Talk:National debt of the United States/Archive 2

message: Is anyone interested in making an external link out to a related wiki debates on this topic on www.debatus.com, a site founded by myself and a team of Georgetown students. The first is "Is there a "fiscal crisis" on the Horizon for the United States?" and the other is "Has the Bush administration demonstrated fiscal responsibility?" I think that doing so would fit the criteria of "improving" this article because Wikipedia does not seek to cover the entire scope of the arguments made on controversial issues, and traditional mediums that are provided as external links do not present all of the arguments of the debate in a kind of concise bird’s-eye way. In addition, Debatus, being a wiki, follows the same philosophy as Wikipedia, producing refined debate content, which should be considered in favor of doing this.Loudsirens 16:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Debatus.com link 

message: This page used to be 54 Kb long. Much of which was discussing section of the article that are no longer present. I have removed the bulk of this text.Prestonp 04:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Shortened Discussion Section 

message: I'm surprised to see that there's no section about the US's net debt position. Back in high school, someone in my U.S. history class yelled that other countries owed us because of wars. The BBC has an article about the UK paying off the last of its loans from the US for WWII. The following is the link and the purpose is to clarify and stimulate thinking about this matter so that hopefully someone writes about it in this article. -Amit
The cross-reference to the Wikipedia article on "external debt" is misleading. Instead, the article should be re-edited to distinguish between the U.S. Government's nominal debt and the U.S. Government's "publicly held" debt.
For reference, see http://www.cbo.gov/Spreadsheet/7731_Tables.xls.
The U.S. nominal debt of about $8.6 trillion consists of two parts, debt that conforms to the commonsense definition of "debt", which is termed publicly held debt, and 2) debt that really is in accounting terms a "reserve," primarily reflecting Social Security tax surpluses. In 2006, of the $8.5 trillion in total nominal debt, about $4.8 trillion was "publicly held." Consequently, U.S. publicly held debt was only 37% of U.S. GDP and, the the Congressional Budget Office's projections are correct, that percentage will diminish through 2017 to about 20%. It is the "publicly held" dept percentage of GDP which should be used in comparing the U.S. to other countries, because governments like the U.K or France and most others would not report as "debt" their future governmental expenditures on healthcare and pensions.
U.S. "publicly held" debt is in part held by U.S. people and institutions and in part is held by foriegn central banks and foreign private institutions. Of that $4.8 trillion, some fraction is indeed "external" debt, being held by persons or institutions outside the U.S.Fultonwilcox 16:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well the article begins by discussing the composition of the debt and making the internal versus external distinction. As far as using only the external as a comparison benchmark, I'm not sure if that's really presenting a true picture. Prestonp 15:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It makes a misleading "external" distinction and, as it happens, the CIA is wrong in its rankings because of inconsistency with how other countries report debt (and other countries way makes more common sense). The U.S. government's total nominal debt is about $8.4 trillion, but it has issued to the public only about $4.8 trillion. Therefore, U.S. "public debt" is 37% of GDP, not 67%. If one compares the U.S. with the U.K, the apples to apples comparison is between the U.K.'s 42.2% of GDP and the U.S. figure of 37%. Note that "external debt" is yet another category and is mostly non-governmental in nature. For example, the CIA factbook entry for U.S. external debt shows $10.4 trillion of "external" debt, a figure that includes (mostly) private debt along with some fraction of governmental debt. If a foreign bank buys a U.S. corporations bonds, that would show up as U.S. external debt. Fultonwilcox 00:46, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  But that figure would be far larger if the country's accounting were subject to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Under those rules, unfunded debt obligations would have to be included. As it is, David Walker of the General Accounting Office is arguing our position is worse than we've been lead to believe. In these discussions, people are always tempted to bring in their own numbers, but we are more or less stuck with what the government itself is publishing. If you want to revise the article to add a sentence arguing that it's not as bad as the CIA says, go ahead. But that can't be the thrust of the article. Prestonp 17:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Net debt position 

message: I just read the "United States public debt" article for the first time.  It is very biased and political in nature, much more so than most Wikipedia articles.  The section on foreign holdings of US debt is a particularly egregious example.  There is absolutely no discussion of the benefits of foreign holdings of dollar assets, including government debt, or of the unlikelihood that foreign investors would dump their dollar assets.  Does anybody else agree that this article needs a major rewrite?
--Bond Head 16:15, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extremely biased article 

message: There is an interesting story about the Zimbabwe cash crisis of 2006 that I believe does relate to this article (here ).  I may attempt to add it to this article.  Also, Wikipedia has an expert tag; do you think this article would benefit from "an expert"?  I teach Economics at the college level, and I think it would benefit.  ProfessorPaul 02:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zimbabwe and an "Expert tag" 

message: I removed the following edit made at 05:22 on 12 August 2006:
Between 1980 and 1993, the debt went from 30.3% of GDP to 58.8%. In 2006 it was down to 48.0% of GDP. 
The reason I removed it is that it is comparing apples and oranges.  First of all, the paragraph up to this point is looking at current dollars, not dollars as a percentage of GDP.  The third paragraph after this one is looking at percentages of GDP so any discussion of this should be moved there.  Secondly, the given source is looking at something called "Government Net Debt".  This is defined on the International Monetary Fund web site as follows:
Government net debt comprises the stock (at year-end) of all government gross liabilities (both to residents and nonresidents) minus all government assets (domestic as well as foreign). Gross debt includes government assets. To avoid double counting, the data are based on a consolidated account (eliminating liabilities and assets between components of the government, such as budgetary units and social security funds). Net debt of the general government should reflect a consolidated account of central government plus state, provincial, or local governments.  
Looking at the numbers, the net debt appears to be much less than the gross federal debt and somewhat more than the debt held by the public as shown in Historical Table 7.1 of the 2007 U.S. Budget.   Hence, it likely does not include all of the money owed to Social Security and other trust funds.  In any event, it is not the gross federal debt that is being discussed in this article. Lineman 05:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mixing of different measurements of the debt 

message: I would like to add that the U.S. gets a refund of 98% on all interest it pays on the debt.  Even foreign debt is subject to this since it must be paid in newly minted reserve notes.  The federal reserve is part of the U.S. Government because it's stock acts as bonds.  Very useful and very clever of our government. Peatiedog 09:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's just not so. Someone buys a T-Note, they get their money back plus interest. How do you figure the government get's a refund? Prestonp 05:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think what Peatiedog was misunderstanding is that the Fedearl Reserve gives a refund of all interest collected on the bonds it holds. They only keep money equal to their operating expenses. But bonds held outside of the Fedearl Reserve collect interest as normal. Prestonp 02:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Refund on Government Debt 

message: Hi all,
I feel that the Bush estimates of future debt are a particularly bad example of why it is difficult to predict swings in future debt.  While trying not to sound partisan, I don't think that its stated reasons really explain why the estimate of the swing from surplus to debt was so far off.
Look at the reasons:
"Technical" reasons are responsible for more than half.  That is akin to saying "Oops, we lost a trillion dollars, our bad."  That is not plausibly due to the difficulty of predicting the future, rather, it is just an admission that their accounting was bad (trillion dollars bad, 10% of GNP bad).
The effect of the tax cuts is responsible for an additional 29%.  How can Bush say these tax cuts were not predicted?  Did the Republican congress force him to sign tax cuts that he never dreamed would pass?  Did they pop out of the sky?
The only parts that he could reliably say were not predicted were the recession, which is now over, and the effects of the wars and terrorism, which were only responsible for a combined 22% of the swing.
Several commentators said beforehand that Bush's economic policies would greatly increase the debt were they enacted.  The impact of his economic policies was "both predictable and predicted" like that of many other of his policies.
David s graff 22:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep. Prestonp 02:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Estimates of US debt by Bush 

