Republicans are not fiscally responsible, Zora. And you're right. It is just noise from them. Over the past 50 years the Clinton administration has been the only administration to demonstrate any fiscal responsibility:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_deficit

Bill and Newt got together and did a fine job for America.

Umm...Newt shut down the government, and had egg on his face for doing so.

Well, Newt tried to enforce a little budgetary discipline. In the long view the price he paid for the miniscule gain he was aiming for was not worth it. The point remains that President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich worked together to fashion budgets that were responsible and effective. They both deserve credit.

@jawny ~ isn't it always funny how conservatives like "leroy" gingrich always seem to find their fiscally conservative mantra when a dem is in the white house? but as this graph shows, repubs spend like a teenager with moms gold card when in power.

we need a counter to "tax and spend" liberals... maybe "slash and spend" conservatives? or, how about "privatize and steal" conservatives?

There you go again. You can try to revise history by giving Bill Clinton all the credit for fiscal restraint, but the fact of the matter is, Newt walked the walk.

Clinton administration has been the only administration to demonstrate any fiscal responsibility:

Clinton got all his BJ's for free.

Clinton got all his BJ's for free.

Such a juvenile response.

Right! 1) People act like they don't remember history; 2) They put forth lies and mis-statements; 3) The lies and mis-statements go largely or completely unchallenged; and 4) The media usually fail to call the liars and "mis-staters" to task. The liars and "mis-staters" come from the extreme wings of both (or all) parties, but currently, prominent Republicans and "Tea Party" members have pretty much taken over the spread of lies and misstatements, with an eagerness that does not bode well for America's future. This chart today is an eye-opener. Let's spread it further!

The history I remember included the last 4 years of Pelosi et.al. holding the checkbook ...where is that depicted? The other history I recall is the part where the Constitution gave the power to tax and spend solely to congress ...NOT THE PRESIDENT! For all of the relevance this has you may as well have plotted corn yield per acre in kansas against the US Debt....Because neither one (The President or the Corn Yield) has the authority to spend our money! Did you finish jr high school?

Can miles truly separate us from friends?
If we want to be with someone we love, aren't we already there?

debt management plan

While I agree that democrats need to get much better PR people, I'm also presuming that you really believe republicans and the tea-party crowd have established themselves in reality? From what I've been able to see, and have "talked" to some of these people, they may physically live in the real world - but they haven't let those pesky things like facts interfere with their assumptions and proclamations.......Just saying.....

how about that a democrat i can respect. way to go thoughts. we do not see eye to eye on issues but at least you are a thinker and you can think for yourself and come up with your own conclusions. in other words you are not a mind numbed robot waiting for someone to tell you what to think.

Left out is the fact that Obama was forced to do most of his spending because of the economic catastrophe that awaited him. Or did you forget?

Don't forget, the GOP will also protect us from more horrific attacks like the Christmas-day and Times Square bombers, shut down every mosque and keep any more of those triumphalist terror centers from ever being built, liberate all the prisoners in the FEMA concentration camps, ban teleprompters, make all foreign potentates bow to us, divide by zero and erect an impenetrable force-field around and over the entire United States to keep out all the terror babies.

also, The Game.

finally someone who understands economics.

There was no budget surplus. The debt has increased every year since 1957. The data is publicly available at OMB.

that's funny, because the cbo gives bill clinton 4 years in the black, peaking at a 236 billion dollar surplus in 2000. http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/during_the_clinton_administration_was_the_federal.html

which btw, was *after* your racist hero leroy gingrich left congress. clinton's budget was also predicted to reach a trillion dollar surplus in 10 years, http://articles.cnn.com/2000-09-27/politics/clinton.surplus_1_budget-surplus-national-debt-fiscal-discipline?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS

but then we all know what happened next. ronald reagan's (he quadrupled the federal deficit) supreme court nominations helped put dubya in the white house and well... here we are.

Jawny is, I think, very obviously confusing the words 'debt' and 'deficit'.

No, what's confusing you is an accounting trick that was used to call a deficit a surplus. By definition a surplus would decrease the debt. The debt continued to rise. You cannot reconcile the two without budget trickery.

Jawny, in order to bluff successfully it's important to at least have something resembling cards in you hands. The reason the debt wasn't reduced under Clinton is that the surplus didn't come to be until the tail end of his second administration and was wiped out near the beginning of W's first. None of the surplus, to my knowledge, was applied to tackling the debt at all. That failure (or lack of opportunity) is hardly proof that the surplus is a myth. You're on the wrong side of the facts and simple reality. You have no credibility.

