Bloomberg News published a new round of polling data last night, most of it relating to the economy and the larger fiscal debate. The results are largely in line with expectations -- most Americans prefer President Obama's debt-reduction plans over Republicans', and would like Congress to delay the sequester to avoid hurting the economy.
But there was one question in the poll that struck me as especially important: "Let's turn to the federal budget deficit. This is the amount the government spends that is more than the amount it takes in from taxes and other revenue. Is it your sense that this year the deficit is getting bigger or getting smaller, or is it staying about the same as last year?"
I put together this chart to help highlight the Bloomberg results. A 62% majority believe the deficit is getting bigger, 28% believe the deficit is staying roughly the same, and only 6% believe the deficit is shrinking.
In other words, in the midst of a major national debate over America's finances, 90% of Americans are wrong about the one basic detail that probably matters most in the conversation, while only 6% -- 6%! -- are correct.
For the record, last year, over President Obama's first four years, the deficit shrunk by about $300 billion. This year, the deficit is projected to be about $600 billion smaller than when the president took office. We are, in reality, currently seeing the fastest deficit reduction in several generations.
And yet, 90% of Americans don't believe the demonstrable, incontrovertible, entirely objective truth. It's worth pondering why.
Public ignorance on this scale is, to my mind, understandable given the political conversation. Literally every day, Republican officials proclaim that the deficit is spiraling out of control, threatening the fate of Western Civilization As We Know It. The media often fails to play a constructive role, with news organizations playing along, telling the public that the deficit is necessarily a bad thing, and that policymakers have a responsibility to address it immediately.
Indeed, for the typical American news consumer, I imagine there's an assumption that comes alongside the fiscal debate: "The deficit must be getting bigger in a hurry, otherwise it'd be stupid for Washington to invest so much time and energy on this issue, instead of other pressing matters."
But the facts are the facts, even if only 6% of the country is aware of them.
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This really isn't that complicated. Most people don't understand the difference between a deficit and the national debt. The wording of the question doesn't correct people's understanding. That said, if it did, a vast majority would probably say they simply have no clue, since "that deficit" never gets discussed on TV.
I consider myself fairly well read, somewhat educated but what is the difference between the deficit and the national debt?
The deficit is essentially the debt we take on for one year. If we spend $800 billion more than we took in this year, we have an $800 billion deficit. The debt is the sum of those deficits, i.e., the total amount we currently owe. When we say the deficit is shrinking, that means we're still adding to the debt, but less so than we did last year and the year before.
The federal deficit is spending in excess of revenue. It's reported as an annual number and gets added to the national debt. The imbalance of spending and revenue is decreasing, thus the deficit is shrinking. However, it's still adding to the national debt and that continues to rise, albeit, more slowly.
Eddie,
The deficit is how much we need to borrow this year to meet our spending. The Debt is the total accumulation of how much we owe all creditors.
The deficit is the amount that you come up short in each years budget. For example, if we (as a nation) overspend by 300 billion in 2013, our deficit is 300 billion. However, our national debt is the combination of all past debt owed.
So you might have a $100 deficit in you budget from week to week, and to deal with that you carry a $5000 personal debt on your credit card.
Deficit is the actual short fall each year that the government has (Taxes it takes in vs payments out). This has been getting smaller (So we have a smaller negative cash flow) which as the poll sadly shows most people don't realize.
The Debt is how much we owe total as a nation. So all the deficits we have had (back to Reagan) are part of the debt. Which is why UNTIL we have a no deficit, we will need to continue to raise the debt ceiling.(Clinton was the last person to accomplish this)
The most common right wing radio trick is to interchange these two terms to make it seem like the current administration is doing a poor job. It is one thing that drives me crazy when they do it and you know they realize what they are doing.
Only 6% know the deficit is getting smaller. Does that mean only 6% found it more important to discover the facts as opposed to believing what they hear from someone else?
You have a good point Dan. It seems reasonable that many people don't comprehend the difference between budget deficit and debt.
