From: mykes@shell.portal.com (mike myke schwartz)
Subject: Re: Conservative Values (Re: New group proposal:  alt.conservative.forum)
Followup-To: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.misc
Organization: Portal Communications Company
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 11:53:07 GMT

Steve Tyree (steve@celia.UUCP) wrote:
: In article <C0D6CF.IG7@unix.portal.com> mykes@shell.portal.com (mike myke schwartz) writes:
: 
: ->The assertion that defecit spending is the cause of any problems is false.
: ->Tell that to people who buy homes with mortgages of (at least) 4x their
: ->gross earnings.  The assertion that defecit spending every year is bad is
: ->also false.  If, yearly, you get a $100/month pay raise ($1200/year), you
: ->do indeed have the ability to pay $100/month on new debt costs.
: 
:  Have you ever heard of a pay cut ?

You bet I've heard of a pay cut.  But the government has only had ONE pay
cut this century, and that during the great depression.  In no recession
has the government taken a pay cut.

: 
: ->If the current debt is (rougly) $4 Trillion and federal revenues are $1.2
: ->Trillion, then the debt is not the problem.  If you look at the debt in
: ->relationship to the GNP as a whole, the nation is incredabily healthy.
: 
:  Only because the GNP is incredibly healthy. Four years of incorrect
: statist controls could very easily drop the GNP dramatically.
: 

A massive depression of a decade could very easily drop the GNP dramatically.

: ->I'm sure we would al be saying "borrow more!" if the govt. invests
: ->the money in things that give back a good yield.  For 3/4 of the debt,
: ->we could have set up an annuity to fund the defense budget (or half the
: ->entitlement budget) for perpetuity and paid for it for 30 years.
: 
:  Have you noticed how the media elite opinion stream seems to have forgotten
: how damaging or large our national debt is ? Ross Perot forced them to talk
: about it. The problem with talk is that they have only used the debt as an
: issue to not lower taxes and hopefully raise them. They think that the
: current debt is not a problem, yet they have used it in the past as a scare
: tactic to increase statist controls "taxes". The political elites have
: been walking a tight rope. They want to increase deficit spending but dont
: want to alarm the public. It worked when they could hide behind the populist
: Reagan and blame their problems on those terrible tax cuts. These tax cuts
: actually increased tax revenues from the rich due to the laffer curve.
: How are they going to 'hide' behind Clinton ? Its possible that they might
: use the elite opinion stream disinformation outlets (CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and
: the Holly Left), to mold the public opinion stream with the new found ideal 
: that the deficit dosent really matter. Remember that old comic strip.
:  "We just figured it out", "We owe the money to ourselves", "Ha, Ha".
:  What is more likely is that Clinton, after 1 year of destroying consumer
: confidence with economic gloom and doom predictions, (remember the yoyo
: Gore imitated), will ask for hidden or 'easy' tax increases. A gas tax for
: starters and of course the rich tax increase, followed by higher taxes on
: companies which are determined to be politically incorrect in operation.
: When tax revenues from the rich drop dramatically and the economy nose dives
: from the other tax increases, who or what are they going to blame ? If this
: scenario prediction is true, expect the yearly deficit to be double what
: the Elite Opinion Stream predicts.
: 

I agree with everything you wrote above...

: ->The bottom line is that govt. won't stop defecit spending.  There is no
: ->compelling reason to.  By the time the GNP triples, the debt will too.
: ->The only negative we will feel is during recessions, which will hurt the
: ->govt's ability to pay for everything.
: 
:  We will have more recessions and probably more depressions to. The debt
: is removing the cushion or bounce which lifts us out of recession and
: depression. That might explain the length of our last recession and the
: very slow recovery thereafter.

I see a different cause, entirely, for our slow growth of economy.  Note that
GNP is growing, and that the govt. will get it's pay raise WITHOUT raising
tax rates.  :)  I believe that consumer debt (private sector debt in general)
are more of a factor.  People ARE paying off their debts (charge cards, autos,
etc.) because of tax code changes.  The average age of our population is growing
older and as a whole, we are saving for retirement.  We've all got TVs and
cars and things, and the incentive to buy new ones isn't there.

The government also has a very tight grip on the economy right now.  Low
interest rates discourage the banks from taking more risk (or any investor,
for that matter).  Low inflation rates keep acquired assets from increasing
in value as quickly.

:  Our current situation looks very gloomy. If deficit spending is allowed
: to skyrocket, which is what the elitist have planned, the current lack of 
: investment capital and incentives will prevent long term economic growth.
: This will cause projected deficit estimates to be off by factors greater
: than 50 percent. "Equality of economic result" wont provide enough incen-
: tives to fund the new debt payments.  
: 

You are echoing the doom and gloom forecasters of those networks you listed
above.  I don't see how the government spending a few extra trillion dollars
wouldn't help the economy, trickle-down or trickle-up.  

: >A trend as shown by the above debt vs. GNP figures illustrates how strong our
: >economy was/is and if continued, the debt would disappear in 40-50 years.
: >The debt starts disappearing the day defecit spending stops...
: 
:  Yes and lets stop deficit spending. The real hidden deficit which the elites
: are hidding from the populist is the unfunded future entitlement debt which
: makes our current total debt figure look rather small.
: 

Bush submitted a $1.5 Trillion budget proposal for FY1993.  That's a suggestion
to spend at exactly the (actual) FY1992 budget.  It would be a good idea to
stick to the $1.5 level for a few more years to come, and we could then maintain
a huge debt and still put money in the bank.  Acquiring no new debt, the old
debt will go away when its term expires.

A person who has a 90% LTV mortgage on his home likely has a debt equal to
4x (or more) his yearly income.  As in a person making $50K with a $200K 
mortgage...  It is not unhealthy.  Nor is it unhealthy for that person to
borrow to buy a car, or buy a second car later on...  Based upon that kind
of ratio, why can't the government sustain a debt of 4x revenues or the nation
sustain a debt of 4x GNP.

We are nowhere near spending at those levels, which WILL be used as 
justification for increased debt acquisition.  Realistically, if we have
$6Trillion GNP, tax rate of 26%, income of $1.2Trillion, and debt of $4
Trillion today, why can't we have an $18Trillion GNP, tax rate of 26%,
income of $3.6 Trillion and debt of $12 Trillion (say 30 years from now)?

To me, the money is going to be spent, so the issue is more one of what the
money is going to be spent :)

:  Steve Tyree - These opinions are mine and mine alone. 
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.rush-limbaugh