message: I am new to wikipedia, sorry if this comment is not appropriate, or too ignorant for this forum.
What would the US government do if it were to eliminate the budget deficit, thus running positive net cashflow, effectively rendering the US government a profitable institution.  Alan Greenspan discussed this possibility briefly in his recent book, and used this "frightening" prospect as justification for endorsing the Bush tax-cuts.  Indeed, tax cuts have been the conventional method for diffusing excess govt revenue.  But is a tax cut the most efficient use of capital?  Could the US Government become the worlds biggest investment bank?  Who would decide where or how the US government allocates its capital?  Could it issue equity?  on public stock exchanges??  what would stop politicians from going about buying out the world's assets?  is the current system of checks and balances strong enough to avoid the potential catastrophy of Congress and the President being in control of trillions of dollars.  The current system is that congress reserves the right to 'earmark' federal money to political benificiaries and friends, as well as tax cuts.  Is there any ongoing discussion about whether this is really the most efficient way of distributing capital??
----Doug  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.210.24.246 (talk) 21:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems highly unlikely and is beyond the scope of this article at any rate. Prestonp (talk) 01:59, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  in the event of a surplus 

message: Hello $9 trillion.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.159.113.25 (talk) 13:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As it says in the article, $5t is the debt held by the public. $9T is the $5T figure plus the intragovernment amount of roughly $4T. Prestonp 00:34, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  quibbles 

message: The chart for this page shows total debt as a percentage of GDP, not public debt. The public debt as a percentage of GDP is much lower, around 40%. See http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/debt04b.pdf for some accurate data for both total debt and public debt.
Yes.  In the section entitled "A Brief History of the Debt," the table with columns entitled "US Public Debt USD billions" and "% of GDP" apparently shows data for the Gross Debt, not the Public Debt.Scot008 (talk) 17:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Error 

message: I am currently taking courses in Intermediate Micro and Macro Economics and will add the appropriate textbook citations to whatever area people feel are weak. You can just post it here and not delete them wholesale. Prestonp 05:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Jason. First off, you're wrong. College textbooks related to the subject are more authoritative than a main stream article in terms of theory. Secondly, you display really bizarre behavior coming in with a flurry of reference free editorializing and then disappearing for a while refusing to discuss it. Prestonp 20:48, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Jason, you seem to feel that your opinion needs no citation and is somehow free of bias. You are mistaken. I have reverted your edits and issues a warning. Prestonp 22:54, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Dear Jason, the citation for US debt being $9 Trillion is right here. [] Various world government's abandoning pegging their currency to the US Dollar constitues far more than a "slight reduction in dollar holdings." In response to your criticism of various people posting their political beliefs here, all I can say is that that is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. I do appreciate that you stopped making a flurry of edits all at once. In response to your idea that the amount of US public debt being held by foriengers is going down, I'd invite you to bring a citation of your own. Prestonp 23:57, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  JasonW, foreign reserve is not the same as debt. Akinkhoo (talk) 00:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  CItations 

message: The statistics presented here need to be put in context of what percentage of GDP a given level of debt in a given year represents. -- Beland 22:00, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fraction of GDP 

message: I would think that the more important figure would be what percentage of the yearly budget is paid to the interest of the national debt.--84.154.94.25 04:33, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Percentage of Interest Paid by the National Budget 

message: In 2006 the tax revenue was $2,518 billion. According to National debt by U.S. presidential terms, spending that year was $2,655 billion (i.e. $137 billion deficit).  The national debt that year increased from $7,905 billion to $8,451 billion (i.e. $546 billion).  Therefore the interest on the national debt must have been $409 billion by my calculations (and I am by no means an expert). This site gives $406 billion.  This would represent 16.1% of the total tax revenue.  Corleonebrother (talk) 21:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The calculation

message: The table in the section 'A brief history of the debt' provides figures for the US national debt (total = public + government held debt) not only in US dollars, but in Euros and 'ounces of gold.' The figures denominating the US debt into euros and 'ounces' of gold are unreliable and invalid.
The euro numbers are unreliable for two reasons. First, the exchange rate used to convert US dollars to euros is not specified either in the wikipedia entry or on the webpage cited as the source of the exchange rate. Second, the date the exchange rate was valid is not specified. Therefore, the figures denominating the US debt into euros are unverifiable since the rate used for the calculation and the date it was valid are not provided.
Moving onto gold: First, there are several different mass units called an ounce: English units, Imperial units, United States customary units, Troy ounce, etc. The specific ounce being used is not specified and should not be assumed to be the customary Troy ounce. Second, the price of gold relative to the dollar fluctuates daily, and the spot price used to convert between dollars and the aforementioned unknown reference ounces of gold is not given. Third, the date on which the spot price was valid is not given. Therefore, the figures denominating the US debt into 'ounces' of gold are unverifiable since the units and prices used are not provided so the calculation cannot be checked.
This is not a personal attack on whoever put those figures up. Personally, I applaud the thoughtfulness and effort that was put into the work, but without explicitly stating the exchange rates, spot prices, dates and system of measurement used for the calculations the figures produced are meaningless and are not verifiable.
I'm deleting the euro and gold figures for the above reasons. Furthermore the calculations of these figures may be viewed as original research.
Mtiffany71 (talk) 23:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table in section 'A brief history of the debt' has unverifiable figures 

message: This section doesn't explain what the consequences are.  It only mentions that foreign countries do indeed own a substantial amount of our debt.  Either expand, or change heading.
ydesai2008 23:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consequences of Foreign Countries Owning U.S. Debt 

message: I removed a series of debdt pay-down periods and the following recessions. Three reasons:(1) There was not a good source; (2) Before world war II, there was  no good understanding of how a central bank should operate, so who knows how many silly things they were doing without a really great analysis; (3) the ideal fiscal policy dictated by current thought on deficit spending is that the debt should be paid down when the economy is good, then the economy will eventually go south, and the debt should be increased--so if the economy causes the debt to change, it will look like the other way around to an observer who doesn't realize who's changing things and which is just hapening (you could say the same thing about a car--turning the car is associated with turns in the steering wheel--thus the car turning causes steering wheel changes.) Pdbailey (talk) 02:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: PDBailey, the argument you are making seems largely hersay. There are good arguments for paying down the debt, which is present in that section, which is well cited. Prestonp (talk) 00:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Prestonp, I can't make sense of your claim, can you explain it? The word,   regards something one person says to another and the second person repeats the same in a court. I'm not sure where the court is, or who said something to me. In addition, my main point was the first, ("There was not a good source"), I guess this is something that I saw on the main page and then repeated here, but the claim of hearsay becomes a little nonsensical, don't you think? Pdbailey (talk) 16:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, I think it was a fine use of the word. Wikipedia being the metaphorical court and the statement that "before world war II, central banks had no good understanding of how a central bank should operate" being the statement which someone must have told you which you are now introducing as a factual argument that needs no support. Incidentally, you are citing Keynesian economics as gospel and there is no clear agreement that it is the job of a central bank and government to use counter-cyclical spending policies. Prestonp (talk) 04:15, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguments against paying down the national debt 