Budget deficits must be managed as short term investments that result in resource or capital gains with surplus for following budgets. Debt must be managed responsibly over long term. It exploded during Reagon's "Trickle-Down Economics" and George W Bush's unpaid wars, which puts a larger strain on long term management.
In my opinion, based on national debt alone, we can not afford Republican leadership again until we know they have been rehabilitated. They can't even make the first healing step and break from their denial.
What is sad is I work with almost 100% College educated people and 9 out of 10 of them are in that 90% group that are uninformed. They argue with me on this whenever it comes up and I have to explain they are wrong. True a good 40% are Republican so I don't expect them to know facts, but the others??? It always boggles me.
Eddie the people defining deficit vs debt are correct. What they aren't telling you is that both are borrowed money that we will never pay back. We are officially broke and are deadbeats.
I'm ashamed that Americans think being a deadbeat is OK.
It's because the terms deficit and debt are used interchangably, and this is to be laid at the feet of media. For generations Americans could trust news media, and we certainly didn't feel the need to fact check every story, every statement. At least not since the yellow journalism days in the late 1900s. (Sad to say that term is now applicable to our present media coverage.)
I do believe it's slowly dawning on the American people, and that's why we had the election results we got in 2012. Results such as the ones shown in this poll are discouraging and show we still have a long way to go, but I still feel it's getting better, albeit too slowly.
The entire focus on debt is misguided. The deficit is shrinking faster than at any time since WWII. If you shrink government spending too quickly, you fall into recession. It has to be done slowly. Why do you think the economy contracted slightly in the last quarter of 2012? Look for more and faster contraction when the sequester kicks in.
If the only way one has to boost an economy is Govt spending, then the real wealth creation machine is damaged. Govt by itself doesn't make much that other people want to buy.
Maybe instead of always wringing our hands over the GOP misinformation campaign we can fight back. Maybe require that anyone obtaining a license to use public airwaves must show a little civic responsible by educating their listeners on civil matters. Take surveys to determine how informed the audiences are and deny renewal to those stations whose audience can't reach a minimal standard of civics knowledge 3 years in a row. I would love to see Fux "News" scream about their konstitushinal "right" to use public property to deliberately destroy this country via ignorance and lies.
& so Republicans are full of cockypoo when they say no more revenue, just cut, cut cut. We need more revenue & can get that by stopping oil subsidies, taxing Wall Street for a transaction tax on trading & make the rich pay more in taxes. It is ridiculous that millionaires pay a far less ratio on their taxes than the middle class does. O...& the US has an agreement w/ (8) other countries, Switzerland included, in sharing info on off shore accounts. They are working w/ (50) other countries to do the same.
Shooter: how much real wealth is created by a hedge fund manager or a stockbroker? These people move wealth around; they do not create it. If the government builds a road or a bridge or even a functional weapons system, haven't they created real wealth? If a teacher helps educate a doctor or an engineer, haven't they created wealth?
Yeah, I remember Shooter being so ashamed of America when Bush and the Republicans took the Clinton/Gore surpluses and turned them into record deficits (just to enrich the already rich).
True # 1.11
The government does not make a product, neither does Wall Street, but the human-beings, the people, that make up the civil servants: DMV, court houses, SS, EPA, miscellaneous departmental staffs they are one part of the Consumers one part of the 99%
Yay well there’s the private sector - you wine
Yes, the private sector where you get to live from pay check to pay check, (just how high is the personal debt in this country?) or your get to have more than one job to just make ends meet. Yup a hole lot of disposable income there.
Here is an old saying for ya
“Money is like fertilizer it can’t do any good unless you spread it around”
FYI an off shore account is not spreading it around.
"Shooter being so ashamed of America "
no he just showing that his number one talking points are Rush`s as he just said for the first time he is ashamed of america.
LOL
next will be the fox follow ups.
bf, Hedge fund guys buy companies, try to improve them and then sell them. Those companies produce real wealth. Meanwhile Govt takes money from private sources and then gives it to other private receivers. That isn't creating anything, it's just redistribution. In the case of infrastructure the recipients are building companies, engineers, and equipment rentals.
