link that from the "talk" link in the tag's link in the article? 0 (talk) 15:19, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

OR discussion

Hi, just a note, I added a question of the OR of this article at Misplaced Pages:No_original_research/Noticeboard#question_as_to_bar_for_WP:OR. 0 (talk) 15:14, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Accuracy, NPOV, OR Issues

The article suffers from clear OR and factual accuracy issues. As O18 points no, no source exactly replicates the table, it has been created via WP:Synthesis. Further, its making an apples-to-oranges comparison. Spending bills originate in the House, but the article implictly lays responsibility for spending in the executive branch. A table collating spending by who controlled Congress would be better (though still very problematic). The problem is that the entire article, down to the color-coding on the chart, is clearly designed to promote a particular point of view, rather than factually educating the reader. For instance, the majority of the spending increase in the 2005-2009 period happened when Obama took office in Jan 2009, but it's chalked up to Bush.

The largest problem of all is that federal fiscal years don't begin and end on presidential terms. Whenever a president is elected, they "inherit" a portion of the budet from the previous president, but can also work to make changes themselves (though as previously noted, Congress ultimately has more responsibility here). Trying to artificially align presidential terms to fiscal budgets just cannot be accurately done. Fell Gleaming 15:30, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Since 1921, the President has proposed a budget... then the House starts the bills. Lets stay focused here on the OR/NPOV/Accuracy issues or you can try to argue that some source is not valid, but you really need to focus here. 0 (talk) 15:40, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Just because no one source "exactly replicates the table" does not mean that a table is synthesis. In fact, we aren't supposed to exactly replicate tables from sources, as that would be a copyright violation. Synthesis involves combining materials from multiple sources to "reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources". Since the article does not state or imply any conclusion, stating only the data that is sourced from reliable sources, there is no synthesis. Additionally, even if the article were to baldly state that 'deficits are higher during Republican presidential terms', this would still be allowable as long as reliable sources are cited that have put forward the same position. LK (talk) 15:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

• WP:Synthesis to generate the chart from multiple source
• Presidential terms cannot be aligned with federal fiscal budget years
• Responsibility for budget lies more with Congress than President.

Fell Gleaming 15:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

FellGleaming, if you are going to argue with sources, i.e., "Responsibility for budget lies more with Congress than President" you really need better sources, not just your say so. That is how this project works. Also, WP:synthesis is only about drawing conclusions (as Lawrencekhoo points out) so you need to point to what conclusions were drawn. Finally, except for in 2009, I don't think the alignment issue is a big deal, for that year, we can add a footnote. 0 (talk) 16:06, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Concerning the argument that this article is OR. I've just found this essay written by Professor Stephen Bloch of Adelphi University. Professor Bloch's essay presents tables that essentially duplicates the contents of this article. Professor Bloch's essay can be cited as an reliable external source for this article. LK (talk) 17:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with LK / 0, WP:SYN does not apply here. Dividing debt/GDP is a routine calculation. As LK states, only drawing "conclusions" via synthesis is forbidden. You'll have to point to specific instances of unsourced conclusions being draw, as I see none. On the second point, I thought we agreed that budget year = election year +2 is the first budget which is the responsibility of the incoming president. Is that not what you were advocating for above? To your third point, just because the president doesn't have 100% responsibility for the budget doesn't mean that there isn't significant responsibility. I do agree, however, that a similar chart plotted against the party which controlled Congress would be an interesting addition to the article.

I really think you need to read WP:CIVIL before commenting further. I'm well aware of how to calculate percentages (as is 0 I'm sure). Insinuating that I'm not bright enough to calculate them properly is not only uncivil, but it completely misses the point. Just because you are unaware of a mathematical concept, doesn't mean it is a "glaring math error". If you do a bit of research, I'm sure you will find lots of instances of percentage points being used. TDL (talk) 17:35, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

well, it's a good sign that the article says that "political commentators" observe such a correlation, not Misplaced Pages on its own. But obviously the article then needs to be structured along the lines of the arguments of such political commentators as are cited. For each source, you need to consider

• is the source a WP:RS to begin with? (if the author has a long-standing wiki bio article, chances are that it is, otherwise be skeptical). I suppose it is fair to say the articles by David Stockman and Brad DeLong can be discussed, while I am unsure about Steve Stoft, Scott Willeke or Mike Kimel (explain why these are quotable blogs)
• what does the source actually say. Just saying "political commentators have noted a pattern" and then dump links to seven blog posts does nothing. It is the job of this article to explain who has noted which pattern. --dab (𒁳) 14:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

following my own advice, and saying what the "pattern" noted by the "political commentators" cited actually is, it emerges that the pattern is not Democrats vs. Republicans, but Neoconservatives (Reagan and Bushes) vs. everyone else. In the light of this, the entire arrangement of red-blue tables in this article is pure on-Wiki WP:SYNTH that doesn't in any way illustrate the "pattern" mentioned. The "pattern" or hypothesis under discussion here is "the Neoconservatives wrecked US finances". So please let the article actually discuss this instead of random party-line graphics.

