Tax and Spend Conservatives

November 9, 2005 6:17 PM

Tax and Spend Conservatives. President George W. Bush and the current administration have now borrowed more money from foreign governments and banks than the previous 42 U.S. presidents combined. Wow.
posted by caddis (42 comments total)

OK that's just a crap post, sorry BLNT
posted by rxrfrx at 6:21 PM on November 9, 2005

Is that corrected for inflation and so forth? I have a hard time believing that it could be. The "article" is pretty light on actual data.
posted by freebird at 6:21 PM on November 9, 2005

I'm assuming that means "foreign governments and foreign banks". Otherwise it makes no possible sense.

Basically, I guess Bush has borrowed more foreign money than previous presidents.
posted by Kickstart70 at 6:26 PM on November 9, 2005

CARVING OF GEORGE W. BUSH FOUND IN EGYPTIAN TEMPLE!

Coincidence? I think not!
posted by thatweirdguy2 at 6:27 PM on November 9, 2005

Tax? This administration? Surely you jest.
posted by eddydamascene at 6:30 PM on November 9, 2005

Oops. That "wow" should not have been in italics; that was my own astonishment slipping out.
posted by caddis at 6:32 PM on November 9, 2005

This stat is so extraordinary it needs a "rest of the story".
posted by stbalbach at 6:39 PM on November 9, 2005

Government borrowing is the same thing as taxation, because it increases the government's non-discressionary spending due to interest.

So if the government has 1 trillion dollars in spending programs, while interest on the national debut grows by 200 billion, they'll need to rase taxes in order to cover they're $1 trillion in spending.

The only difference is when you pay them. For most Americans, deficit spending is worse, because people tend to move up tax brackets as they age.
posted by delmoi at 6:40 PM on November 9, 2005

When these foreign governments come to collect, that's when we tell them about our 10,455 nuclear warheads.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:02 PM on November 9, 2005

Somebody has to point out that Clinton was impeached as many times as the previous 41 presidents combined. I guess it has to be me.
posted by S.C. at 7:10 PM on November 9, 2005

Well, it's a good thing we've been keeping our foreign relations as a top priority, then, eh?
posted by graventy at 7:47 PM on November 9, 2005

S.C., what do you call what happened with Andrew Johnson?
posted by kimota at 7:58 PM on November 9, 2005

Make that "borrow and spend".

Interest on the debt will likely amount to some $400 billion next year. That's a pretty big number.
posted by sfenders at 8:00 PM on November 9, 2005

Get with the talking points, it's "borrow and spend."

On preview: Too late!
posted by zpousman at 8:02 PM on November 9, 2005

Get with the talking points, it's "borrow and spend."

On preview: Too late!
posted by zpousman at 8:03 PM on November 9, 2005

[small]Damn you JRun[/small]
posted by zpousman at 8:04 PM on November 9, 2005

kimota: yes, one (1) instance (Andrew Johnson) during presidencies 1 - 41 equals (is "as many" as) one (1) instance (Bill) after that.

Still no data on blowjobs that did not result in impeachment, though.
posted by yhbc at 8:12 PM on November 9, 2005

S.C. - Nice comment - ripped straight from yesterday's fark thread about the same article.
posted by glycolized at 8:15 PM on November 9, 2005

Spending Out of Control - US Comptroller General.
posted by Gyan at 8:21 PM on November 9, 2005

If anyone's curious, I think the stats are in this Word doc. Can't be sure since the tables won't render in TextEdit. Why don't they just use PDF like everyone else?
posted by smackfu at 8:21 PM on November 9, 2005

The List, as of Aug 05.

Japan, Inc. has increased its holdings $5B this year.
China, Inc. $25B.
UK: $70B (?)

No other country really stands out I guess.

If I'm reading this right, "Official" holdings were constant over 2005, @ ~$1.24T.

I don't get these numbers. The treasury says foreign holdings increased $150B, and with a $350B deficit that means $200B was purchased by US peeps. Can somebody explain to me why we are borrowing this $200B from wealthy peeps rather than just, you know, taxing it???
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 8:30 PM on November 9, 2005

are we broke yet?
posted by pyramid termite at 8:31 PM on November 9, 2005

smackfu, nothing terribly interesting in that doc that you can't get from the treasury site in html, except this maybe:

End of FY01 (what Clinton left us with)
Total "public" debt: $2,328,302
T-Bills: $900,178
1-5yr notes: $650,522
5-10yr bonds: $329,247
10-20yr bonds: $174,653
20+yr bonds: $273,702
Average maturity: 6 yrs. 1 mo.

End of June 05
Total debt: $3,292,256 (+41%)
T-Bills: $1,095,354 (+21%)
1-5yr: $1,260,365 (+93%)
5-10yr: $485,465 (+47%)
10-20yr: $268,443 (+53%)
20+yr: $182,629 (-33%)
Average maturity: 4 yrs. 10 mos.

The Reagan-era 20yr bonds have been rolled over to shorter-term debts (at much lower interest rates) as they have become callable.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 8:57 PM on November 9, 2005

are we broke yet?