Consider the teacher educating a doctor, it's the doctor performing medicine, not the teacher. Like a law school graduate that doesn't pass the bar. Educating is one thing, actually doing something that people will buy and sell is something else.
Actually, in the process of managing public resources, (or in research and development, or subsidies,) government often DOES create raw material products as a byproduct of that management. But since government isn't supposed to be in the business of making a profit, they offer these products up for sale at base rates as a minimum to help cover some costs to government. Private industry in turn bids on these raw products and turns the profit for their part in product harvest and/or processing.
It's a good partnership between private industry and government, and ensures that some industries remain viable and some companies competitive. Oh... and it creates a large number of private industry jobs too. Just sayin.
Shooter: Hedge funds like Bain capitol that buy companies and break them up and sell their assets. When the government buys a bridge by paying a private contractor to build it, we the people still own the bridge, which makes it possible for all the private businesses, large and small, to get their goods to market and their employees to work.
When the Army Corp of Engineers has its funding cut so that it cannot dredge the Mississippi river, farmers and manufacturers have to use alternate modes of transportation, such as rail and truck, which are more expensive than moving by water. And the trucks depend on government highways.
Much of the money the government spends is intended to improve commerce, to make it possible for businesses to thrive.
>> Consider the teacher educating a doctor, it's the doctor performing medicine, not the teacher. Like a law school graduate that doesn't pass the bar. Educating is one thing, actually doing something that people will buy and sell is something else.
So, without the teacher, you have one sick person and one person unable to help. With the teacher, the doctor is able to heal the sick person, who can then go on to participate in the economy. It seems to me that the teacher indeed added value to the economy, value that wouldn't have been there. If the teacher is -- heaven help us! -- a public school teacher, then "the government" added wealth.
It seems to me that Shooter242 just proved government does create wealth. Nicely done.
Written almost immediately after Rush Limbaugh talks about being "ashamed of the US." Wow, what are the odds of that?
LOL
Not to mention, those idiots who are certain that the holders of the American debt are all foreign manipulators who will 'foreclose' on their holdings, deplete the nation and force us into bankruptcy...
Who holds the American debt? WE DO! The bulk of the dept is owned by the Federal Reserve, trust funds such as Medicare, Social Security and pension funds, and private owners of American securities... Ever own a US Savings Bond? Congratulations! YOU are one of the holders of the American debt..
Many companies hold onto Bearer Bonds, easy to liquidate into cash when needed, to maintain their assets... They are so much easier to handle than cash for large denominations like $100,000 or more... Guess who maintains the debt that backs up those Bearer Bonds? The Federal Reserve, as part of the National Debt they own...
Do you think the American public would be stupid enough to cash in the debt we own, in order to bankrupt this country? Well, the Republicans are dying to do that... They would love to get their hands on the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds and privatize them, turning them over to Wall Street gamblers who would use the money for speculation, all the while charging fees from the public for each transaction...
Meanwhile, whenever 'vulture' capitalists get their hands on pension funds of targeted companies, liquidate them and harbour the cash in off-shore accounts, who picks up the slack in the pension funds? The taxpayers, through federal guarantees of those funds...
Oh, I forgot to mention... Insurance companies, banking institutions, credit unions, state and local governments, mutual funds... Basically, anyone who buys a US Treasury security is a holder of part of the National Debt...
Anyone thinking the National Debt can be reduced to ZERO is deluding themselves...
Breakdown of the American Deficit, projected through 2017...
Notice that the Interest on the outstanding debt ALONE this year is a quarter of a Trillion dollars...
I am no expert--
In 1999 US$, there is never going to be enough surpluses to reduce the debt by $1 trillion dollars. Before that much surplus is collected the economy will crash.
Surpluses have to come out of "Private/Crop." saving or the foreign trade balance (which has been negative for the US every year (but a few=~3) since 1985. Repeat private saving, including company assets.
Do you think Obama wants more people to know this? If they do they will not call for more taxes on the rich.