if we think about this proposition for a minute, it makes excellent sense. If you combine the ideas of "lower taxes as much as possible for small government", and "build a giant military machine to impose democracy and capitalism worldwide, no matter what the cost", you shouldn't be surprised if your reduced income and your vastly increased expense results in a shaky budget. I am just saying that money tends to exhibit roughly additive properties. --dab (𒁳) 14:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Neoconservatives "wrecked" the budget? Wow, who knew that Barack Obama was a neoconservative. Obama makes Reagan and Bush look like Suze Orman, and at least there was excellent economic growth under Reagan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.141.152.197 (talk) 20:10, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Related graphs

The manual of style states that galleries shouldn't be used without good reason. I'm moving these graphs here. Please move them back in only if they are useful in illustrating the commentary in the article. LK (talk) 04:10, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Hopelessly biased and completely flawed

This entire article represents endless political chicanery and doesn't belong in Misplaced Pages. Here are a few points of obvious bias:

1) Brad Delong is a well known left/progressive blogger and ideologue and the article should honestly identify this bias. Right/conservative presentation of the same data would result in a very different portrayal. The article should include the perspective of other economists on the ideological effect on deficits.

2) The debt held by the public is the better measure of debt than gross debt and is the measure used typically used in international comparisons. Gross debt counts future increased levels of entitlement payments as a liability even though these benefits are not a contractual obligation and can be changed at any time by the government.

3) The chart assigns the first year of a new president to the prior president. There is entirely arbitrary and unjustified. Congress and the president have the power to change the budget from day one and presidents often do make major changes to fiscal policy at the very start of their terms.

For example in February 2009, one month into his term, Obama signed a trillion dollar stimulus package passed by a completely Democrat controlled congress and yet this biased wiki article assigns that to Bush.

If we look at the debt/GDP from the day a president takes office, the debt/GDP increase more in the first 12 months of Obama's term than it did in the prior 8 years that George Bush was in office.

The political variables here are endless. Why limit the carryover to just one year? Obviously policies have effects that can last for decades and budgets go out for 10 years. If a budget from a prior president "traps" his predecessor, haven't the actions of the politicians who created and expanded entitlement promises trapped an entire generation of politicians?

4) The entire approach is problematic in determining the effect of congress. A much better methodology would be to combine the effects of presidential policies with congressional scorecards to see how much spending individual congressmen actually vote for. The type of analysis is more favorable to Republicans and doesn't show up, presumably because it doesn't fit the ideology behind this presentation.

5) The increase in the debt should be the increase in debt as a percentage of GDP and not the raw dollars or percentage increase of the debt itself. The increase as a percentage of the debt (as portrayed in the chart) exaggerates the increase when the debt is small so that going from 1% debt/GDP to 2% debt/GDP (a trivial increase) counts as a 100% increase, but going from 60% to 90% (a devastating increase) only counts as 50%. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.193.248.20 (talk) 15:41, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Back up those claims by citing reliable sources. Otherwise, we can only assume that it is original research, and that the cited reliablely sourced text shouldn't be changed. LK (talk) 04:53, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

On 5, you might want to check your math again. What you requested is already the way the table is. 0 (talk) 17:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Why in the world is there a "commentary" section to begin with? What is supposed to be an encyclopedia doesn't need a section that is included solely to push its readers to arrive at a particular politically-loaded conclusion. Moreover, the breadth of opinion(that it is opinion should exclude it in the first place) in the commentary section is pathetic. Are we really to believe that the debt is solely because of tax cuts, with nothing owed to increasingly out-of-control spending, such as that seen under George W. Bush and, particularly, Obama? The commentary section needs to be deleted immediately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.141.152.197 (talk) 20:20, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Why is FY 2009 still the source for the last table?

The historical tables for FY 2012 is the latest data available which includes data up through and including 2010, with projections out to 2016, but the table here is using data from the FY 2009 historical data publication. This seems horribly out of date. I'd like to update it, unless someone objects. Kettledrum (talk) 16:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)Kettledrum

We shouldn't be using projections, but by all means please update the data to FY 2012. LK (talk) 07:46, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I tried to revise it using audited data, but my five hours of work complete with references was voided. Ghanima1971 (talk) 03:19, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Calculating hypothetical revenue as a percentage of GDP required to balance spending, by presidency

