Obama won't raise taxes on those over $250k of income?

[AZRedhawk44]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304354104575568643889337142.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLTopStories

Yeah, right.

Eliminating or reducing the deduction for mortgage interest.

Eliminating or reducing the deduction for dependent children.

I can haz rivolooshun nao?

[AZRedhawk44]

I like this bit:

To balance the budget by 2015, excluding interest payments on debt, means officials would need to find roughly $240 billion in annual savings, according to commission documents. Panel officials also hope to issue recommendations that would "meaningfully improve" the country's long-term fiscal situation.

Interest payments on the debt, prior to Obama's stellar last 2 years, were around $500 Billion.  Nearly on par with Defense spending.  Nearly on par with Social Security spending.

And... how do you balance the budget aside from interest payments on debt?  That's asinine.  Then you're borrowing (NOT a balanced budget) to pay the "vig" on the national debt, and increasing the debt.

After Obama's last 2 years, our payments on interest are somewhere between $600-750 Billion.  So, that means we need to actually find nearly $1 Trillion dollars to ACTUALLY balance the budget.

And that's before the Health Care boondoggle comes into existence.

[HankB]

Politicians have been lying through their teeth about the budget and the debt for a long, LONG time.

What IS the national debt? The sum of all previous budget deficits and surpluses. (Interest on the debt continues to accrue, and becomes part of each year's deficit.)

Look at Clinton - much was made, is still being made, about his "surpluses."

But if you look at the national debt during all the Clinton & Bush years, it continued to increase. (with a small increase from 1999 to 2000.)

Here's the annual debt from 1950-1999:  http://treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm

Here's the annual debt from 2000-1010:  http://treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

If you genuinely have a surplus, HOW can you be deeper in the hole at the end of the year than you were at the beginning? Creative accounting involving constant dollars and inflation?   

[MechAg94]

I thought I had seen other graphs or tables showing the Federal budget in surplus for two years in the late 90's.  I wonder which is correct.  Were those budgets the "planned" budgets and the actual was a bit higher? 

[tyme]

@MechAg are those annual debt tables corrected for inflation?  That would explain it... raw debt decreased slightly but because of inflation it went up slightly?  Particularly 99-00 but maybe 97-99 as well.

[HankB]

I've read - but haven't confirmed - that some other graphs use "debt held by the public" as a measure, ignoring the fact that some government agencies (notably Social Security Administration) hold Treasury bills and notes as well. So they only count part of the debt.