message: I've never heard of this word before (please forgive me, I'm not an econ guy).  It doesn't show up on dictionary.com.  Google has 4 hits.  This article, another site in which it is used in the same exact sentence, and two sites where it appears to be a mistaken spelling of "inauguration."  Might someone explain that word in this article, create a new article for it, or yank it?
:I did a search on EconLit (the main database for economics articles) and even "currency and exportation" gave no English language hits. So I yanked lots of what looked like babel to me. Without a reference, I can't tell if it's made up or not. Pdbailey 13:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Innaugulation 

message: If you look at the CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html) US national debt, as of 2007 is 36.80% of GDP...a rather remarkable drop and down to the level when Bush Jr came to power.
Any guesses for this? 62.56.107.49 (talk) 14:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There are many ways to measure both debt and gdp.  Which measure you choose impacts the results.  For a change that big I'd say they were not consistent year to year in which variables they used. 24.222.54.66 (talk) 16:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  some part of the factbook is not very accurate or always up-to-date. i don't see any lies; you can find mistake on many countries on it, it is more likely that the factbook is maintain by a fairly small crew who gather data from newspapers and such. i doubt they are allow to use internal material from CIA as source as that would be a security risk. Akinkhoo (talk) 00:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  CIA lies? 

message: Does anyone think the two images, :Image:US Public debt per GDP 1791-2006.svg and :Image:USDebt.png, are redundant?  I prefer the former, because it is given as a percentage of GDP.  Also, the latter should be remade as an SVG. Superm401 - Talk 10:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes they are, and yes I favor the one that features the percentage of GDP. Prestonp (talk) 21:25, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm most disturbed by the difference between them (why does the svg have a dip near 2000 while the png doesn't?) It would be nice if  :Image:US Public debt per GDP 1791-2006.svg listed the source of the data. Pdbailey (talk) 00:09, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you read the description, it tells you there is a slight discrepancy in the calculations from using Fiscal year debt data, and calendar year GDP.  It's probably necessary in order to maintain consistency with the year-fixed early historical estimates used for GDP.  As a broad guide it could be of considerable value to readers.  I placed it under one of the subheadings.  216.165.199.50 (talk) 08:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images 

message: I just removed this:
Paying down the federal debt requires the federal government to run a federal surplus. "Federal surplus" means the economy sends more money to the government than the government sends to the economy, thus reducing the amount of money in the economy. This reduction of money in the economy reduces the amount of lending funds.
When the government pays down the debt, it does so by paying back more bonds than it sells, so that it is putting more money in the economy. The flip side of this (as is noted above) is that it is taxing more than it is spending. In the strictest sense, the net is a wash.Pdbailey (talk) 02:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  surplus = govt takes in more money than it pushes out 

message: Is it too much to ask for to provide more current stats for the national debt.  Just a few hours ago I stood in front of the NYC Debt clock and took a picture valueing the national debt at nearly $8.895 Trillion, with the Family Share at $96,782. That's a large disparity compared to the end-of-2006 stats currently stated. Alan 24.184.184.177 05:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NYC Debt Clock 

message: The second paragraph, beginning 'As of April' is misleading. The writing makes it appear that if all the federal IOUs to the federal entitlement trust funds, such as social security, were to be included in the public debt, the federal debt would balloon to $59 trillion. However, Ref. 4 makes clear that the federal portion is just 0.85 of $59 trillion, which is about $50 trillion. (65.19.22.86 (talk) 23:13, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  misleading presentation 

message: The introduction states that:
"In 2007 the public debt was 36.8 percent of GDP ranking 26th in the world,"
and references the CIA factbook.  Following the link, the US indeed ranks 26th, but with a debt level of 60.8%.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.175.33.116 (talk) 17:02, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in introduction 

message: This page could use an auto archive, would anyone mind if i added one. Say MiszaBot with maxarchivesize = 250K, algo = old(28d)? Pdbailey (talk) 23:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: How about 120 days. It's not that active. Or you could manually do it yourself. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 18:08, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I threw it in at 180 days. Feel free to object or just remove it if you don't like this. Pdbailey (talk) 22:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  auto archive? 

message: The article states that the national debt has decreased for the last three years.
(1) Will this statement be automatically updated each year? With no mention of the year in the statement, it seems to be a recipe for outdatedness.t
(2) How does the debt decrease in a year when we are running a deficit? My understanding is that the RATE OF INCREASE in the deficit has been declining lately, not the total amount of debt, which has been increasing in every year in which there is an additional deficit.Geneven (talk) 09:49, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The gross federal debt in the US has never decreased since the 1950s according to White House documents released which display debt data from 1940 to 2007.  Editors of this article have done a poor job distinguishing between public and gross federal debt as well as debt in terms dollars versus debt in terms of a percentage in GDP.  Many times, editors are referring to one specific type of debt as increasing or decreasing but fail to specify which type of debt they are talking about.  The History section of this article is a clear example of this.  I have also found that the debt numbers are easily skewed depending on which deflators are being used. Gaytan (talk) 15:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  National Debt Decreasing? 

message: I am an American who understands these debt issues and the fact that it will grow beyond the ability of the federal government to pay for it. I generally accept that when I reach retirement age in about 2040, that the government's response to the problem is going to be "Well, I guess we'll just have to stop paying Social Security / Medicaid / Medicare / etc". Either that or the government is going to introduce creative new solutions to the fiscal problem like raising the age of retirement to 75 or 80, or only providing services to the most desperately poor or infirm.
I already accept that the money I am paying right now into Social Security / Medicare / etc withholding is about as good as mounding the paper bills in the backyard and burning them. I will never see any of that money when I reach retirement age.. the government is taking it to spend on stupid things now and it will not be there for me in the future.
Interestingly, I don't think it is possible for an American citizen to completely cash out of Social Security and put that money in a personal retirement account instead. The government must have that continuous influx of money now from its income tax subjects, or the whole IOU shell game it is running will collapse even quicker than 2030. Allowing people to get out now before it all comes crashing down in 30 years would be just simply unacceptable to Washington.
It would be nice if someone could recalculate these figures to show what happens if Social Security, etc payouts decline starting in 2030, or just disappear from the graph entirely. I bet that debt won't be so hard to manage, once most of the American people have been forced to fend for themselves in retirement, and have let go of that pipe dream of a government that will take care of them in their old age.
DMahalko (talk) 08:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry Forecaster, I have to disagree.  Federal Spending never gets cuts much (as you can see from my efforts to show that the gross federal debt has not decreased significantly since the 19th century and has not decreased at all since the 1950s).  Special interests have a strangle hold on our government.  If you think federal education spending will be cut anytime soon, I have some property I would like to sell you.  No one is giving up their piece of the federal spending pie.  And knowing politicians (who care only to increase their votes so they can stay in office to continue reaping their special interest perks and benefits), they will simply take the easy way out: print more dollars to pay for every federal program imaginable thereby continuing the steady increase of inflation.  Politicians prefer inflating the currency because this is a method of "making their cake and eating it too", with no immediate consequences with respect to the public sentiment or in the economy.  But soon, this will become hyperinflation and the economy will be severely effected.  As a matter of fact, we are seeing some clear effects of overprinting dollars in the US economy today.  Wall Street is now asking for a bailout for the risky investments they dove into made possible by the flood of dollars the goverment (the Federal Reserve) created for them.  How will this bailout be accomplished?  By printing up more dollars and creating more inflation, of course. That's been the American way ever since 1913. Gaytan (talk) 16:04, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Collapse of social security in 2030-2040 

message: Can the USA government pay off the national debt with land? Like if the US government gave Japan a piece of California.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.219.166 (talk) 02:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Paying off national debt with land? 