With discussion in Congress of a balanced budget amendment to the constitution, I was curious about what hypothetical adjusted revenue would have to be for a fiscal year such that adjusted debt would remain the same as it was in 1978 - the first fiscal year of the Carter administration. To determine that percentage for a fiscal year, I added adjusted spending to the increase in adjusted debt from the prior year and then divided that sum by adjusted GDP. When I averaged the resulting hypothetical adjusted revenue as a percentage of GDP over the fiscal years for a presidency, I got the following (lowest to highest): Clinton 20.27%, Carter 20.32%, G. W. Bush 22.37%, Reagan 25.67%, G. H. Bush 25.73%, and Obama (one fiscal year only) 41.33%. 71.241.197.20 (talk) 02:32, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

percentage vs percentage points

I just clarified the second table to make it clear that the "percentage increase" column is actually a percentage point increase column. For more information on the difference, see the percentage point wikipedia page. 0 (talk) 17:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

second big table

The second big table needs some help. Its reference is hopelessly out of date. The 2012 budget (linked at the bottom of the page) should probably be used. They now use a 2005 reference year now, so it will take some doing to adjust all the numbers. Another possibility is to delete the whole thing. I think the first table is what the article is about (since it is by term). 0 (talk) 17:56, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Another apparent error is the adjusted federal spending for 2010. I don't know what adjustment factor was applied, but 2010 is grossly inconsistent with 2000-2009. If $3,107 adjusts to $2,452 in 2009, how does $3,991 adjust to $2,392 in 2010? Unless I'm missing something, I'd estimate the correct number as $3,070. The % increase would have to be adjusted as well. --Pmkeating (talk) 15:21, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect percentage for Federal Debt, Percent Increase under Obama?

Why is the Federal Debt, Public Increase for 2010 listed as being 31.6%? The Federal Debt is listed as going from $8,218 to $9,247 which is around 12.5%, is it not?

The previous year 2009, the Federal Debt is listed as going from $7,793 to $8,218 which is correctly listed as being a 5.5% increase. Intentional? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.81.94.70 (talk) 21:22, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Just forgot to update that when I updated the other info to go in line with the 2012 budget. The deflator column also needs to be updated. 0 (talk) 00:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Messup on table

This makes no sense to me: On the table (under "Gross federal debt") the End Debt of Bush is listed at 69.5%, and the Start debt of Obama is listed at 84.2%. Something doesn't add up here! Notice how for every other president, the preceding present has the same End debt as his Start debt. I had to rate the page 1 star for Objective because let's face it someone's pulling the numbers for Obama... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.113.104.204 (talk) 05:16, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

That's because someone vandalized the table. It's been fixed. This page is a troll magnet for Bush apologists. LK (talk) 06:01, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Good Job

I've looked at this, and crunched the numbers myself in the past, and find it very informative. Your presentation is well done. It shows where the deficit, debt, and spending increases are in the most clear way possible (although I do like graphs.) It is well sourced, clear, and accurate.

As a possible suggestion, perhaps the title should be changed, since spending is included, as well as deficit. It might also be helpful to show congressional makeup for spending increases, since they do approve the budget. I haven't been able to find a correlation between congressional makeup and spending, but showing the numbers (even without a clear correlation) might be helpful.

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.178.105.68 (talk) 08:51, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Please, be bold and add this to the article. 0 (talk) 19:08, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Many of the points made in the article and throughout the discussion are valid. The facts are clear to those that lived through the administrations: Democrats leaned toward balanced budgets while Republicans balanced massive military spending with tax cuts. If the graph bears up that observation, it passes the acid test. Revisionist history has no place in the Wiki project. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cutsh (talk • contribs) 19:34, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

It's good to look at the data rather than trust "conventional wisdom". The arguments that how transition years is "unfair" are handled is certainly valid - but only to an extent. There isn't a truly fair way to do it concisely and accurately. This is the best I've seen, thanks. and thanks especially to whoever produced and changed the "National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms" chart. Much, much, better - but the 82nd and 84th congress's (both houses) had a democratic majority. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.114.46.127 (talk) 15:21, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I changed it. -- Vision Thing -- 18:54, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

transition year methodology

Won't it be appropriate to assign the 1st quarter of a transition year (e.g. FY 2009) to an outgoing president and the rest to the incoming one?

Treasury Direct web site allows anyone to compute debt between any 2 dates, so it should be a problem to get the numbers right. So, Obama's increase in debt (02/20/2009 - 08/01/2011) will be 14.342T - 10.838T = 3.5T

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.98.70.18 (talk) 18:02, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Usually, the outgoing President proposed the budget for the following year and while changes can be made, they are often relatively minor. This was not the case in 2009, it is true. But there is no perfect way of dealing with this. A discussion on this page decided to use the current method. Please look at this page and maybe its archives for the discussion. 0 (talk) 18:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure, there is not perfect way, but there is a better way and a fare way -- to impute the debt based on days in office. So, you blame almost a trillion of additional Obama's debt on Bush? You can't be serious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.98.70.18 (talk) 20:59, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

A trillion??? Do you have a reliable source for Bush's original budget as requested, plus the emergency spending for the wars, TARP, and other things, also demanded by Bush, and any reason whatsoever to believe that the total is "almost a trillion" dollars less than what the Obama administration administrated? You can't be serious. The President (in this case Obama) was required to administrate (spend) the money budgeted before he took office by the http://en.wikipedia.org/Congressional_Budget_and_Impoundment_Control_Act_of_1974