When calling someone's bluff, you better know that they don't have any cards. Go read the Fact Check article that was posted. They acknowledge the accounting trick.

Also, you can't have this both ways. You can't make the argument that Obama is not responsible for what happened in Bush Budget years, but Bush is responsible for what happened in Clinton Budget years. Not sure if it was you that made that argument, but someone did. Setting that aside, the "Clinton Surplus" ran from 1998 to 2001. How can you then argue that Bush was responsible for the increased debt in 1998, 1999 and 2000?

It should also be noted that Fact Check gets it wrong when they say that the debt decreased some during the Clinton years.

Here are the charts straight from the Treasury Department:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm

Before you get too smug about that fact, you might want to at least look at the trend of the debt. Under Clinton, the increase in debt decreased fourfold from the start of his administration to the end. In contrast, the debt increased about a dozen times from the start of the Bush administration to the end. So much for fiscal conservatism. In addition, with the debt as high as it is, it would be practically impossible to actually bring it down now, as the interest alone is one of largest parts of the federal budget. If every single budget cut repubs say they would make if elected were actually enacted, the debt would still go up. Since their Pledge to America, released today, not only exempts the Pentagon from budget cuts, and would actually increase the military budget, they have proven that they have no real intention of being the budget hawks they claim to be. Like I said, prepare to be disillusioned within 6 months of election day. My question then is, what does the Tea Party do then?

Again . . . not here to defend Bush; however, if you think the debt trend under Bush was frightening, what about the debt trend under Obama? What about the fact that the debt hits 20 billion in 2015. The ONLY WAY to address this is to deal with unfunded liabilities and entitlement spending. THE ONLY WAY! Everything else, including quibbles over tax rates and Pentagon budgets is IRRELEVANT.

I find it absolutely astounding that the ONLY solution we ever hear from the right to the debt situation that they were instrumental in creating is to eliminate the programs that they don't like, specifically, entitlement programs, while leaving one of the biggest parts of the budget, defense, completely untouched. In fact, the Pledge to America, released today, would actually increase defense spending again. Quibbling over the third largest part of the budget isn't quibbling at all. It is being honest enough to admit that if spending is seen as a problem, ALL areas have to be examined and cut, not just the ones you don't agree with. And again, I ask, if you want to cut entitlements, what specifically will you do for the millions who will literally have absolutely no income if you eliminate social security. You know, the millions of seniors who depend on social security for the little things in life, like rent, food and medicine? Or eliminate medicare and medicaid, and what then happens to the millions of mostly elderly who suddenly have absolutely no access to healthcare and medicine? Government vouchers? Where does THAT money come from? We know where it will go....to private insurance companies, who in turn will do as they have always done, deny applicants because of existing conditions, or drop them when they get sick. Of course, that can't happen right now because of the healthcare reform bill, but repubs want to repeal that too.

If you look at countries around the world in the past 40 years who have taken the Friedman approach, making massive budget cuts, privatizing industries and services, you will see the same thing: massive unemployment that make our current situation look positively rosy, skyrocketing costs for basic necessities such as housing, food and utilities, and incredible poverty.

Your ONLY way seems to be a recipe for disaster. For the Tea Party, I put that down to simple ignorance. For the repub party, it appears to be a conscious plan, to make the debt so bloated that they can convince voters to approve draconian cuts in services and in their quality of life, while still producing massive benefits to the rich and the corporations. Yet more raping and pillaging of the vast majority of this country, including you, in order that the very top of the income layer can get even more undeserved wealth.

how do we know rachel did not make up this chart

forest, the link to the data source for the chart is listed above. If you are so inclined you can see for yourself, if not please refrain from casting meaningless aspersions.

it is a well known fact that obama has already spent more than any other president in history

Your source, please? Otherwise it would seem you just made that "fact" up.