So sequester does NOT mean CUT — it means SLOWED GROWTH IN SPENDING. Then if we slow down spending we slow down the "annual deficits" which in turn starts to lower the "national debt" Right ?
Ah, but a reduction in the amount that the deficit is growing is not the same thing as a reduction in the deficit itself. Thus the question, unless worded perfectly, would elicit a response that is essentially useless. I have this argument on a regular basis with a decent guy who happens to be a Republican. He is convinced that THIS is the major issue and that cuts are they only solution. He is incapable or unwilling to agree that growing the GDP is the ONLY way to ultimately turn back the deficit clock.
I don't understand. Isn't Maddow saying the deficit itself is getting smaller and not that it is growing less. Isn't she saying, backed by the facts, that the deficit is indeed shrinking and not that it is growing less than ever before?
As Dan said, you're confusing deficit with debt. The deficit, by definition, is the change in the national debt during one year. The deficit is shrinking. The debt is still growing, but its rate-of-growth is slowing.
Jurgan, you are correct that the language should be "deficit" and "national debt", but the average person does not see the distinction until and unless it is pointed out to them.
Probably better to say "annual deficits" (plural) and "total national debt." Not as abbreviated for headlines but should alleviate a lot of confusion. Our annual deficits are shrinking each year Obama is in office, this in turn increases the total national debt, but that rate of growth is shrinking.
Eddie Bryan -
The debt is the total amount of money our country owes.
The debt shrinks or grows depending on whether you run a surplus or a deficit each year.
Think of it this way, if you borrow and spend $1,000 more each month than you make in pay checks, then you are running a monthly "deficit" of $1,000. And, you would end up with total "debt" of $12,000 after a year. Even if you reduced your deficit to $0 the next year, you would still have a debt of $12,000 plus any interest. In order to reduce the debt, you would have to start running a surplus which you could use to pay the debt down.
Rachel is saying that while Bush gave Obama a large debt, more importantly, he gave him a huge deficit by spending money on wars, tax cuts and losing money through a bad economy.
Obama is reducing the deficit quite fast, so, instead of adding $1.5 trillion to the debt each year (like when he got into office after Bush), he has reduced what we are adding to about $900 billion.
If we can get that $900 billion (negative) turned into a $300 billion (positive), then we can start paying the debt down every year.
Clinton handed Bush a surplus, so we were starting to pay the debt down. Bush took the surplus and gave it back as tax cuts which stopped us from paying the debt down and turned us to a deficit. He then started two wars which increased the deficit before handing the reigns over to Obama.
If you listen to the Repuberticans it's getting larger, maybe they're talking about their private parts, they must be getting their jollys off, who knows?
well the good old media has lot`s to do with that!
And if Fokkk is your only source,,, yep, it is no wonder.
I agree totally...People hear what they want to hear and listen to the news a source that backs up their uninformed beliefs.
It isn't just Fox that confuses the debt and the deficit. Pretty much everybody in the media either confuses it outright or doesn't take the time to tell us the difference. If we were to balance the budget the deficit would go to zero, but we would still have a giant debt.
I bet most Americans don't know the difference between the national debt and the federal deficit. If you correct this poll for that misunderstanding, the results probably wouldn't be as striking. That said, it's still clear that most Americans are very poorly informed.
And let's not even get into the difference between the gross debt and the public debt, the latter being the amount we owe ourselves as Americans, and the former being the total debt owed including the public debt. The public debt is about $6T of the overall gross debt of $16T.
Excellent point, Trevor! It's very rare that's mentioned, much less covered.
Trevor, according to Wikipedia, gross debt is indeed 16T, but public debt share is actually 12T, not 6: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt.
It's not surprising that people don't distinguish between the "deficit" and the "debt." Economic education is the U. S. has never been much of a priority. It's barely taught at any meaningful level in elementary and middle/junior high school social studies programs, because teachers only have to take one economics course to be certified in that field.
Business and marketing education programs used to help improve the level of economic understanding among high school students. However, those--and other--vocational programs have largely disappeared from the landscape in our secondary schools and, increasingly, at the community college level.