message: Hey should it be noted that the last fiscal year the debt was lowered was in 1957 and has only gone up since than?
You can see it's true here: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm just click on the years 1950 - 1999 & # 2000 - 2007 and it shows the last fiscal year the debt actually went down was 1957.  So should it be added?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrjason22303 (talk • contribs) 04:46, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Last Year Debt Lowered? 

message: I've deleted the following sections, which are not NPOV and which are substantially off-topic. ... Kenosis (talk) 19:40, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Off-topic sections deleted 

message: When the expenses of the U.S. Government exceed the revenue collected, it issues new debt to cover the deficit.  This debt typically takes the form of new issues of government bonds which are sold on the open market. However, the debt can also be monetized by which the Federal Reserve creates an entry on its books to credit the US Government for an amount equal to the dollar amount of the bonds the Federal Reserve is acquiring.  The money created in this process not only includes the new dollars that came into existence just to purchase the bonds, but much more because this new money is now sitting in the form of checkbook money at the Federal Reserve. Under the practice of Fractional Reserve Banking this new checkbook money is treated as an asset to lend against.  Economists estimate the expansion of the money supply as being many times the amount of the initial money created with the exact amount being a function of what percentage of deposits banks must set aside as "reserves". "The Macro Economy Today" by Bradley Schiller;  "Secrets of the Temple" by William Greider.
The ultimate consequence of monetizing U.S. debt is that it expands the money supply which will tend to dilute the value of dollars already in circulation. Thus, expanding the pool of money puts downward pressure on the dollar, downward pressure on short-term interest rates (the banks have more to lend) and upward pressure on inflation. Typically this causes an inflationary boom that ends in a deflationary bust to complete the business cycle. Note that money supply expansion is not the only force at work in inflation or interest rates. United States Dollars are essentially a commodity on the world market and the value of the dollar at any given time is subject to the law of supply and demand. In recent years, the debt has soared and inflation has stayed relatively low in part because China has been willing to accumulate reserves denominated in U.S. Dollars.  Currently, China holds over $1 trillion in dollar denominated assets (of which $330 billion are U.S. Treasury notes).  In comparison, $1.4 trillion represents M1 or the "tight money supply" of U.S. Dollars which suggests that the value of the U.S. Dollar could change dramatically should China ever choose to divest itself of a large portion of those reserves. 19:40, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The mechanics of U.S. Government debt, according to the [[Austrian School of Economics|Austrian School]]

message: Economists from the Austrian School point out that the United States experienced depreciation CPI from 1800-1912 in two spurts from 1810 to 1820 and 1860-1870Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Data at University of Michigan : a period of strong economic growth in U.S. history.
Furthermore, it is not always true that an increase in the money supply leads to an expansion of the economy.  For example, consider the failure of Japan's Central Bank to do just that. In an attempt to follow Keynesian economics and spend itself out of a recession, Japan's central bank engaged in ten stimulus programs over the 1990s that totaled over 100 trillion yen.Explaining Japan's Recession - Benjamin Powell - Mises Institute Because of these large deficits, Japan has a national debt that is 194% of GDP .
In the absence of debt monetization, when the Government borrows money from the savings of others, it consumes the amount of savings there are to lend. If the government were to borrow less, that money would be freed to work in the private sector and would lower interest rates overall.
Lastly, raising interest rates is one of the traditional ways that the U.S. Federal Reserve uses to combat inflation (which can be brought on by government debt), but a large national debt figure makes it difficult to do so because it raises the interest paid in servicing that debt.
Net interest on the public debt was approximately $239 billion in fiscal years 2007 and 2008.  This represented approximately 9.5% of government spending. Interest was the fourth largest single budgeted disbursement category, after defense, Social Security, and Medicare.President's Budget Page 26In addition, the government accrued a non-cash interest expense of $194 billion for intra-governmental debt, primarily the Social Security trust fund, for a total interest expense of $433 billion.GAO Audit Report page 12  This accrued interest will be paid to Social Security recipients in the future.  Paying off the national debt would free up these funds for other purposes.19:43, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguments for paying down the national debt 

message: Murray Rothbard proposed simply repudiating the national debt or declaring bankruptcy. He noted that the creditors knew all along that the debt could only be paid off through taxation (or through the hidden taxation of inflation), which Rothbard regarded as tantamount to theft:
Rothbard also pointed out that repudiation could help prevent the government from borrowing such large amounts in the future. However, noting that some might view this as too draconian, he proposed as an alternative that the U.S. Government be treated like any other bankrupt organization, with its assets being liquidated via auction in order to pay the creditors a pro-rata share of those assets.http://mises.org/article.aspx?Id=1423 19:45, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Arguments for repudiating the national debt or declaring bankruptcy

message: I'm an Austrian School man myself, but all of the material dealing with the Austrian School needs to be moved or removed. It's a bit too specific and oblique to earn mentioning in this article.
Further, I think that it's inclusion here borders near being unneuteral.
--Nogburt (talk) 19:17, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Austrian School Material 

message: Is anyone willing to update the debt chart/graphic? It stops in 2000, and is several trillion dollars off--although it will probably soon be off by several trillion more. AdRem (talk) 23:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Which one?Pdbailey (talk) 00:42, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: US Debt from 1940 on--the main one. AdRem (talk) 13:25, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That series ends in 2007. There is no more official data from the White House. Pdbailey (talk) 13:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

text: Let's be a little bit fair here. A chunk of that increase is Katrina, for which the then Democrat leadership in Loiusiana and New Orleans was unprepared and unable to cope with. The Loiusiana Democrats shirked their responsibility and did their best to shift the blame for their failure onto FEMA and the Bush Administration. Another chunk is the war against al Qaeda. They bombed embassy after embassy and Bill Clinton did nothing. If Clinton had acted more forcefully, the current war would probably have been avoided altogether. Another chunk is going to be the Banking mess. The Democrat-run Congress changed the banking rules during the Clinton era. People in the Congress saw the banking disaster coming two years ago and refused to change the rules for ideological reasons. Now, the Congressional leadership is trying to shift the blame to the Bush Administration and "greedy bankers". The bankers say that they were merely following rules made by the Congress. Virgil H. Soule (talk) 19:05, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

text: So no additional data is available? That's fine, but if anyone is so able and so inclined, would they add the last year for which there is data (2007) to the chart? As it is, the date stops at 2000, and the graph runs way over. The chart would look more current, and would be much easier to read that way. Side note: I think Farcaster was just joking around, Zbvs; so please just relax, and please keep your lengthy political discourses and historical revisionism on your blog, or in your journal. AdRem (talk) 17:19, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: AdRem, sorry, I must not have communicated well, it has 2007 on the chart. As is, there are labels on the decade. 2007 is not a decade year, so it has no label. Were I to label 2010, I think that would also be confusing. In general, when one is confused about a chart, the title, axies, and caption are a good place to look. In this case the y-axis label says it is denominated in 2007 dollars. If you do not think this is clear, perhaps you could update the caption. Pdbailey (talk) 23:17, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Pdbailey, I just meant the graph might be easier to read if 2010 were included, but I understand why that might seem more confusing. Whatever people want--it was just a thought. AdRem (talk)  —Preceding undated comment was added at 13:54, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graphic 