Forest, I hate to rain on your parade with actual facts, but Obama has spent far less than Bush ever did. First of all, remember that the $787 billion in TARP money was approved by some guy named Bush. The stimulus package was not much larger than TARP. The healthcare bill hasn't even taken effect, and hasn't cost a penny so far. On the other hand, the Bush tax cuts HAVE been in effect for years now, and the CBO says that making them permanent will cost $4 TRILLION over the next decade. In other words, over 4 times more than the stimulus plan that you probably opposed. If we take the Bush tax cuts to have started in 2003, and prorating that $4 trillion from 2003 to 2008, you can conservatively estimate that just in Bush's administration, the tax cuts cost over $2 trillion. I say it is conservative, because the economy was employing more people for most of that time, so there would have been more tax revenue that was lost than it would be today. Add to that the nearly $1 trillion spent on Iraq and Afghanistan, and you can easily see at least $4 trillion in spending by the Bush administration without even breaking a sweat. He also created the largest federal bureaucracy in history with the Department of Homeland Security, as well as conducting what he admitted were illegal wiretaps of Americans. How's that fiscally-responsible, small government, personal freedom thingy going for repubs? From what those of us in the reality-based world can see, repubs talk the talk, but definitely don't walk the walk. What makes you think they'd change their stripes if they were elected?

Or maybe money spent by Republicans doesn't count as being spent in Republican Bizarro World.

Apparently the right wingers at investors.com don't care to look at reality. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq alone created more deficit spending than that during each of the six years that Bush and the repubs were in control. Of course, they played a little sleight of hand on that, never putting the war funding in the Pentagon budget, where it would have to add to the reported deficit. Instead, they routinely got two "emergency funding" measures through the repub congress each year, for over $100 billion each time. Funny how statistics can be manipulated, eh sport?

Thanks for the clarity Uffda. I get so tired of the shell game that the Bush administration did with the two wars, pretending that they don't belong in the budget. It is that "imaginary money" that pays for wars (to be fair, the Democrats were complicit in that and didn't demand the wars be put into the budget).

I notice that all of Wikipedia's charts end in 2007 or 2008. Think they'll get around to updating them soon? Maybe after November, eh? And what will that data show?

Then maybe you will find this instructive:

http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch/deficits.html

How is that more instructive? It still leaves out the Obama bill and it still leaves out the projected entitlement spending over the next decade.

By the way, you won't get a defense of GWB out of me. That said, nothing is being done to reverse course and nothing is being done to tackle the entitlement issue. The reaction against the emerging pattern cuts both ways. If we can stop calling people racists and rubes, maybe we can get around to solving these problems. It will require an earnest effort by all Americans and will require leadership that is far more inclusive than what we currently have.

What bill specifically are you speaking of? The stimulus package? If that is what is bothering you, come out and say it. If you think the economy would have magically recovered without it, you may want to look at how that strategy worked out for Herbert Hoover. The projected entitlement spending is Obama's fault? You mean there was no shortfall in budgeting for entitlement spending up until he came into office? And of course, there is the $4 trillion in deficits created by making the Bush tax cuts permanent over the next decade. Or should we just follow the repub line and say that tax cuts that are not paid for are inherently good, but programs that aren't paid for are bad? Studies by the GAO show that the Bush tax cuts COST much more than they brought in with economic stimulus promised from the tax cuts.

I didn't say that the entitlements are Obama's fault. Adding to them and failing to reform them most definitely are.

As for arguing over tax cuts, I won't do it. I'm a proponent of a complete overhaul of the tax system. You can just keep on polishing the same ol' turd.

I suppose you are for the inappropriately named 'fair tax'? I'm all for overhauling the tax system, starting with the elimination of corporate welfare and the valuing of inherited money over money earned by actual labor. Also eliminate tax incentives for offshoring American jobs, and moving a companies headquarters to a PO box in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes.

The fair tax addresses all of your concerns.

And the fair tax is the opposite of fair, as it is a bigger burden on lower earners than top earners. I think you could simply tweak the current tax system to add another top level to those that earn over $1 million a year as well as another level for those that make over $1 billion, and tax them like we did back in the good old days (40%-50% would be meager compared to the 50's tax levels). Along with that, some simple loopholes being closed would go a long way. (like what Obama is trying to do with hedge fund monies where billionaires are only paying 15% taxes on earnings) Businesses are not punished for sending jobs overseas, and conversely they are not rewarding for hiring Americans or buying American products.

In the end, Americans need to wake up and realize that if we want to afford this way of life we need to pay for it with taxes. As long as everyone would rather go to Wal-Mart to save $0.30 on something (which is made in China), rather than supporting American business and products, we are not going to fix anything.

Your first statement lets me know that you haven't read the plan. You well never get any additional revenue out of millionaires and billionaires by jacking up their tax rates to 50%. That's a fantasy.

