From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: Stupendous Man, Stupendous Silence! (conciliatory message enclosed)
Date: 20 Nov 92 16:01:42 EST
Summary: you can reach me in talk.politics.misc and sci.econ after this....
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc,sci.econ
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <1992Nov20.131057.22658@news.media.mit.edu>, elwin@maidavale.media.mit.edu (Lee W Campbell) writes:
> Brett: first off, sorry about the inflammatory subject line; I just wanted
> to get your attention. My question concerns your claim that the deficit, as
> a percentage of GNP, declined during the '80's. Jeff Davis posted some
> figures that he said were re-posts of your figures, which seem to belie that
> claim. I've asked you a couple of times what your response is to Jeff's
> numbers. All the data is below. Have you missed the question each time I've
> asked it? are you gathering data? Your silence on this matter is most difficult
> to account for.

	I stopped reading alt.politics.clinton a while ago.  In fact, I would
not have seen this if I hadn't decided to browse one last time before
deregistering :).

> In article <1992Nov13.110541.12935@ms.uky.edu>, fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis) writes:
>> >> Stupendous Man writes:
>> >> >	The deficit, as a % of GNP, declined during the 80s.
>> >> >
>> >> ???
>> >> Using figures you provided some time ago, the deficit as a % of GNP
>> >> never fell below 3.1% of GNP during the Reagan years. The highest
>> >   Brett, I never saw your reply to this question. Do you dispute these
>> >figures? they say that the deficit never declined as low as it was at
>> >its worst under Carter.
>> 
>> I need to correct my correction. I read Stupendous Man's numbers
>> with a program which wrapped the data oddly so I misinterpreted
>> which deficit was associated w/ which president.
>> 
>> Carter's years: 2.8, 2.7, 1.6 (!!!), 2.8
>> Reagan's years: 2.6, 4.1, 6.2 (!!!), 5.0, 5.4, 5.3, 3.4, 3.2

	Basically, it's the trend after the 1982 recession.  It was (okay, I)
never represented as lower than Carter, or any other president.  The main point
being that with continued growth, the deficit would decline to zero and on into
a surplus.
	No, you can't guarantee that kind of growth, but it's not like Reagan
was *increasing* the rate of borrowing, relative to GNP, either.
	Reagan's basic tenant about the deficit (and Clinton's, also :) is that
economic growth would bring it down.  If Reagan had implemented the other half
of supply-side (reduced spending) I think we would have seen surpluses by 1987.

>> So, Reagan's first year under Carter's (more or less) budget he
>> managed to have a smaller deficit as a % of GNP than under
>> most of the Carter years. But note that Carter's best year
>> was half that of the next best Reagan year. 1.6 vs 3.2. 

	Comparing Carter vs. Reagan numbers is tricky.  Carter was expanding
the bureaucracy and staglfation was running wild.  Classic Keynesian GNP growth
(ie, using federal deficit spending to get the economy going).
	But Keynesians never figured out how to tackle inflation and
unemployment at the same time, much less where stagflation came from.

...
>> responsibility make sure Congress and the White House belong
>> to the same party -- then vote out rascals if they futz up.
>> (I will be VERY shocked if Clinton's budgets aren't enormously
>> more austere than Bush's ever dreamed of being, simply because
>> there will be no one to shuck the blame off on.)

	I think it's taken Clinton a shorter time than Reagan to realize that
the iron triangle (Congress, pork, special interests) will not let their
programs be cut.  Period.  Thus the "economic growth" position on the deficit. 
Which, by the way, has gone from "balanced budget" to "half in four years" to
"half in five years" to "gee, this is tougher than we though".
	This will continue (the "gridlock") until we get a president willing to
risk their political future by 1) testing the impoundment ruling and 2) sitting
on congress until they give him/her the line item veto.

Brett
===============================================================================
80s: 18 million new jobs, deficits down (%GNP), tax rates down, tax revenues up
GNP up, inflation down, unemployment down, interest rates down, cold war won
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Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,talk.politics.misc,tx.politics