message: On November 21 a user reverted an edit which deleted the reference to "unfunded obligations."  (The passage in question reads "Adding unfunded Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, veterans' pensions, and similar obligations, this figure rises to a total of $59.1 trillion, or $516,348 per household.")
I disagree with the reversion and believe that a discussion of unfunded obligations does not belong in a discussion of the public debt.
Including the reference to unfunded obligations in the article suggests that these obligations will have an effect on the debt in the future.  In fact, the much more likely outcome regarding unfunded obligations is that federal law will be changed to increase taxes or decrease benefits to address the issue as was done with Social Security in the early 80s.  If we assume that unfunded obligations bear some relation to future debt obligatins because they are mandated in current law, we should also assume that discretionary programs will zero out at the end of the current fiscal year because they are not legally appropriated past September 30.
If the passage remains, we should include a fuller discussion of the history of entitlement programs and options for dealing with their unfunded nature.  However, that discussion does not belong in an article on the debt, so I suggest we delete the passage as the original edit did.  Bond Head (talk) 02:48, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: An "unfunded obligation" is a bit of a crystal ball topic. It involves three assumptions: (1) the model predicting future costs is correct, (2) taxes will never change, and (3) future corporate profit and individual earnings are correctly projected. None of the assumptions is particularly good, but one could argue that the estimate does serve as a useful baseline with the caveat that it is probably off by a factor of 2 or more. PDBailey (talk) 04:34, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unfunded obligations are not debt 

message: Is bankruptcy an option? I don't see how the U.S. will ever be able to pay off the debt.
* Raise taxes.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.223.205.196 (talk) 13:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Oversimplistic approach. See e.g., Laffer curve. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

text: This talk page is supposed to be for discussion of the article, not for general discussion. However, you might note from table 7.1 on pages 126-127 here that in 1946 the national debt stood at 121.7% of GDP—up from a pre-WW-II value of 52.4% in 1940. The US never "paid off" that debt, but by the 1970s the figure was reduced to below 40% of GDP. As I write this, the website The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It reports the debt at $11,193,459,542,379.92. The Economy of the United States article currently reports that the 2008 GDP was $14.26 Trillion, which would put our current debt expressed as a percentage of GDP at perhaps something like , or about 78.5% (plus or minus a fudge factor for that dodgy calculation, and growing fast). The US needs to stop growing the debt/GDP ratio and begin shrinking it. That's my understanding anyhow, with very little training in economics under my belt. ~~ Boracay Bill (talk) 03:25, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bankruptcy? 

message: I just removed this line from the intro.
"Since FY 2002, the deficit reported by the media has been significantly less than the annual change in the debt."
The article is too long, this is a separate issue, it was uncited, and the author probably intended to refer to the American media, which is a viewpoint irrelevant to this article.  I am putting it here in the discussion board in case anyone wants to revise the point.  Bluerasberry (talk) 16:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  media misreporting debt 

message: Hi, I asked at the village pump about the appropriate update frequency and someone suggested sett up a template similar to User:Cool3/Debt with the template being User:Cool3/National_debt_template. Do others think this is a good idea? PDBailey (talk) 19:33, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  current values template 

message: I didn't have time to analyze any data but the graph at the top of the article that shows the debt as a % of GDP since Truman seems to disagree with a chart toward the bottom under the heading " Recent additions to the public debt of the United States" by about a factor of 10. whoever made a these contributions may want to check their data.Enneagon (talk) 14:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't have the time for more than a quick look either, but it looks to me as if the percentages in the second chart at the top of the article are total debt as a percentage of GDP and the percentages under "Recent additions to the public debt of the United States" are debt added in particular years as percentages of GDP for those years (not saying anything about total debt either before or after the addition). -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Wtmitchell, that is right, the top chart regards the debt and the bottom chart regards the de facto deficit. 018 (talk) 17:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Shouldn't it be mentioned that the EU's guidelines are "Total Debt cannot exceed 60% of Gross Domestic Product. Budget Deficit can be 3% of Gross Domestic Product." Granted this has to do with stabilization of the euro, but still... Student7 (talk) 20:08, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Debt as a percentage of the GDP 

message: I second the sentiment that the article has improved significantly over the last year or so.  It's an impressive piece.
The foreign ownership section makes the case that foreign investors have moved/will move out of Treasuries and suggests that this is a threat to the US's ability to continue to borrow cheaply.  But the statements in this section are based on old (2006-2007) citations and some of those are broken or inaccessible.  In reality, demand among foreign central banks as measured by the relative volume of indirect bids at auctions (the principal proxy benchmark for foreign central bank demand) hasn't really changed in the last five years.  Moreover, some countries, like Brazil and others, are looking to increase their dollar borrowing because they see such strong demand for dollar assets in the international market.
How about for the article a chart showing indirect bidding as a percentage of auction size for the last five years (2s, 5s and 10s) to show that foreign central bank demand has been pretty much unchanged? I'm happy to make the graph, but I won't have access to a Bloomberg for a couple months, so if anybody has a source for the data (so I won't have to key it in from Treasury press releases) please let me know.  Bond Head (talk) 11:36, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that is a good idea for inclusion in this article, especially if it appears (as a table or figure) in another document. Lets try to make sure that when we add a figure we give it some text around it too. 018 (talk) 12:52, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foreign ownership section 

message: It is important that we use real or inflation-adjusted dollars when discussing debt levels.  It really doesn't matter which year is chosen as the base year.--Mokru (talk) 00:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Real versus Nominal Debt 

message: A small section on this maybe. Since it doesn't have its own wiki entry. I know the article mainly discusses the public and Federal debt which totals $9.7 trillion, but external debt should get a quick mention, which is the total of all debt the US owes to everyone, not just to itself but other financial institutions, governments etc.
US treasury website; Gross External Debt at $13.77 trillion, June 30th 2008. http://www.treas.gov/tic/debta308.html
Some relevance and importance of this figure should be included.
:External debt Is a very different concept than national debt, I would say it might merit a see also, but it certainly way too different to just throw in there with a short paragraph. 018 (talk) 01:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  External Debt 

message: Can it be accepted that the US Government will never balance it's budget? (There should be another wikipedia page to cover the concepts related to if that concept even makes sense) Perhaps rather than borrowing the money and pushing the problem into the future, it's much better to just issue the currency. Jeff Carr (talk) 06:51, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Borrow vs Issue? 

message: I think most people won't really understand how LARGE the debt is.  Perhaps a link to a resource which explains just how huge 1 trillion dollars is?  For example, if you download at 16Mpbs, it would take over 2 years (771 days) to download a file which is 1 trillion bytes large.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.83.165.236 (talk) 17:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Perspective on the size of the debt? 

message: Where does the number 70% come from? johnpseudo 21:40, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Approximately 70% of federal spending is in four categories: Defense, Medicare, Social Security, and interest on the debt." 