I was one of the 6% that knew this. The Republicans is hell-bend on this president not being a successful president,since president Clinton.
Their whole agenda is based on fear and anger of opponent success. The more successful President Obama is to the benefit of our nation and people, the more they will oppose him. They need professional help, or more spankings.
They need to be voted OUT, in the next election.
It is no secrete that most Americans only get information about Our economy and government from the 6:00 PM local news, the 6:30 national news or local word of mouth.
Or their loud Uncle that watches Fox news and is all wrong on the facts.
http://now.msn.com/msnbc-more-biased-than-fox-news-according-to-pew-research-center-study
Inspector:
That study is interesting for what it covers, coverage of two candidates over a short period of time, but it is fallacious to attempt to extrapolate from that example to news and opinion coverage in general. The argument you present is therefore invalid.
Interesting that they used "positive light" and "negative light" as an indicator of bias instead of "accurate" and "inaccurate". Without knowing the latter the former is not only meaningless but potentially biased itself.
I have this argument at least once a week. So much empirical evidence, so few curious minds.
To the amusement of some ignorance breeds fear and superstition. Depending on others to translate fact into fiction is a fault of humanity. Thunder?Thor is angry!Flood? Posieden. Now it's , hurricane? God is mad at the liberals! Aids? God hates gays!
Yet many of our brethern are capable of reading and comprehending factual data provided by the source.The trouble with simply reciting facts and figures is it neuters the primal instinct to gather in tribal groups under the us against them banner.
As an example somewhat far afield...The Krupps got Hitler appointed and turned normal human beings into frothing dogs of war. If you think that was a fluke I present you with the Kochs.
Hence this from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp:
Krupp proclaimed he wished to have "a man come and start a counter-revolution" against Jews, socialists and liberals. In some of his odder moods, he considered taking the role himself. According to historian William Manchester, his great grandson Alfried Krupp would interpret these outbursts as a prophecy fulfilled by the coming of Hitler.
I wonder if anyone here remembers the flap over a group of republicans who were cited as posting on their site that "what we need is another Pearl Harbor..."
Ya know....with all the hacking going on lately, I wonder if we didn't just have a modern day "Pearl Harbor"...
Maybe it is time to do an educational session on deficits, budget deficits, national debt with charts that show relationships among these. An ever increasing national debt obfuscates any progress being made to slow down the rate of increase even despite how substantive that change is.
How do you intend to get this information out to the masses? I live in Texas (not really a Texan) and I am surrounded by the most ignorant people I have ever encountered. They love FOX, Limbaugh and Beck. Their hatred of our president is all-consuming. It is one thing to be ignorant. It is another to prefer that condition and remain that way.
I would disseminate your data if it came from another source besides Steve Benen, Maddow Blog. I realize he must make the spiffy bar charts, et al, but if he'd source the original data it would be great. (Now it's as if Fox made a chart and put their name/their employee's name on it.
This isn't surprising at all. Didn't you ever see the "man on the street" things that late night does? People don't know who the VP is, or Bill Gates, or any number of other things that you would think even slightly informed people would know.
Do a poll about what happened on "The Vampire Diaries" or who Justin Beiber is dating, I bet they know that. Oh yeah, and ask about the British royal family, they are headline news...did you know that Kate is pregnant?
Yet The vast majority of those people voted for Obama.
plenty of them voted for Willard, too.
Willard was surprised he didn't win. Real intelligent, informed, man.
Inspector12-propagandist.
By the way-most of the inspector12s I know of, inspect underwear. Branching out?
Chris
Finally somebody gets it.
You've received oracle status.
Goes to show you: the power of negative propaganda. If you say something long and often enough, the mind is shut from condisdering the opposite view.
This is likely because most people don't properly distinguish between the ANNUAL budget Deficit and the National Debt. While the annual budget Deficit remains a HUGE DEFICIT annually it has been slowly coming down. Obama's budget projects a reduction in the deficit to $575 billion by 2018 before RISING AGAIN to $704 billion by 2022!
