America: A potential spectrum shift to the left?

[Beckwin]

ozz, just look up OECD rankings. it's really common knowledge that when it comes to life expectancies, infant mortality rates, educational results, time off and benefits, per capita healthcare spending, crime, etc., that the US lags behind our European counterparts.

[Tomk]

I posted this before but I'll do it again.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy...get/tables.pdf

Here is the "ACTUAL" budget. Not commentators theories. Read it and see that Obama reduced the deficit by $3 billion in 2009.

It also calls for a $48 billion surplus in the year 2012.

You can argue whether he can actually pull off the surplus, that is valid, but he is definitely not trying for a greater deficit.

This isn't my opinion, these are the facts.

[ozz]

it also has high marks in many fields in the OECD, like per capita PPP, percentage of citizens with a college education, relative pay for those with a college education, happiness as a feeling, adaptability of companies to market change...alot of things

And in the fields it doesnt lead, it isnt consistently beaten by the same country.
For example, per capita PPP #2 is Luxembourg, but in adaptability of companies to market change Luxembourg is #30. Overall, the US is consistently highly rated.


..and tomk, your pdf, can you point me to where it shows that? I see the first table showing lots more deficit than surplus, I see S-11 showing an increase overall from 2008 to 2013, and...am acknowledged large drop in GDP in that time frame?

I mean, you say it's there so I'm sure it is and I'm sure i'm showing my ass by saying what I think I'm reading which is obviously wrong, but whatever



wait, anyway, back to my initial point beckwin, whats going to happen when entitlement programs and interest on the debt exceeds tax revenue?

[Beckwin]

yes, the US is highly rated when it comes to consumerism. the US also has a very good university system; likely the best in the world (damn and so many are publicly funded! not to mention it's things like federal grants and tuition waivers that help us achieve that high mark for % of citizens with a college education). there are a lot of good things in America; the same can be said for just about any country on the OECD listing- they are economically developed democratic countries. none of them are Somalia.

however there are very important areas, those I mentioned, where we have fallen behind our peers and it's ridiculous to rule out European models because of right-wing tainted buzzwords like "socialism" and "welfare".

[Tomk]

The very first line of Table S-11 shows deficit/surplus. 2008 deficit -$410 billion (adopted from Bush), 2009 -$407 billion ($3 billion reduction), 2012 $48 billion surplus.

I know that you are talking about debt, not deficit but here is why deficit is relevant: The deficit/surplus is basically the bottom line. When it's in the negative we must borrow (increase the debt) to supplement. When it is in the positive we can pay off the debts. So getting the budget to a surplus is the first step.

Okay lets look at the debt. I'm gonna post another link for one main reason, it shows the history back to 1940 starting on page 127.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/hist.pdf

The estimated gross debt for 2008 is $9.6 Trillion. $4.2 trillion of this is held by Government accounts. (borrowing from itself) $5.4 trillion held by the public. The most important thing is the fact that the debt is gonna rise the same amount each year as it had under Bush.

The Federal debt held by the public is simply Government bonds and trust funds.

I'm gonna post one last link simply because it explains everything.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/spec.pdf

This is the Analytical perspective and it describes where the debt comes from. What I would like to point out is the end of page 240.

FOREIGN HOLDINGS OF FEDERAL DEBT

This is the only thing that I have been able to find even remotely close to "borrowing trillions from China" but this is bonds held by foreign citizens. Basically, if I understand it correctly, foreign people buy US bonds. The Government has no control of how much they buy but they keep track of it. There is no way to estimate this so we only have 2007 numbers and it was about $2 trillion.

I'm not gonna say that we don't seek to borrow money from other countries but after reviewing the budget I haven't seen it anywhere. I'll look some more when I have time.