Obama "was required" by Bush to spend 787 Bil of Stimulus money? He signed that into law in Feb 2009 So, here is an "almost a trillion" for you, and they've burnt through that cash in no time, haven't they? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.187.168.7 (talk) 00:22, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps a fairer way would be include all budgeted and spending requested by the outgoing President in his listing, and new "stuff" with the incoming President. But, what about the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that Bush handled "off budget" since their inception? Clearly, after 7-8 years that should have been "on budget". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.178.105.68 (talk) 21:45, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure how many IPS are writing this, but (at least) one of you is thinking about just Obama. Think about when George W. Bush took office, most of the 2001 spending was dictated by Bill Clinton. But he did make tax cuts that took immediate effect and those might be better credited to George W. Bush. Ideally, a secondary source would publish this table but dig out these details. Remember, there was a huge existing deficit when Obama took office based on budgets by Bush. It's also not clear who to blame / give credit to for economic growth, but here we give it to the President who signed the most recent budget. 0 (talk) 19:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that other people reached the same conclusion I did: assign the transition fiscal year entirely to the outgoing administration. It's not a perfect solution, but in most years it's fairly accurate (2009 being perhaps an exception), and it's simple, transparent, and consistent, thus reducing the temptation for political bias. BTW, I decided on that rule in early 2004, before I or most Americans had heard of Barack Obama, so it really wasn't an attempt to whitewash Obama. Sbloch (talk) 03:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

NPOV

This article is called "National debt by U.S. presidential terms" but it deals only with post-World War II period in order to prove a point from partisan commentators. Also its main sources are blogers who are leftist or Democrats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.202.96.123 (talk) 07:41, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

If someone could add the missing data from the start of George Washington's administration until the start of World War II, that would be great. However, using the data currently in the article -- data from the previous one-quarter of the United States' 222-year history of U.S. presidents -- isn't exactly cherry-picking to make partisan points. Indeed, during the 64 years covered in the the article's table, Republicans were in White House 55 percent of the time, which mathematically should have swayed the data in their favor. So, if the the data make one or the other of the two political parties look bad, then, as Walter Cronkite used to say, 'That's the way it is.' And as for whether or not whoever posted the data was partisan, Republican or Democrat, don't shoot the messenger. The only valid question, as per discussions above, is whether or not the data are neutral and hence valid. Vcrosbie (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:25, 9 August 2011 (UTC).

I agree with Vcrosbie. -Trift (talk) 21:22, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

My page at goes back to 1909, using the Consumer Price Index for inflation adjustment. It includes raw figures by fiscal year, as well as by Presidential administration. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbloch (talk • contribs) 16:05, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

FY2010 in the "Federal spending, federal debt, and GDP" section

I was reviewing the row for FY2010 in the table in the section titled "Federal spending, federal debt, and GDP" and noticed that it suffers from unclear sourcing. Some of the values come from the estimates from the 2009 budget source, but others come from the actual values given in the 2012 budget source. The table itself does not reference the 2012 budget source, and the footnotes currently state that values came from the 2009 estimates. However, it seems to me like it would be better to switch over to the actual numbers from the 2012 source. Sadly, I am not a dedicated enough Wikipedian to resolve this, so I'm just leaving a note here. 128.29.43.2 (talk) 14:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

and... that is why it stays that way. 0 (talk) 18:15, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality tag

Exactly what is the disagreement about neutrality? I will remove the tag soon unless there is a talk page discussion on the issue. LK (talk) 03:38, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

As I see it, neutrality problem is that proponents of idea that there is a special connection between Republican presidents and debt level are leftist or liberals but in the article they are described as economists. I think that nobody is arguing that conclusions based on 5n and 3n samples have any statistical significance, so the fact that they are economists is irrelevant because they are not making an argument based on scientific methods. They are making a purely partisan argument based on their political beliefs and they should be described from that position (as partisans - liberals).

Also, the article is called "National debt by U.S. presidential terms" but it is talking only about last 40 years and the rising level of debt to GDP ratio under Republican presidents. Article has a neutral title but it currently serves only as a POV fork. -- Vision Thing -- 19:00, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately as stated previously, the data collected before World War II wasn't extremely available. The data does go back to 1941 though, which would be 70 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.236.170.155 (talk) 00:55, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

The article clearly notes that this pattern between debt and Republican presidents has been observed by both conservative and liberal economists. Is the argument that facts aren't neutral? That's clearly not right. If I surmise correctly then, the main non-neutrality argument is that this article only looks at the last 50 years, whereas, according to the title, we should look at the full history of the US? If so, perhaps we should change the title to "National debt and U.S. presidential terms since World War II". LK (talk) 04:02, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I think we can leave it with this title until we get additional data and then can maybe have separate pages for various eras. As for the neutrality question, it seems some people don't like the facts, that is just too bad. If you can point to a reliable source that has another perspective, then that source should be included. Until then, the objections raised appear to be more about a disagreement with reality than with the article. 0 (talk) 12:57, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Problem is not in article name but in its content. POV forks are caracterized by presenting (fringe) arguments for a single perspective. Except for the sources for raw data, only sources in the article are blogs and op-eds. There is not one academic source that talks about this "connection" and no wonder because as we have seen during recent debates, presidents have limited influence on the debt levels. Without full approval of the Congress there can be no long-term increase in national debt.