message: FYI - Malaysia is listed twice in the table
:Yes. The two entries give different figures and the table content is unsourced, so it's not clear which one to skotch. This source, apparently related to the table content and cited elsewhere in the article, gives info from treas.gov for "MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES" for verious recent months, but the "Grand Total" figures don't include the "3428.0" figure given in the table (the 3427.4 figure given for July 2009 is close). I'll leave it to others to try to straighten this mess out. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  fyi from anon 

message: I have to say editors, this is a very well written article. It's very inspiring to bringing other articles to a higher caliber. Very surprised it did not get past the good article nominee stage.
Maybe it would have been rated higher if it weren't so blatantly partisan.  Lose the Bush-hatred and maybe you'll do better.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.160.8.181 (talk) 02:33, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compliments 

message: The CIA number is actually the gross debt, not the public debt which is what appears in the table. (see what I deleted here). If you look at the graph, CIA agrees with the White House on this one. 018 (talk) 17:12, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  CIA disagrees with Wikipedia 

message: There are two reference sections in the article, one where it should be and one not labeled and in the middle. Someone should fix this.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.161.132.13 (talk) 20:14, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiple reference sections 

message: :On a side note, I think the WP:LEAD has too much emphasis on gross debt, being that the lead should summarize the article. -Shootbamboo (talk) 21:23, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead 

message: Despite the drawbacks of making future projections, however, a responsible government must arguably make long-run projections so it can prepare the country for future possibilities.  The federal government does provide long-run budget projection in Table 13-2 on page 209 of the Analytical Perspectives of the 2006 U.S. Budget.  It projects that the federal debt held by the public will reach 249 percent of GDP in 2075.  This is more than double the maximum reached during World War II and nearly four times its current level.  Most of this increase is due to projected increases in entitlement spending and the resulting interest on the debt. It is worth noting that this is a projection, not a prediction.  This projection assumes normal economic conditions and that government policies will follow current law.  The stress of a quadrupling of the debt would likely cause one or both of these items to change.
I cut this out because it's ridiculous to treat this projection as if it were grounded in any physical reality. Our %debt has never been 249% of GDP and probably never will be without a catastrophic collapse of the nation-state. Any slightly rational individual can look at the graphs on this Wiki-page and see that this projection is meaningless. Projections like this aren't facts, they're speculation, and not very good speculation at that. Quoting someone else's speculation doesn't legitimize it. To use some extreme examples, everyone would theoretically run off a road if steering wheels were arbitrarily locked into some position while driving. As we all know, sane/healthy drivers are always adjusting the steering wheel to keep their cars on the pavement. More humorously, if someone had taken my rate of growth at 13 and tried to extrapolate that to the age of 40, he would have predicted that I was going to be taller than a tree. Even quoting such asinine predictions is a waste of time and bandwidth, and certainly not good enough for a Wiki.
These projections were provided by the OMB, so they are pretty well sourced. I agree that it is extremely unlikely that the total debt will grow to 249% of GDP, but you are welcome to improve this section. Also, please sign your talk posts. Ausman (talk) 18:19, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quoting speculation 

message: During the administration of President George W. Bush, the total debt increased from $5.6 trillion in January 2001 to $10.7 trillion by December 2008,[7] rising from 54% of GDP to 75% of GDP. During March 2009, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that public debt will rise from 40.8% of GDP in 2008 to 70.1% in 2012.[8] The total debt is projected to continue increasing significantly during President Obama's administration to nearly 100% of GDP, its highest level since World War II.
If the debt as a percentage of the GDP was 75% in December 2008, and 54% in 2001, it seems totally unreasonable that the Congressional Budget Office would say that the debt % of GDP was 40.8% in 2008.  Also, if the debt is projected to hit 100% of GDP during Obama's administration, why would it only be 70.1% in 2012?  I understand that there must be differing ideas on what these numbers should really be, but if Wikipedia is going to include all of them, it should include an explanation of why they disagree.
Dakane2 (talk) 20:24, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Without looking, I'm guessing your getting caught up in the gross debt versus public debt issue. See the first paragraph of the article. 018 (talk) 21:53, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discrepancy at the end of the last paragraph of the History section 

message: What is gross debt?  "includes funds held by the government" isn't an adequate definition. Rtdrury (talk) 20:16, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: maybe you can propose a new definition. The public debt is the sum of all outstanding debt that is not held by the government. The gross debt includes the debt held by things like the medicare trust fund and the social security trust fund. 018 (talk) 20:55, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

text: 208.187.32.71, can you clarify, where are you looking that you see an error? Also, Wikipedia is not a news source and is not intended to keep up to the minute results. The links to debt measures at the bottom of the page are intended to do that. 018 (talk) 04:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I really hate RVing an entire edit, like I did to this edit, but I could see nothing to save. However, I feel I owe the talk page an explanation, since it was a good faith edit. Examples are not something to have in the lead, nor is mention of specific years. Also, "It is a debt owed _to_ the wage earning public by the non wage earning public that did not pay their share of the tax burden in every year that the SS trust fund increased its holdings of US debt instruments." is very POV. And a signature is totally inappropriate in the article. 018 (talk) 03:37, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  gross debt?? 

message: I'm trying to understand here why this sentence:
:As of early 2010, US gross debt as a percentage of GDP ranked 26th highest out of 202 countries, at 94.3%.United States Budget ref Within the remainder of this article the phrase "Public Debt" is employed as a shorthand for "Debt Held by the Public".
Relevant page: EXTERNAL DEBT
is better than this one:
:As of early 2010, US National Debt as a percentage of GDP ranked 66th highest out of 129 countries, at 39.70%.ref Within the remainder of this article the phrase Public Debt is employed as a shorthand for Debt Held by the Public.
Relevant page: PUBLIC DEBT
The first sentence has a certain degree of WP:SYNTHESIS, I believe, since it takes the data from EXTERNAL DEBT and is creating the data based on the data we know of the US GDP.  I think if we are going to use that number it has to be sourced from and external list.
Also, The first one is published as EXTERNAL DEBT whereas the second one is PUBLIC DEBT, which seems to be the focus of the article.
Anyone? -Zeus-u|c 18:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I'm out of line here- public debt should indeed be the focus of the sentence.  However, the original sentence uses very outdated data.  According to Table 7.1 of the Historical Tables in the FY2011 budget released a few weeks ago, our current "public debt" is somewhere around 60-70%, not 39.7%.  Also, I have no clue what the deal was with all those bold-faced phrases.  It is very distracting and out of line with project standards. johnpseudo 19:24, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I did notice that the CIA factbook data was 'est 2009', but I'm lost as to what better approach we can take.  The bold-face reads like some kind of legal document and wouldn't be missed, IMO. -Zeus-u|c 19:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

text: OK, now I do understand how that ref plays in, although we have to tag that it is specifically referring to section 7.1 (or maybe even link to the spreadsheet).  As far as that data, looking at the spreadsheet, the number we want may be "Equals: Held by public/Total as Percentage of GDP" vs "Gross Federal Debt as Percentage of GDP". That drops the FY ending 2011 estimate from 99% to 68.6% (I believe that public debt takes out of account the internal debts such as social security, etc, which makes sense).  However, using this data, I'm not sure how we can rank it versus other countries. -Zeus-u|c 20:01, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Zeus, any ranking would be synthesis, especially since all the other countries debt numbers are wrong for similar reasons, so updating one while leaving the others fixed is just a bad idea. 018 (talk) 01:58, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, my original fix links to the CIA World Factbook, which does have them ranked, so we could just go with that. -Zeus-u|c 01:59, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: If the CIA factbook has the U.S. public debt at 39%, then it is very outdated.  And if the debt amount is outdated, the ranking is likely outdated as well.  We just need to find a better source before we put the ranking back in. johnpseudo 12:17, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Public debt vs gross debt 

