Democrats versus Republicans

[PBzeer]

Evidently, even the simple concept of an analogy is beyond you.

[erps]

Clouds of BS cant change the fact that HE ELIMINATED IT ENTIRELY.
No republican can claim that.

Clinton administration gets an atta boy from me for bringing the budget under control, especially in his second term while the congress was controlled by the republicans.

I live in the land of reality. When a tax cut is followed by a dip in revenue (twice!) and a tax increase is followed by an increase in revenue, and the graph clearly shows this to be true,

Absolutely true, but only part of the story. The graph also shows that the dip is temporary and then revenue increases. The bottom line is that the government continues to get increasing revenue with less impact on each individual family. That's called more bang for your buck in my neighborhood. Is that a bad thing?

[sck5]

What the graph says to me is that there is a rising trend in revenue which makes sense since the population grows and the per capita income grows. So there is an upward trend that asserts itself no matter what else happens. The question is, from what base does this upward trend begin?

Clinton set a base with his tax increase of 93 that led to a surplus by the end of his second term. Given that the year 2000 was near the top of the business cycle it is likely that if we had done nothing to change it, the fiscal balance would have bounced around near that balance point, sometimes negative and sometimes positive (THis, by the way, is what we should all wish for)

Bush cut taxes drastically and the revenue curve accordingly took a dip after which the usual long term trend reasserted itself. Note that this trend reasserts itself whether or not the taxes were cut, raised, or left the same - This much is clear in your graph.

Essentially then, Bush's cuts reset the base from which the underlying long term trend would grow - but now with a built-in gap between revenue and expenditure. Sure, the gap narrows on a business cycle upswing (as the graph shows over the last 3 years or so) but it will widen on a downswing (as is happening now and predicted to worsen over the next year.) but on average we now have a structural deficit.

The usual Republican response is to cut spending. Well, OK but the problem is that you could cut out ALL (100%) of non-defense discretionary spending and you would STILL have a deficit. Lets be really clear about this (and go to the bipartisan concord coalition site if you dont believe me - it is run by both repubs and dems who share a hatred of fiscal deficits) You cant eliminate the deficit through spending cuts alone. It is arithmetically impossible. You would either have to cut the military or cut entitlements to make it happen.

So, those who want to balance the budget with spending cuts, if you are honest about it, then tell us what exactly you want to cut. Here is a fun website that lets you experiment with exactly that

Penny Game Test Page

[Sailormon6]

Originally Posted by sck5

"what exactly did Clinton do to reduce the deficit?"

Clouds of BS cant change the fact that HE ELIMINATED IT ENTIRELY.

No republican can claim that.

Actually, one of the most significant changes that greatly reduced the cost of government during the Clinton Administration was the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, which was enacted by a Republican Congress. Finally, Congress reduced the economic incentive for women to have more children, and increased the incentive for them to work to support their families, and eliminated the incentive for fathers to leave home and abandon their responsibilities to their children. Until then, welfare was breaking the backs of taxpayers.

Any President could balance the budget if he didn't care about a strong military and an effective intelligence agency, as chuckles pointed out.

[sck5]

nice try sailormon - but it was clinton who led the welfare reform, not the republicans. in fact, only a dem could do it since it was so near and dear to the hearts of the old line dems and it could and would have been blocked by the Dems in congress if the prez didnt push it through.

credit where its due you know. It really isnt true that any one party has a monopoly on all that is good and right while the other is always in league with the devil.

[erps]

nice try sailormon - but it was clinton who led the welfare reform, not the republicans.

I don't know if that's true or not, but this is from the first google hit I got:

"On August 22, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 Conference Report to accompany H.R. 3734, the controversial legislation which repeals the 60 year old social safety net for the poor and requires welfare recipients to work. The legislation is very much like H.R. 4, the previous welfare bill that the President vetoed at the urging of NOW and other advocacy organizations. And, like the previous bill, the President received severe criticism from community activists, women's rights, social service advocacy, labor, minority, and religious groups in embracing this Republican-led effort to change the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program"

1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act - SourceWatch

[sck5]

erps

that is pretty much in line with what i remember. Clinton kept enough of the dems in line to get it passed since otherwise they would have filibustered - because a LOT of their grass roots supporters werent in favor. It would have had to be repubs leading it in congress and clinton pushing enough of the dems to get it through

[sailingdog]

Of course, it all depends on how elastic the demand is and where the price is on the demand curve. Dropping the price can often result in an increase in long-term revenue, by increasing the overall number of users... less profit per user, but more users... Of course, the fact that the price of gasoline and diesel fuel has gone through the ceiling is pushing people towards public transit systems.

Originally Posted by knothead

I remember once hearing about a municipal transit system, (buses), that was losing money.
They raised the fares and their revenue increased... for a little while.
After a couple of months, ridership decreased and revenue fell below what it was before the fares were raised.
Then they lowered the fares to an amount that was less than they were originally and revenues continued to drop... for a little while.
After a month or so ridership increased and so did their revenue.

[PBzeer]

Originally Posted by sck5

erps

that is pretty much in line with what i remember. Clinton kept enough of the dems in line to get it passed since otherwise they would have filibustered - because a LOT of their grass roots supporters werent in favor. It would have had to be repubs leading it in congress and clinton pushing enough of the dems to get it through

Let me see if I have this right. If Clinton, had not supported Welfare Reform that only existed because it was proposed by Republicans, there would have been no bill passed ...... ergo, Clinton gets the credit for a Republican proposal. Now that we have that figured out, can you please explain how it was really the Democrats that brought about the end of the Cold War instead of Reagan?

[camaraderie]

Welfare Reform was part of Gingrich's 1994 contract with America which occurred DURING Clinton's first term and resulted in a huge setback for the Democratic Party in the 1994 elections which gave control of both houses of Congress to Republicans. It is quite safe to say that welfare reform would have never occurred without Republican sponsorship and the CLEAR message that the 94 elections sent to Clinton about public opinion.
I think it is fair to credit Clinton with signing the bill and being pragmatic when the half of his own party was against the bill.
Some dems voting against the bill 12 years ago may be of interest still:
Kerrey, Kennedy, Leahy, Daschle, Feinstein, Dodd, Boxer,
Pelosi, Rangel, Shumer.
A veritable who's who of current dem leadership voted against the reform.
Lieberman was again on the RIGHT side of the issue.
If Barack had been there, he probably would have voted "present".