What conservatives? First, Bruce Bartlett is no longer a conservative and second, I have looked into the links provided for claim attributed to him and they don't support it. In Forbes opinion piece there is only one mention of debt and it is only about decrease of debt/GDP ratio during Einsehover, he is not making a connection between Republican presidents in general and increase in debt ratio. Neither he nor Stockman make an argument about increase of debt under last three Republican Presidents, and decreased under former five Democratic Presidents. That point can only be sourced to liberal blogs. -- Vision Thing -- 16:51, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I found plenty of support in the Bruce Bartlet piece for the characterization provided in the article. Saying that only "liberal bloggers" do this is just nonsense. I think you thought the article ended when an ad crossed the page, there are a lot more below that.

At any rate, lets try to work out acceptable text here together and then put it on the page. 0 (talk) 00:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Please provide some quotes that support your claims and name sources other that liberal bloggers who see causality between party affiliation of the president and the level of debt. -- Vision Thing -- 19:54, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

BLP demands that any descriptor associated with a person's name has to be well sourced. The descriptors that are there now are well sourced, e.g. "Bruce Bartlett, former domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush". To change that to "Bruce Bartlett, liberal blogger", there had better be an impeccable source for such a change.

Coming back to the main point, there is no neutrality argument that I can see for the whole article. Since facts are by definition neutral, I suggest removing the neutrality tag. LK (talk) 10:56, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Here are sources for DeLong as the liberal blogger NYT WP. As for Kimel, I haven't be able to find anything reliable about him. That makes me wonder how notable he and his views are...

Let me repeat main unaddressed neutrality concerns:

• whole lead is based on two partisan blog posts;
• people whose arguments are presented are not described by their political beliefs;
• content attributed to Bartlett shouldn't be in the article. -- Vision Thing -- 20:23, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

If I read this right then, the only neutrality objection is about the lead and commentary, not the article itself. I'm going to rewrite the lead to remove the commentary and move the neutrality tag to the commentary section. LK (talk) 10:44, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I've removed claims attributed to Bartlett because requested quotes to support them were not provided. -- Vision Thing -- 18:27, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me? What request? Bartlett's views are well documented. Please read the sources in the text. LK (talk) 07:10, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can see Bartlett is not talking about Republican presidents (except for Bush jr.) in his articles. -- Vision Thing -- 18:29, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Barlett's comments are cited and relevant. The reason you give for removal doesn't stand up to examination. If you read the Bartlett article cited, it's clear that he's talking about the increase in debt since the days of Reagan. For example he says, "During Jimmy Carter's administration, some Republicans, like Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, began to rebel against their party's balanced budget orthodoxy." He also talks about 'Starve the beast', a policy that started under Reagan. Please stop removing Bartlett's comments because you just don't like it. LK (talk) 07:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Form your quote it is clear that he is talking about Republicans in the Congress and not Republican presidents, unless you claim that Carter is a Republican. -- Vision Thing -- 08:57, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

He was talking about Republicans. He was also talking about Reagan and Bush, are they presidents? Stop removing CITED material with dubious reasoning because you just don't like it. You're behavior is bordering on vandalism. It's clear that you've been here editing with an agenda. Edit neutrally or not at all. LK (talk) 08:13, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Claims can have citations and not be relevant for the article. This is article about national debt under US presidents and Bartlett is not talking about Republican presidents. For example, George H.W. Bush did exactly opposite of following starve the beast policy.

Also, in the future please refrain from personal attacks. -- Vision Thing -- 19:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Pointing out that a person is breaking policy is not a personal attack. Accusing someone of a personal attack when they have not made one is a personal attack. It's pretty clear to me that you are removing something you don't like while making unreasonable arguments for doing so. Since you refuse to stop, I'll call for more comments, which seems to me a waste of time. LK (talk) 10:22, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Explaining this revert

This revert was done because the sources do not support the statement that "Under Obama U.S. national debt has increased more rapidly than under any other U.S. president." When looking at Debt over GDP, which is what this page is about, the table below shows that this is not true. Secondly, blogs and commentary even hosted by CNN and CBS, are not reliable for hard economic data that can be obtained from government sources. I'm going to re-add the sources, but worded as the observations of the two commentators, not as hard fact. LK (talk) 11:04, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I've added this: "Journalists Jack Cafferty and Mark Knoller have noted that in dollar terms, the US national debt has increased more rapidly under President Obama than under any other U.S. president. During the Obama administration as of August 2011 debt was increasing at a pace of $3 million a minute." I'm somewhat minded to remove it, because, as I noted above, this page is about the debt GDP ratio, not about the dollar value of the debt. LK (talk) 11:13, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Your edits are more or less fine. I only don't agree with your interpretation of the scope of this article. In accordance with its title it should be talking about debt in general, not just about one ratio. -- Vision Thing -- 21:10, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I added a note that it is in nominal dollars, looking that the Table FDR had a much faster increase in WW II, clearly using real dollars could/would change the analysis substantially. 0 (talk) 22:26, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Nominal debt measures

