Drboom:
You did not vote for Ron Paul because you were “unaffiliated”. What is that? Noncitizen? Please explain.
Deficits are “flows” measured over a set period of time such as a fiscal year. Total government spending less total government revenues in that time period = the deficit.
The debt is nothing more than all past accumulated deficits. It is a “stock” measured at a specific point in time.
Ergo, the national debt on October 1, 2008 minus the national debt on October 1, 2007 would show the deficit accumulated during that fiscal year.
That’s the over $1 trillion figure you rely on that is still unexplained compared to the commonly-accepted $435 billion figure I am relying on.
Yes, I taught university-level economics for 23 years before taking early retirement to become a licensed glazing contractor and invest in TDs, commercial real estate, land, and apartments in various states.
More fundamentally, you seem to object to Obama’s “Keynesian” spending as well as Bush’s. I suspect you and I would agree on more things than we would disagree on.
To you and all those who condemn Bush for his big-spending ways, I’m with you. But generally he spent big when he lurched leftward in his politics, trying to attract democrats and moderates. His Medicare expansion with prescription drugs and his trying to make the poor and near-poor into homeowners were the compassionate part of compassionate conservatism.
Now that the electorate has rejected that kind of Republicanism, were stuck with 4 – 8 years of a truly big spender. I’m afraid we will look back with fondness on the relatively low deficits of the Bush years.