You want to encourage American Businesses and jobs? You want to spur consumption of American made products? ELIMINATE corporate taxes.

Afford what way of life? This crumbling social welfare state? No thanks. There's no reason to continue on this path.

@jawney ~ the only "fantasy" is you thinking trickle down economics works. or that this is a "crumbling social welfare state".

1) social security has a 2.5 trillion dollar surplus, it's privatizers like you that keep spending us in a hole.

2) while dubya was giving the top 5% 3.2 trillion dollars in new tax refunds (during the 2000's) the economy lost 8 million private sector jobs, the middle class' income went down, and 3.6 trillion was privately invested overseas (out sourcing).

3) with the billions that banks took in bailouts we can't get banks to give a business loan, but they sure love leveraging billions on high risk derivatives.

if conservatives actually had to adhere to facts you'd all go extinct.

Your answer to buy American products is to eliminate corporate taxes? How does that work actually? I am really intrigued. If corporations don't pay taxes, they will not hire more workers or begin manufacturing in the US; they will just put more money in their own pockets. I thought that the easiest way to change the import of foreign goods was a simple tariff on imported products (like China does to our products). If Wal-Mart (just an example) could buy products in the US cheaper than overseas (due to tariffs), they would do so. Jobs are not created by the rich, money is created by the rich. I am still waiting for my trickle down from the 80's to come in, but I wont hold my breath.

Greed is the problem with our economy, not the government and social programs. You could argue that there could be some cuts in social programs, and there is way too much waste and fraud.

You're not reading the actuary's reports.

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html

And, by the way, all this trust fund gimmickry is just that. They are BORROWING the money to keep the programs solvent.

You can show no causation between Bush's tax cuts and lost jobs.

I would have never bailed out the banks.

I never said Bush's tax cuts lost jobs, I just stated the fact that it didn't create the amount of jobs that the GOP claims it would. Tax cuts to rich people and large corporations do not create jobs at the level that the GOP touts.

I will ask my question again, jawny, how does cutting the corporate taxes transfer into businesses and people buying American products as you claimed?

I will agree with you on the bank bailouts, as they should have been forced to bankruptcy so other institutions could buy them for pennies on the dollar. That would have been true capitalism, but the Republican president decided to hand the bankers a blank check. The travesty was that the bank bailout was a 3-4 page bill, with no strings attached (besides the fact that it actually happened).

I never said Bush's tax cuts lost jobs, I just stated the fact that it didn't create the amount of jobs that the GOP claims it would.

Bush on Jobs: The worst track record on record (Wall Street Journal)

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-jobs-the-worst-track-record-on-record/

And the NY Times:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/job-creation/

Tax cuts to the wealthy do not create jobs.

And the few jobs Dubya created were temporary jobs to support his bs wars.

Even if you say unemployment rate instead of creating jobs, the policies that brought us to where we are now are responsible for a doubling of unemployment, the mergers that brought outsourcing, the rewarding wealthy with tax cuts did NOT result in hiring U.S. workers.

Fiorina in CA took DOWN a garage start up that grew big time, employed thousands to mega outsourcing of good jobs in my area. They expanded from SIlicon Valley to other areas, North Bay, brought about a rising housing market (but then it went way too far). Times were good. I knew MANY people employed by HP, owning a home.But then the layoffs came, first manufacturing. The remaining employees trained work Visa'd foreign folks to do their software development jobs, then took wage cut after wage cut. No raise for YEARS. Carly Fiorina devastated H.P. and was fired, receiving a huge golden parachute.

There is a difference between budget surplus and national debt. Clinton had a budget surplus. The National Debt still increased under Clinton.

And the reason that happened is that he didn't have a surplus for most of his administration, but it has to be admitted that he is the only president in many decades to have a balanced budget. Could it happen again? I doubt it, as the interest on the debt has ballooned since Clinton left office.

So you would support a balanced budget amendment?

I support paygo, which worked during the Clinton administration. A balanced budget amendment is a sham. What would Bush have done if he had been subject to a balanced budget amendment, yet still wanted to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and still ram through 2 massive tax cuts? Funny how the only time you hear about a balanced budget amendment is when a dem is in the White House and repubs are on the outside looking in. It's also funny that the only time you hear about fast track authority for negotiating trade deals is when a repub is in the White House. Same with the line item veto. I'll support a balanced budget amendment as soon as I see a repub president and repub congress push for it. Should be interesting then, as they tell the Pentagon that they basically have to close their doors and go out of business because of that.