The National Debt is currently $16.558 Trillion and is projected to reach ~ $23 Trillion by 2023, which requires an annual average budget DEFICIT of $650 Billion over the next 10 years.
It is not enough to REDUCE the Deficit to an average of $650 Billion annually; we need to Balance the budget w/i 7 - 10 years and STOP the growth of and then REDUCE the National Debt.
ICYMI: Projected annual rates of increase in major spending categories budgeted for the 2012-2022 period were:
I know 16 trillion and 23 trillion are staggeringly large numbers, but some years ago I t was told by an economist that the percentages of debt and deficit to the overall economy are the keys to real understanding of this topic. A completely debt free government is a sign It is unhealthy for a country to be totally out of debt. As long as the size of the debt and deficit are appropriate, we don't have anything to worry about. How big will the American economy be in 2013 and 2023.
Ron: the only time in the history of the U.S. that the national debt was paid off was under Andrew Jackson. Right after he paid off the National Debt, by selling a lot of public land, and he got rid of the National Bank, the country went into recession.
One of our problems is that the government operates on a cash basis. It does not have a capitol budget for long term investment. I pay off my credit cards every month. I use them only for monthly expenses such as gas. But I have a 30 year, fixed rate mortgage for my house, because that was the only way I could afford such a big investment. My house is already worth double or more than I paid for it.
We need to distinguish between spending and investing. Someone up above said something about return on investment. We need to look at return on investment. When I buy cat food, that is an expense. The cats do not make any money, although they do help keep the mice and the rabbits down. When I buy chicken feed, that is an investment because I get that back in eggs that I eat for breakfast and sell to my neighbors.
Just as a reminder: The last two Democratic presidents reduced the deficit, and at least two of the last three Republican presidents raised it (not sure about Bush 41). Republicans run up massive bills, and Democrats are forced to find ways to pay them off. But it's the Democrats who are the Party of Free Stuff (Hi, Shooter!).
All three Republican presidents have raised the deficit and debt. Only Clinton and Obama have lowered the deficit.
The debt is the accumulation of past deficits so we can't completely fix that till we clean up the mess Reagan started. (Yes we had a debt before him, but in the preceding 20 years the other presidents were on a downward trend. Reagan reversed that and started growing the debt again. )
Or they pitch a couple of wars and a Medicare D prescription plan and DON'T ADD IT TO THE BUDGET. Big reason Obama's numbers are so much worse than Bush's, at least up front, is that he put all of Bush's errors on the budget for the first time.
Actually Beaker1, check your facts... both parties have a penchant for spending...
since 1940, the debt has increased every year but 6 years.
1947 Truman (D)
1948 Truman
1951 Truman
1956 Eisenhower (R)
1969 Nixon (R)
In terms of the contention that President Obama has some how reduced the deficit, I refer you to www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals Table 1.1
The interpretation that after tripling the deficit
from .157, .377, .412, .318, .248, .160, .458 annually
to 1.412, 1.293, 1.299, 1.326 (est.)
that it will now be going down .901 (est. for 1212) is one way to spin it...
lisafp1: We had a surplus during the last couple years of the Clinton presidency, which actually shrunk the total national debt. Famously, debt clocks had to be turned off because they had no "reverse" setting. Check your facts, indeed.
@Jurgan
Based on Table 7.1 Federal Debt at end of Year 1940-2017, I'm reading this:
1992 4,001,787 (4.001 trillion)
1993 4,351,044
1994 4,643,307
1995 4,920,586
1996 5,181,465
1997 5,389,206
1998 5,478,189
1999 5,605,523
2000 5,628,700
2001 5,769,881
2002 6,198,401
Yes, Clinton (1993-2001) did have budget surpluses for years 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001. Although he shrunk higher accumulation, the debt did not decrease during those years.
If Clinton had surpluses from '98 to 2001, why do the total debit numbers in your table continue to get larger each of those years.
Because, the surpluses that most people talk about are FORECAST surpluses. The "balanced budgets" of 98-01 were balanced by borrowing from the SS trust fund. But they weren't in surplus.