I suggest removing commentary about nominal dollar debt, nominal dollar debt measures are not generally used by economists, as they are generally meaningless. Debt burden is measured using the debt GDP ratio, or sometimes by looking at real inflation-adjusted debt rather than nominal debt. LK (talk) 07:53, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

It may not be worth throwing out the baby with the bath water, I don't think such a blanket rule makes sense.0 (talk) 13:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Noted, but there is no need to make a big deal about it in the lead. LK (talk) 04:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Unsubstantiated changes to tables

This page has been the target of vandalism for some time now. I tried to figure which of the last 2 week's edits was accurate, which was OR, what was vandalism, and couldn't sort it out. I've reverted it. As a courtesy, before changing any of the figures in the tables. could you please justify your edits on the talk page? Also, please use reliable sources, which for this page, would be official government statistics, not opinion pages or position papers from private think tanks. LK (talk) 03:50, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect statement in the Commentary concerning national debt increase.

US national debt has increased more rapidly under President Obama than under any other U.S. is incorrect and obviously the sources of this statement are completely biased toward the conservatives. Using the graph, it plainly shows the national debt substantially rising under G.W. Bush. President Obama has clearly raised the debt less than 2 trillion dollars and spending has actually decreased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.248.113.140 (talk) 21:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

So Mark Knoller "obviously" has a conservative bias? How did you figure that one out? 38.98.70.18 (talk) 20:55, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

There is a reasonable basis for saying "US national debt has increased more rapidly under President Obama than under any other U.S. President": the second- and third-highest deficit years on record have been since he took office, and the highest was the transition year from GWB to Obama. OTOH, one could be equally justified in saying "US Federal deficits have decreased more rapidly under President Obama than under any other U.S. President": after growing by $1,384 billion from fiscal 2007 to fiscal 2009, the annual deficit shrank by $656 billion from 2009 to 2011. After adjusting for inflation, that's 8 times the rate of deficit reduction under Clinton, and slightly more than the rate under Truman (at the end of WWII). There's enough to make people of all political persuasions happy :-) Sbloch (talk) 03:47, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

RFC: Should Bruce Bartlett's view on the US debt be included?

There is a dispute as to whether Bruce Bartlett's view on the US debt should be included or excluded from the article's Commentary section:

Bruce Bartlett, former domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush, attributes the increase in the national debt since the 1980s to the policy of "starve the beast" and an aversion for tax increases.

Should this sentence be excluded from the article? LK (talk) 10:34, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

References

1. Bartlett, Bruce (2009-09-04). "We Need A Party Of Fiscal Responsibility". Forbes magazine. forbes.com. Retrieved 28 July 2011. Believing that his father's defeat in 1992 was the result of his having raised taxes in 1990, Bush the younger was determined never to make that mistake.
2. Bartlett, Bruce (2010-11-26). "Starve the Beast: Just Bull, not Good Economics". The Fiscal Times. Retrieved 22-10-2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
3. Bartlett, Bruce (2011-05-07). "Tax Cuts And 'Starving The Beast'". Forbes.com. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
4. Trader, Mark (2011-07-27). "Economic - Another Old School Republican (Bruce Bartlett) Says Heavy Tax Cuts are Large Contributor to Deficit". International Business Times. Retrieved 28 July 2011.

—Note: Citations added. LK (talk) 03:19, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Comments

• My objection to including disputed sentence is that it misrepresents Bruce Bartlett's views. Sentence implies that Bartlett thinks that all three Republican presidents since the 1980s followed the policy of "starve the beast" and were agains any tax increases. But that is misrepresenting Bartlett's view. For example he says: "Liberals believe that enactment of the 1981 tax cut marked the end of Republican opposition to deficits. But in fact Reagan was much more orthodox than either they or most conservatives think. Beginning in 1982, he supported higher taxes almost every year of his presidency." and in this article he also praises George H.W. Bush: "Budget experts now agree deserves much of the credit for the subsequent improvement in the deficit, which shrank from 4.7 percent of GDP in 1992 to virtual balance in 1997 and gave us budget surpluses from 1998 to 2001. Economist Robert Reischauer, director of the Congressional Budget Office when the 1990 budget deal was enacted, told me it was “the foundation upon which the surpluses of the 1998 to 2001 period were built.” the elder Bush will remain the last Republican who took fiscal responsibility seriously." -- Vision Thing -- 17:03, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Comment This is a different reason than what Vision Thing was arguing earlier. If this is the only objection, clearly the sentence can be rewritten to answer the objection. Since Bruce Bartlett's views are notable, they should not be summarily deleted. Just rewrite to answer the objection. LK (talk) 10:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

• Do not exclude The sentence as it stands is fully supported by the reliable sources cited. LK (talk) 13:34, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

There is no argument about, "Bruce Bartlett, former domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush". So, the question is, does Bartlett believe that "increase in the national debt since the 1980s" is due to "the policy of 'starve the beast' and an aversion for tax increases"? LK (talk) 13:34, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Here is what Bartlett says on the 'starve the beast':

the Laffer Curve gave Republicans a fig leaf that allowed them to support a big tax cut without abandoning their support for a balanced budget. ... Serious Republican economists like Herb Stein and Alan Greenspan ... basically thought it was nonsense. They needed something more grounded in reality. "Starving the beast" provided it. ... Ronald Reagan liked this idea, and it was a key reason why he adopted Kemp's tax cut as his principal economic plank in the 1980 campaign. When questions were raised about its viability, Reagan responded that his tax cut would starve the beast.

