you might to understand what you read! You need to add your "estimated" $4.4 trillion to the EIGHT trillion we already have in debt. Or does that not count?

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

Here is some more of the straight scoop on our economy from the guys at the IMF. The RWackos are spinning like drill bits trying to cover up yet another indication of the damage that Bush and the neo/cons are doing to our nation.

IMF continues warning on US deficit

United Press International
By SHIHOKO GOTO
UPI Senior Business Correspondent
http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?Stor...7-050537-8810r
(excerpt)

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- The U.S. budget deficit is burgeoning from rising defense and security spending, even as tax cuts are lowering government revenue, amid increasing demands on the budget from the retiring baby boom generation, the International Monetary Fund cautioned once again Wednesday.

Since the Bush administration took over in 2001, the federal budget balance has deteriorated rapidly, and the government deficit is expected to exceed 4 percent of gross domestic product for the current fiscal year.

"And that deficit is likely to be sustained...which raises longer-term issues," not just for the U.S. economy, but for overall global economic prospects, said Charles Collyns, deputy director of the IMF's western hemisphere department in a phone conference with reporters. The group released a study Wednesday on U.S. fiscal policies and priorities for long-run stability, which Collyns said was based on discussions with U.S. authorities over the summer.

The IMF warned that the large fiscal deficits will likely continue over the next decade as the administration keeps on cutting taxes on the one hand, while increasing defense and social spending on the other. That, in turn, could lead to a rise in interest rates, even though the international agency did not specify by just how much monetary policy could be tightened. It also noted that higher interest rates would crowd out private sector investments and ultimately hamper business and productivity growth as well as consumer spending.

The IMF said that in the longer-term, the ballooning budget deficit and net foreign liability position in the United States will be the biggest dark spot in the global economy moving forward, and could "eventually" raise real interest rates in industrialized nations by 0.50 to 1.00 percentage points.

"The United States is on course to increase its net external liabilities to around 40 percent of GDP within the next few years...this trend is likely to put pressure on the U.S. dollar, particularly because the current account deficit increasingly reflects low savings rather than high investment," the IMF stated.

The Bush administration has continuously argued that the current account deficit largely stemmed from the fact that foreign investors were attracted to U.S. markets, and would continue to put their money in the United States, making a current account imbalance a non-issue for the overall domestic economy. But the IMF's Collyns said while such an argument may be true if the amount were smaller, but he said the pace in which the deficit was growing as well as its sheer size made the current account deficit a significant liability to U.S. economic prospects.

At the same time, the IMF warned that the evaporation of fiscal surpluses accumulated over the 1990s "has left the budget less well-prepared to cope with the retirement of the baby boom generation, which will begin later this decade and place massive pressure on the social security and Medicare systems."

"Without the cushion provided by earlier surpluses, there is less time to address these programs' underlying insolvency before government deficits and debt begin to increase unsustainably, making more urgent the need for meaningful reform," the IMF added.

As such, the international agency argued that the United States should focus its economic policy on restoring a budget balance, and quickly at that. It called for better, and broader, ways of increasing the tax base, for example by reducing corporate and personal income tax preferences including corporate tax shelters and mortgage interest deductibility. It also reported that energy taxes "which are comparatively light in the United States", could be a good way of increasing government income.

© Copyright 2005 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

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"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. " --Noam Chomsky

Hey, JP, want to argue with Alan?

Greenspan Warns US Deficit A Danger

All Headline News
W.J. Brown
April 22, 2005
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/1114167318

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AHN) - Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, told the Senate Budget Committee that the bloated US budget deficit poses a danger to the nation's economic health, and could cause the economy to "stagnate or worse".

He urged the politicians work toward a balanced budget and to cut spending.

“Our budget position is unlikely to improve substantially in the coming years unless major deficit-reducing actions are taken,” Greenspan said in testimony to the Senate Budget Committee

Greenspan testified, "Indeed, under existing tax rates and reasonable assumptions about other spending, these projections make clear that the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, in which large deficits result in rising interest rates and ever-growing interest payments that augment deficits in future years. But most important, deficits as a percentage of GDP in these simulations rise without limit. Unless that trend is reversed, at some point these deficits would cause the economy to stagnate or worse."

Greenspan's warnings to congress are growing stronger as Congress shows few signs that has plans to cut the deficit.

Copyright © All Headline News - All rights reserved.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

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"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. " --Noam Chomsky

No, you don't add them together. The different amounts is because of different "assumptions." It's all about estimates.

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

No. I agree with him. SPENDING does need to be cut. All the pork in Congress and the Senate by both parties. And I also agree that if the spending is not gotten under control, it could effect other things negatively.....like interest rates.

I never said it wasn't a problem. I said you need to use some perspective here. The ratio of debt to GDP is less than at anytime during the 1990's. That's fact. That means, it's not the doomsday right now as some would have us beliee. However.....I DO agree that spending on things like Republican Ted Stevens' "Road to Nowhere" should be cut. But you saw what happened when that new Republican Senator from Oklahoma went up against him. I thought Steven's was going to have a stroke right there on the Senate floor. What a baby! He and Democrat Robert Byrd are two of the biggest porkers in the Senate.

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"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq." Condoleeza Rice, January 11, 2007

Our debt is $8 trillion dollars. No estimates. It's $8 trillion. Your $4.4 trillion is an estimate of FUTURE debt over the next 10 years. Which, of course, needs to added to the current debt, which is not going away. You obviously had math a very long time ago. $8 trillion of CURRENT debt plus $4.4 trillion of future GOP laden debt (which will no doubt grow to more than that) is $12.4 trillion. But it's OK. Don't worry, keep spending, eh?

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

At the time of this post, the US national debt stands at $8,076,664,180,833.05

That's $27,132.69 worth of debt for each American citizen.

Numbers from http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

I got enough money in the bank right now to cover my share (knock on wood). What about the rest of you?

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WARNING: In the unlikely event of an accidental agreement with any or all points made in the above post, contact a clinical psychologist immediately.

The views expressed in the above post are not necessarily those of Joker and/or any of his affiliates.

Yeah, but do you agree with the other parts of what he said or just the part that suits your flinty, selfish, little Republican heart that rejoices in cuts to Medicare and Social Security or any other government program to help the suffering and less fortunate citizens of our nation or the world. How about reversing the huge tax cuts to the super-wealthy? Do you think we should put that on the table too?

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"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it. " --Noam Chomsky

More than half of that is owed to the public.

Now, are y'all talking about the national debt, the trade deficit or the budget deficit? Y'all seem to be throwing the terms around interchangeably.

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Do you know what it's like to fall in the mud and get kicked... in the head... with an iron boot? Of course you don't, no one does. It never happens. It's a dumb question... skip it.