message: I think I see at least two errors in the Gross Debt graph at the top of the article.
1) The graph states that the values are in 2008 dollars, but the numbers do not appear to be inflation-adjusted.  I think the numbers are in absolute dollars (i.e., each number is the amount of debt that year).
2) The graph indicates that gross debt declined in 2000 and 2001.  Table 7.1 of OMB article referenced at the bottom of the graph does NOT show a decline in debt for either of those years.  The graph doesn't reference a specific table, but given what Table 7.1 says, there needs to be more proof that debt declined in those years.
-PJMweb (talk) 20:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: PJMweb, the answer to your two questions is the other question. The debt decreased in real terms from 2000 to 2001, and yes, the debt is defalted to 2008 dollars--you can see the data and the source code that made the figures on the figure's page. 018 (talk) 02:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay! Sorry about that.  thanks for the clarification. -PJMweb (talk) 06:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

text: Ausman, please tell me where you see the 2009 data and I will update the figure. The figures at  only have 2009 as an estimate. 018 (talk) 19:30, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

text: Which graph is not sourced? 018 (talk) 04:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with Gross Debt Graph 

message: What happened to the Positive arguments for having debt? All that talk about debt as money and vital to the nations health and growth? Where did that all go? I'm just asking for posterities sake, historical archiving and all that.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.192.246.138 (talk) 16:04, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Look at the history of the article to find it. It is odd that there is no reason why the country would want to incur debts on this page. 018 (talk) 18:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pro Arguments for Debt 

message: From the 'Risks to the U.S. dollar' section:
 By 2019 the U.S. national debt will be $18.4 trillion, approximately 148% of 2009 GDP, up from its approximately 80% level in April 2009.
Who cares about 2019 debt as a ration of 2009 GDP.  That might be the most useless metric in the world and have deleted the line in question. Ender8282 (talk) 17:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Thanks. Looking at this now more closely, the ref is from "whitehouse" but the material so negative, it could hardly have originated there. Ref needs to be attached to whatever it supports and people need to quit putting stuff in front of it. Right now statement sounds WP:CRYSTAL. Need to attribute statement to GAO, or whoever and use THAT ref. But don't strand whitehouse one. Tricky. Student7 (talk) 20:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Debt ration must use same year 

message: The caption to the graph looks strange:
"The. Ty and Kassie are a bunch of looser faces. so is mardee and pihneftuuh elston. he says text me my nunber isXXXXXXX. second chart shows debt as a percentage of U.S. GDP"
I would change the page myself but I'm a very new and unexperienced wikipedian. Hope someone else sees this and fix the page.Krille Katalog (talk) 22:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hijacked page? 

message: In the history section the bias is glaring : there is no legitimate reason to explicitly mention the debt increase under Reagan, Bush(I) and Bush(II) and avoid mentioning the debt increase that we saw after the 8 years of the Clinton presidency.  Also, that section focuses on gross debt even though the article is explicitly focused on public debt, defined within the article as "Debt Held by the Public".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.213.86.192 (talk) 11:31, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, since the article is supposed to focus on public debt, a commentary on presidencies is in order only from a WP:RELY source and it should include all presidencies within the scope, if appropriate and the relationship of the president to the debt. Ford's attempt to veto spending (for example) was usually overidden. He was helpless and not politically responsible for the increase in debt (for example). But only an unbiased reliable historian can make that assertion!  :) There may also be a delay in debt, having nothing to do with the (new) incumbent. That is, the next year's budget is determined by the former president. This should be taken into account as well. If it doesn't, presentation of debt as a "function" of the term of the president is pov IMO. Student7 (talk) 15:13, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whitewash and Strong Political bias in presentation 

message: Since the Congress has last word on the budget, is a color plot available that can break down deficit spending by Republican/Democrat control of Congress? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.105.206 (talk • contribs) 11:11, 1 May 2010
:That would be another article. 018 (talk) 01:56, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not appropriate for "another article".  This article is about the public debt and the history of growth.  If it's neutral POV to link the growth of public debt to the party in power in the Executive Branch, then it's also neutral POV to link the growth of public debt to the party in power in the Legislative Branch.  I've created a color plot from the same data (which has been moved to http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2011/assets/hist07z1.xls), depicting US Gross Federal Debt as a percentage of GDP, except that the color key identifies the periods that either Democrats (blue) or Republicans (red) controlled both the House and the Senate.  Periods in which control was split are purple.  I'd insert it immediately below the existing graph plotting debt vs. time and color coded by administration, but I'm not sure where to start.  Would someone point me to a "how to" to upload the image?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.74.128.138 (talk) 21:45, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Start here, at Wikimedia Commons. -Shootbamboo (talk) 21:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Breakdown by Congress not President 

message: Is the US debt owned mostly by US businesses that buy government bonds? Do US businesses insure their stock with government bonds?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.99.132.30 (talk) 17:14, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  US Businesses buy government municipalities to insure stock? 

message: I don't understand why my edit was reverted, and I don't really understand what the editor meant in his summary line Dwightschrute1010 (talk) 19:27, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I don't know who reverted you, but I find it a bit silly. Your sentence compares 2009 dollars to dollars in the 1800s and treats them equally, which is economically silly, in my opinion. I'm afraid I will revert your contribution also, sorry. -Shootbamboo (talk) 00:32, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I support Shootbamboo's reversion as well. Do your best to present both sides of the argument. Bush added $5 trillion to the debt during his tenure. Obama has added about $2.6 trillion, but much of this is due to the economy he inherited. Japan has a debt to GDP ratio of 200% after running stimulus for a decade after a similar debacle around 1990. Our economy today is $14 trillion in size, much larger than Reagan and prior. I could go on, but you get the point.Farcaster (talk) 04:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

text: I think the most important point is that the source was a blog. Now, that blog was on a reputable news site, but it still doesn't get the credit for the quality of the editorial oversight of the magazine itself. 018 (talk) 15:59, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion 

message: Can we get a source on the lines in :File:Federal Debt-VS-Taxes.PNG? Specifically, did the top rate already go up? I thought it was just scheduled to go up in 2011. 018 (talk) 03:11, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Because this figure is not verifiable (and apparently wrong), I'm removing it until their is a source. It seems like a good idea for the article, so I hope it can be sourced and included again! 018 (talk) 01:59, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