I tell you one thing he wouldn't have done under a BBA. He wouldn't have instituted Part D.

Part D was a massive ripoff by the drug companies of the American taxpayer. The fact that Tauzin, the congressman who got the thing passed, immediately left for a high-paying job with Big Pharma as soon as it was passed tells you that it was never meant to be anything BUT a ripoff.

We're seeing eye to eye on that for sure.

Never make you opposition take responsibility? It is a partisan issue when you are being blamed for their incompetence and outright malfeasance. Why are you afraid to fight back? It's become a habit?

I do "fight back" to the extent I'm able. I will never, ever support a candidate from either of the parties shown on this chart.

Since the parties on the chart do control what happens in our country, Justin, you have just "opted out" of having a say in our future.

Justin, at some point in your life YOU will have to face the truth about what the republican party truly stands for. For every 1 bill you name, that republicans passed to help, the poor-middle class- upper middle class, I WILL NAME YOU 4 that the Democrats passed to help EVERYBODY!!!!! including the RICH!!!!! Don't be blinded by bigotry and hate........

Yes, jacqlyn, I'd like you to name 4 bills that the Democrats have passed that help everybody.

1. Healthcare reform

2. Financial reform

3. Stimulus package

4. Equal pay for women

1) Healthcare reform will help you as long as you don't get really sick and as long as you have insurance that the government likes. Otherwise, your premiums are going up, you'll be denied care, your doctor may refuse to treat you altogether or may just quit the biz and people who chose not to buy insurance in the first place will decide that paying the fines is better than purchasing mandated coverage. Yeah . . . that all helps.

2) Financial Reform helps the banks to perpetual bailouts, increases the burdens on businesses and makes loans impossible, creates another bureaucracy to feed and makes credit less accessible. I don't see that helping anyone, much less everyone.

3) Stimulus Package BWAHHHHH. Helps union workers and their pension plans, public sector employees and bankrupt state governments. If you're fortunate enough to be in one of these groups, then good for you. Helps everybody? Not so much.

4) Equal Pay for Women by mandating equal pay for unequal work? This kind of government interference in the free market is a benefit to no one. You and I will never agree on this one.

1) lie, other than the fine part. That is what is good about the mandate. If you want to take the risk on not having insurance (usually due to the fact that you are young and healthy), ok, but you have to pay a fine since you are messing up the size of the risk pool.

2) lie, lie, lie - show me the truth to that statement other that Fox news talking points

3) partial truth. Public jobs were helped a lot from the bill, that is true, but there were TONS of other benefits in the stimulus. Tax cuts, incentives for investing in green jobs, incentives for retrofitting your house, TONS of infrastructure projects, and much more. Was it the most effective use of the money? That could be debated and I agree that there was probably a ton of waste. What you fail to mention is that those public sector employees are teachers, cops & firefighters. If you want to live in a state/city that doesn't have enough cops to keep crime down, not enough teachers to give your children a good education or enough firefighters to put out your house when it catches fire; well then you are just crazy. Are some of those pension plans bloated and a big causation to the states being over budget? Yes, in most cases (especially my state of RI)

4) equal pay for equal work, not unequal work (unless you are a sexist and believe that women inherently can't do an equal job based on genetics)

I think Rachel's point is that both parties are responsible for the debt, not just dems as the GOP would have the public believe.

It's based on fact. Have you conceded the best tools to Faux News?

Please, a powerpoint with pie charts is the LAST thing the president needs to do at this time. Time and time again, people are saying that the president is too collegial, to professorial. Whipping out a couple of powerpoints will only add to that perception. What he needs to do is more of what he did at the town hall, talking to actual people, and laying out the many accomplishments of his administration so far. I actually liked the fact that some of his supporters spoke out about their frustration with him and how he is dealing with things. He needs to hear that directly, not through advisors or cable news talking heads. I also was struck by how different this was from Bush town hall meetings, where attendees were carefully screened so that only people guaranteed to be slavishly devoted to Bush could even get in the door. People were barred access simply for having anti-Bush bumper stickers on their cars, despite it being a public meeting payed for by taxpayer money.

Of course, federal funding for abortion is already banned (as we all learned over and over again during Bart Stupak's hey-look-at-me stunt during the health-insurance reform 'debate') so just how seriously should we take Pence? None at all. Same as with any other winger, really.