We will be soon, if Grover Norquist has anything to say about it.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:12 PM on November 9, 2005

OK, with the internet archive (don't these guys fucking rock??), here's the ca. 2001 list of foreign debt holders.

the Blue-Dog who-ever folks kinda jumped the gun; Clinton budgets left the country $1.2T in hock to the smelly foreigners:

           2005   2001   1997
Japan       684    333    277
China       244     60     48
UK          174    206    251
OPEC         53     45     52
Canada       48     13     11
Total     2,062  1,200  1,230

figures in megabucks
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 9:18 PM on November 9, 2005

If anyone's curious, I think the stats are in this Word doc.

Someone with Word needs to see if there's any good meta-data or changes info in there.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:51 PM on November 9, 2005

Holy shit. Looks like China has bought the USA.

Damn, I wonder if they're planning on outsourcing their third-world labour? The irony, it'll kill us.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:52 PM on November 9, 2005

That doesn't refute the statistic in any way, HM. A troll, Clinton-bashing? I'm shocked.

$1 trillion borrowed, is $1 trillion borrowed over the pre-Bush 224 years, not $1 trillion total in foreign debt. Interest on the borrowed money will increase that debt (very substantially). There could be $2 trillion of interest associated with that original $1 trillion borrowed. Considering it has historically not been the policy of the USA to pay back the debt beyond the annual deficit, it is not unsurprising for $1.2tril in foreign debt to exist even though only $1.01 tril was borrowed.

At any rate, you can see that for the years you reference, the foreign debt actually decreases under Clinton (for his second term), but its unclear what it was when he first took office. If the debt decreased, not only was he borrowing little or no money, but the deficit was being paid and a little more, to boot.

On a final note, this article from 1999 is good for a laugh.
posted by mek at 12:05 AM on November 10, 2005

mek writes "On a final note, this article from 1999 is good for a laugh."

From the article:

The Republicans are proposing a $792bn tax cut

*sigh*

Does anyone else miss the days when Republicans just wanted billion-dollar tax cuts instead of trillion-dollar tax cuts?
posted by Deathalicious at 2:04 AM on November 10, 2005

By the way, for those of you who still insist on considering Clinton a big spender, consider these figures, which show that during 8 years of Clinton government, the debt increased by $1.2 trillion.

Wow! That's a whole lot, huh?

Well, during just the first *4* years of Bush's government, he's increased the debt by $2 trillion. So assuming that, of course, he doesn't manage to start any more wars over the next few years, he's still going to spend at least twice as much as Clinton.

And, that's in the wake of ripping apart a whole slew of domestic programs.

But, be fair, he did send me a $300 check a few years ago. So why should I complain?
posted by Deathalicious at 2:12 AM on November 10, 2005

Shut up,Shut up, Shut up! I am trying to watch the O.C.
posted by srboisvert at 2:21 AM on November 10, 2005

Neither compassionate nor conservative.
posted by caddis at 3:42 AM on November 10, 2005

Deathalicious, nice numbers there.

$400bil/yr from 89-93, slowing to $250bil/yr from 93-01. And then up to $500bil/yr from 01 to present.

But he got a blowjob!!!
posted by mek at 4:00 AM on November 10, 2005

IMHO... huge deficit spending will NEVER be solved unless we fundamentally change the way that revenue is collected for the governement, and the way that it is allocated.

Yes, this includes major tax reform such as a national sales tax or flat tax, and getting out elected officials to actually DO the job we elected and are payign them to do - make hard decisions. Which of course, why reform is not likely to happen in our lifetimes.

If I were benevolent dictator for a day, I would abolish the income tax and move to a national sales tax with an exemption on basic foods. The president would also have a line-item veto to reduce pork dramatically, and congressional slots would have a time limit of one senate term and two congressional terms (yep... one term for the president).

I might not solve all the problems in a day but BYGAWD, the same people wouldn't be left in office to witness the changes.
posted by insulglass at 4:41 AM on November 10, 2005

Neither compassionate nor conservative.

I always thought that a good semantic retort to the whole compassionate conservative thing (back in 2000) would have gone something like, "If they're compassionate conservatives today, what were they before? And why should you believe them now?" Don't know, maybe someone said it then and I missed it.

It pisses me off that the Democrats never seriously challenged that notion of compassionate conservatism when it mattered.
posted by zarex at 5:29 AM on November 10, 2005

Deathalicious writes "Does anyone else miss the days when Republicans just wanted billion-dollar tax cuts instead of trillion-dollar tax cuts?"

I do.
posted by OmieWise at 6:50 AM on November 10, 2005

IMHO... huge deficit spending will NEVER be solved unless we fundamentally change the way that revenue is collected for the governement, and the way that it is allocated.

I guess in YHO we didn't have a budget surplus for a couple years back there, befure a huge tax cut and a war. But IMO you're just not paying enough attention...
posted by delmoi at 6:50 AM on November 10, 2005

You can't trust Republicans with your money. [and they waste it just to provve that government is evil]

Currently there are some very large spending cuts being proposed, for the poor and middle class.
To be directly followed by even larger tax cuts, for the wealthy and corporations. Again.
We can't afford compassion, unless it's for the "right" people.

Let's build another government funded golf course!
posted by nofundy at 7:39 AM on November 10, 2005

I don't care about the money. He restored diginity to the office.


HA!
posted by xammerboy at 7:44 AM on November 10, 2005

Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
posted by FormlessOne at 11:17 AM on November 10, 2005

i'm confused...so are japan, china & the uk gonna control the house of saud now, or the other way around?
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:58 PM on November 10, 2005

A 'fiscal hurricane' on the horizon
posted by homunculus at 10:59 AM on November 15, 2005