Here is what Bartlett says about aversion to taxes:

Believing that his father's defeat in 1992 was the result of his having raised taxes in 1990, Bush the younger was determined never to make that mistake. ... Taxes were cut willy-nilly throughout the Bush years, and spending shot up for wars, new entitlement programs and any Republican-sponsored pork barrel project. Bush left office with a deficit of 3.2% of GDP--a reversal of 5.6% of GDP compared to the surplus he inherited.

LK, does this means that you agree that sentence should not be in the article in this form? Basically, Bartlett is arguing that only Republican president (and this is an article about US presidents) who consistently followed "starve the beast policy" and was against tax increases was Bush jr. and not all Republican presidents since 1980s as sentence currently implies. -- Vision Thing -- 19:31, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

That's a fierce amount of OR you got there. Republicans have been selling starve the beast since the late-70s. It's essentially why the US has the debt it has. Bartlett makes that point throughout the article. LK (talk) 06:21, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

This is an article about national debt under different US presidents. Only Republican president that fully accepted STB according to Bartlett is Bush Jr. -- Vision Thing -- 17:14, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

In the cites you give Bartlett ascribes STB only to Reagan, and that seems to be equivocal as to whether it's a policy or an excuse. Aversion to tax increases are not mentioned, specifically tax cuts for both presidents are mentioned and increased spending for one. From what you quote (although I'm sure there's more) the only conclusion that could be given is that "B~ concludes tax cuts and increased spending led to a budget deficit under Bush jr.". Rich Farmbrough, 23:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC).

Please do read the article. It's pretty clear that he's talking about deficits from the 1980s onwards, not just under Bush II. Also, a cursory look at the history of US budget deficits show that deficits were large under both Reagan/Bush I as well as Bush II (albeit larger under Bush II). Bartlett does write more critically of Bush II, but blaming it all on Bush II seems to me to be inappropriate. Also, he spends a large part of the article criticizing 'starve the beast', and has often been a vocal critic of starve the beast, leaving that out also seems inappropriate. Its easy to cite, just google bartlett "starve the beast". I've added a couple of Bartlett's articles to the cites. --LK (talk) 02:49, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think he blames it all on Bush II, but it is important to be careful saying he ascribes specific mantras such as STB to all three, without being able to source it - if it's verifiable from the articles, fine. I do notice that the latest Forbes one is not particularly well written (although not the mess of the IBtime article) and wonder if it might be better to cite, rather than his particular commentary on the events, his commentary on the scientific works by Bill Niskanen and Michael New. Rich Farmbrough, 22:18, 26 October 2011 (UTC).

LK, it is highly disingenuous of you to include same misleading content about Bartlett's views by stealth after this discussion. -- Vision Thing -- 22:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

It is highly disingenuous of you to claim any consensus to this RFC when only one person has commented, and in a non-conclusive way. There is NOTHING in this RFC that justifies your continued removal of sourced material -- including about many issues that are completely unrelated to this RFC. LK (talk) 07:33, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I claim that there isn't consensus for inclusion. You are only person who is arguing for it. Rich Farmbrough said "only conclusion that could be given is that "B~ concludes tax cuts and increased spending led to a budget deficit under Bush jr."" -- Vision Thing -- 09:06, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Since there is no feedback on noticeboard I have added text. It keeps Bartlett's opinion while better reflecting it in my opinion. -- Vision Thing -- 11:23, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Congress session or president?

Recently, the table in the section History_of_the_United_States_public_debt#Historical_debt_levels was changed to replace the name of the sitting president with the congress session number. In my opinion, this makes the table less informative, as people seldom refer to the congress session number, but they often refer to the presidential term of such and such a president. I can see no reason for such a change, as it makes the dates more obscure rather than clearer. LK (talk) 04:36, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I see no reason to censor out who the president was in the table, so I shall reintroduce it unless there are reasonable objections? LK (talk) 03:29, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

President proposes the Budget?