The much ballyhooed $2 trillion surplus never existed. The table values go up because 1) they are revised figures and 2) debt interest payments are a different part of the accounting than the annual budget.
The real problem with the 62% and their view on the deficit is that they are too lazy to get involved with the political process in a way that will let them see what is really going on. This is what the republican party loves. So they lie on a daily basis and those lies become the truth for far too many people.
People often ignore facts when they don't fit their narrative. We all do it to some degree, but Conservatives do it because their world view is so deeply connected to their identity, they would rather fight than accept uncomfortable facts in their lives.
That's why they react the way they do to discussions on curbing gun violence, or why they create conspiracy theory answers to unhappy questions, like pretending Benghazi is some huge cover-up.
They don't talk, they just shoot off their mouth in all directions. Shoot, shoot, shoot.
LOL
You have to ignore facts to fit the narrative if you believe in religious institutions. You cannot question, or you have no faith. If another religion claims something that conflicts with your religious beliefs you are questioning all that a person has connected to their identity. This is why conservative, religious fanatics are scary, scary people, enter Tea Party. The moral fabric of our society is crumbling but it's not because of abortion, LGBT people, or because you haven't accepted Jesus Christ as your savior. The moral fabric of our society is crumbling because of greed, a lack of a good educational system, greed, and anger because of greed. Power is necessary to hold on to their greed....enter the Republican party platform.
I am so tired of uninformed people making statements about the President and what has gone on in his administration. They don't seek the truth because that might alter what they want to believe!! I check sources to make sure that I am informed...too bad only about 6% of Americans are brave enough to do their own truth seeking. They are on a witch hunt and don't embrace truth. But isn't that the way it is with every Democrat President....anything to disgrace them....impeach....and bring total confusion to America. To those that choose to be informed....please be quiet!
This whole business is but another example of the difference between how the two sides think. The left wing looks at the numbers and says, yes, the deficit this year is less than it was last year so the deficit is shrinking. The right wing doesn't even look at the numbers because for them, facts and opinions and talking points are one and the same. They have their opinions so they don't need to look at facts.
Fact based and faith based ways of looking at the world are bound to come into conflict, and there is no way to resolve the problem without moving from one side to the other. Since reality will eventually bite you if you aren't paying attention to it, the more productive choice would be to move from faith based to reality based.
Reality is real. That's kind of its key feature. It doesn't care if you don't like it. - Rock Diva
Could someone describe in numbers whats the difference between national and federal deficit. This article is nice but it lacks to necessary information like what is the current federal and national debt. Why should I care more about one than the other? What is the annual growth of the GDP. I felt like I just read the back page description of a book. So please help me understand.
The deficit is the lack of compassion and lack of reasoning in the GOP/tea party...The debt is what they owe this country for being malicious and corrupt...
As the pied piper of propaganda, Rush beats a drum and people march. I can blame it on lazy thinking, but that study that shows a conservative brain being wired for selfishness comes to mind. I dunno, all I can say is that when I read about Eisenhower I find points of dis-agreement, but he was still a person I could respect.
This is a profound statistic. Its scares me that most of us aren't capable of differentiating between a deficit and debt transaction. Perhaps people just don't care!
Who is Steve Benen? Is he a reliable source to put this together? It would be nice to know that I have solid information to go on here before discussing this with others.
The Bloomberg polling data can be found through Benen's first link within the first sentence.
Benen is reliable. Actually he is one of the best bloggers in the business. He always links to his sources. As locknpost notes he did in this case.
@ Andromeda2013
Go right to the source, refer to the US Historical Tables www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals for the figures on Receipts, Outlays, and Surplus/Deficit by year(Table 1.1) and Federal Debt at the end of each year (Table 7.1). That is where you will get the most accurate information and you will be able to make your own decisions with no one else's spin on it.
This is no surprise as most people are financially illiterate and don't know the difference between deficit and debt.
Explain one thing to me, how can we have a smaller budget deficit when Congress hasn't passed a budget in four years?
I bet about six percent know the difference between budget proscriptions and the actual appropriations bills that fund the government, too.