text: Okay, looking at one of your refs  and  the top did not increase in 2010, nor is it 40%. Your other two sources don't list a 2010 value that I can see. This is the one year I checked and it is wrong. The graph needs some more detailed verification. Can you please (1) add the data you used to the image page, (2) reference every year or range of years? I'm removing the image until we can verify it since it obviously disagrees with even your provided source. 018 (talk) 23:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think the spreadsheet referenced here would be a good source for the top and bottom tax rates, given it's from the IRS.  The data is only through 2008 though, but should be able to find the rates for 09 and 10 on irs.gov fairly quickly.  Combine that with the debt numbers, and you're done with minimal sourcing.  5 sources for 3 lines just seems a bit much (realizing I'm suggesting 3 sources for just two lines ...).  I was a little uncomfortable with one of the sites used as sources - bargaineering.com  At the bottom of ones of the linked articles it mentions that it uses data from a bunch of random sources "and trusty Wikipedia" - sorry, that puts it into the unreliable category for me.  Ravensfire (talk) 00:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I actually would like to see a secondary source for this (or a journal article). The lowest tax bracket is negative (with the EITC), plus, you have to take into account the parole deductions... I think it is more complicated than it is being presented as. Even if you get that, then who says the top bracket and debt should be on the same graph? Is this OR? 018 (talk) 04:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, I think your last point may be the most interesting.  Do we have anything in the article either relating debt to tax rates?  From looking at Geek2003's image, the inference is somewhat clear - as the highest tax bracket trended down, the debt went up.  That's probably not something that should be inferred by just an image with nothing in the article (referenced) to even remotely back it up.  And let's ignore just about anything else that might have affected things.  What might be a bit more interesting (and to me viable) comparison is the average effective tax paid per year for individuals, and see what that looks like.  No idea where to pull that number from though.Ravensfire (talk) 04:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting note - the IRS note that the 86 tax law change altered how AGI was calculated, which affects the average tax rate.  Part of me still thinks the graph is a useful addition to the article, but it leaves a lot out (tax collected, budget, etc).  Geek2003 - any thoughts from you on this?  Ravensfire (talk) 14:30, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

text: Geek2003, I think you have to talk about a lot more than that and add references as well as a table to the figure page. But the main question is, why isn't this WP:OR? 018 (talk) 15:44, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  File:Federal Debt-VS-Taxes.PNG 

message: I'm sure there are both organizations that support a national debt and ones that oppose it. I think a new section/subsection/whatever listing those organizations would be most helpful to Wiki readers.
Phantom in ca (talk) 23:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  National Debt Public Policy Organizations? 

message: It seems likely that raising the debt ceiling may become an issue this winter. (As opposed to just the usual sabre rattling.) This page is likely to get readers looking for info. Any chance of someone expanding the debt ceiling section? Specifically, the implications of raising or not raising the ceiling. Nosimplehiway (talk) 12:32, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for expanded section on debt ceiling 

message: The table "Leading Foreign owners of US Treasury Securities (July 2010)" needs an "all other" category so the numbers add up.   The bottom line shows the numbers adding to 100% but in fact they only add to 73% since the table lists only the first 9 of the 35 countries (plus "all others") in the Treasury table.  98.166.249.58 (talk) 15:31, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Uh, xinhua is not a reliable source. The US official statistics are. However, I too recall that being reported, but it seems the official statistics have been updated and it is not the case. Looks like nobody bothered to report that. 018 (talk) 03:24, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

text: And so indicated in the article Taiwan. Thanks for pointing that out. (I was wondering what was going on there with all those changes to and fro but wasn't really paying attention). Student7 (talk) 18:47, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Percent held by China 

message: Seriously, that's great!
Nice and clear!
No ambiguity . . .
One small technicality I'd like to mention however . . .
The formal definition of Debt Held by the Public includes Guaranteed Debt of Government Agencies
which are NOT issued by the U. S. Treasury.
This is merely a technicality and a formality . . .
And I'd like to stress that the addition that you've made to the introductory paragraph is such an
enormous gesture of benevolence not only to the intelligent wikipedia-reading, voting U. S. Public
but to the entire human race . . . that I will easily forgive this technicality for at least 6 months.
I'm busy sending emails to the U. S. Treasury . . . One website has been taken down . . . I think
my emails may have had something to do with that . . .
I'm now trying to see if I can get them to straighten out their publications . . . I'm just going
to keep pummeling them with reason until either they convince me that they are right . . . or I can
convince them that I am right.
this is what I'm working on:
http://plugsandwire.com
Again, thanks Csdidier (talk) 03:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whoever Put those definitions up in the intro paragraph . . . Thank You! 

message: table showing change in deficity by president. I know that at some level this is silly, as long term trends can overwehlm what a president does, but I think alot of people wouldlike the data.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.67.134.245 (talk) 23:36, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  request 

message: I apologize if I'm not doing this correctly, but I noticed that reference 19 links to a page that no longer exists (404 error): http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/sheets/hist01z1.xls
Tgillet1 (talk) 01:21, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken links 

message: There is some rumor recently that USA will unilaterally cancel and declare null-void all of its debt towards chicom and only chicom, before year 2017, before the Bald Eagle's currently undisputed naval and air military supremacy starts to wear out.
I think this option should be discussed in this article, because the conditions in favour of USA make this option a very likely outcome!
- Red China could not oppose such a move but in words, lacking aircraft carriers or assault landing capital ships and 5th generation fighter jets, unable to invade either USA or Japan (although South Korea may temporarily fall victim to a land-based chicom invasion in such a case.)
- The cancelling of all US debt towards chicom would make huge sums of money available towards flawlessly fulfilling all other international creditors of USA, therefore such a move would be well-received in international stock markets and supported by all countries outside the Russo-Chinese sphere of influence (i.e. Eastern Eurasia and Africa).
- It is dubious if "letters of marque and reprise" issued by Red China gov't would entice many countries to help Beijing force USA to pay. Maybe Russia and some 3rd world countries would join chicom with their words and arms, for a share of the spoils, but they are not significant with regards to military might or hi-tech industrial output, which are decisive in modern warfare. Red China has much less nukes stockpiled, than France or Tel-Aviv for example! Neither Mexico or Canada is a significant force and otherwise USA is ocean-bound and the seas are under bald eagle's firm control.
- The USA could still recognize her debt towards the chinese PEOPLE, that is the Bald Eagle's duty to remove the oppression of communism from the great asian nation and allow all yellow skinned people to think, speak, worship, associate, invest and enterprise according to their free will. Such a gift of mental and economical liberty to the chinese people could replace the vast monetary payment which US currently owns towards the communist politburo of Red China. The world would recognize the proper egality of such an exchange!
- America has the potential to live without chinese imports, since her population has strong protestant work ethics and they were able to supply themselves and much of the world with all desired industrial output until the 1970s. Americans would have to work a bit harder again and not balk at sewing shoes, that's it. Furthermore, mexican people would be happy to take the place of chinese labourers.
Therefore this Wikipedia article should discuss the aspect of US unilateral debt cancellation with regards to bonds collected by the Beijing chicom leadership! 82.131.128.121 (talk) 17:37, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Unlikely as it's just a rumor - see WP:CRYSTAL.  Also, unless it's discussed in reliable sources, there's no way to put it in the article.  Ravensfire (talk) 17:55, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

text: This sounds WACK . . . I don't know who chicom is . . . If the U. S. Government were to do a specific and quarantined default on U. S. Treasury Bonds . . . I would imagine they would isolate and default on the OASDI Trust Fund (Much more money to be certain!). . . but I wouldn't even expect them to do that! . . . That would be unprecedented . . . after 200 years of making sure the interest on U. S. Treasury Bonds was paid on time . . . after 200 years of building up credibility and making sure that people knew that U. S. Treasury Bonds are the safest (risk-free) investment in the world . . . a move like that would be silly . . . and if this idea had any credibility it would certainly make the front-page news of the New York Times! . . . So I apologize but I dismiss this entry as "WACK" . . . I'm not even going to bother to look up what "chicom" is on the internet. . . . Csdidier (talk) 02:39, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: this sounds like general Communist chinese porpaganda more then anything. and even if we did do so, china would still own us around $11 trillion, as we gave them billions of dollars in the 1940s after world war 2 in a system similar to the marshall plan. Joesolo13 (talk) 23:32, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unilateral US debt cancellation method towards Beijing chicom and only chicom