This is simply patently false based on Article 1, Section 7. The 'source' for the idea that the President proposes the Budget is a treeware source, and I thoroughly doubt the veracity of that, again based on what the Constitution actually says. In fact, the listed for the source (#9 in the References) starts with "Unlike the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, which required the President to play a central role in the budget process, recent reforms in the Budget Act of 1974 and the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Acts of 1985 and 1987 take the spotlight off the President's personal role." What opposition do people have to removing the comments that imply that the President, and not the Congress, writes the Budget. -Achowat (talk) 13:46, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I've just read the paper. The main trust of it is that the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Acts of 1985 and 1987 blurred responsibility for the budget, leading to higher deficits. Before 1985, the President took personal responsibility for the budget, not in detail, but in aggregate. However, the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Acts blurred that responsibility, to the detriment of the process. I quote "the political process works best when Congress receives from the President a budget which presents responsible totals for aggregates (especially total spending and the level of the deficit), with the understanding that Congress will generally live within those aggregates while rearranging the priorities". It seems clear that the paper supports the statement that "President proposes the budget for the government to the US Congress. Congress may change the budget, but it rarely appropriates more than what the President requests" for before 1985, but that the process since is more uncertain. How about rewriting the paragraph to reflect this? LK (talk) 03:27, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Reagan

I'm removing this content about Reagan because it is not supported by sources. First source says: "Annual federal tax receipts during his presidency averaged 18.2% of GDP, a smidge below the average under President Carter -- and a smidge above the 40-year average today." . Second article by Krugman (which btw shouldn't be used as a source without attribution) says: "To his credit, he was more pragmatic and responsible than that; he followed his huge 1981 tax cut with two large tax increases. In fact, no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people." So neither attributes change in debt to his tax policy. -- Vision Thing -- 16:06, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

You are cherry picking and misrepresenting the content. It's clear from the articles, (and widely accepted in economics), that Reagan lowered taxes and increased military spending, leading to an increase in the deficit. Why else did the deficit rise so dramatically in the 1980s?

Also, you are removing other sourced and properly cited information without any reason except your own political bias. You are removing material just because you don't like it, and elsewhere arguing for the inclusion of highly questionable things because they support your political bias. LK (talk) 04:24, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Please provide quotes from sources that support your view and refrain from personal attacks. -- Vision Thing -- 14:39, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Read the sources. They are short. BTW, pointing out that you are editing in a biased way, and that you are breaking policy, is not a personal attack, the statement "You are a heartless propaganda-pushing right-wing baby killer, who would cut taxes for billionaires rather than provide healthcare for low-income mothers" is a personal attack. Kindly note the difference. LK (talk) 07:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I read the sources and I don't agree with your interpretation of them. So I'm asking you to provide specific quotes on which you base your conclusions, like I did above. -- Vision Thing -- 22:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistent Graph

The time series of US public debt with partisan affiliations appears to be inconsistent with the last paragraph in the section "After World War II." The debt in the paragraph rises to ~10trillion in 2008, but the graph doesn't even get to 10 trillion by 2010. The GDP % looks OK in some spots, but also seems wrong towards the end. Maybe public debt is different than gross public debt? Is the graph showing, a "net public debt"? Either way, if they are different, it should be discussed somewhere and if they are the same it needs to be fixed. I'd do it if I had the data and if I knew what was going on. Best! Bjf624 (talk) 17:43, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Mass changes without discussion

I have serious problems with , but it's impossible to discuss a whole swath of changes. I'm happy to take them one at a time. Let's start with the first, the lede. The lede should summarize the article. "Debt as a share of the US economy peaked just after World War II, but then fell. In recent years sharp increases in deficits and the resulting increases in debt have led to heightened concern about the long-term sustainability of the federal government's fiscal policies," does not summarize the article, and lends undue weight to a very recent "concern," a concern that the article is not even about. Hipocrite (talk) 22:26, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

We have two sections that talk about recent increase in debt, 2011 credit rating downgrade and Causes of recent changes in debt, which make more than half of the article's text content. Is one sentence in the lead about it undue weight? Not under any Misplaced Pages criteria. On the other hand, your preferred version talks about change in debt in relation to presidents and summarizes one section that is relatively small part of the article.

Your other changes are removing properly sourced content which you or LK accepted in previous versions, and are including unsourced statement and graph to which other user objected in section above. -- Vision Thing -- 12:13, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

The lede is exceptionally short. The excerpt from above was nearly half of it. If you'd like to start with a different section, I'm happy to do that. If you'd like to change the current lede to remove the presidential mentions, we could discuss that instead. Is that what you'd like? Hipocrite (talk) 12:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Lead should be longer, and I see no reason not to include both statements in some form. -- Vision Thing -- 12:30, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Propose a longer lede on this talk page and we can discuss it. Hipocrite (talk) 12:31, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

"Debt as a share of the US economy reached a maximum during World War II near the end of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's last Harry Truman's first presidential term. Public debt as a percentage of GDP fell rapidly in the post-WWII period, and reached a low in 1973 under President Richard Nixon. The debt burden has consistently increased since then, except during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. In recent years sharp increases in deficits and the resulting increases in debt have led to heightened concern about the long-term sustainability of the federal government's fiscal policies." Do you have any objections? -- Vision Thing -- 12:36, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree with the weight you are placing on the "long-term sustainability of the federal government's fiscal policies," but I'll relent. I notice you've reverted to your preferred version of the article yet again. I will not let that stand. Pick another section to discuss, and find consensus before reverting. Hipocrite (talk) 15:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

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