So we hit the debt limit...

[Berkut]

As it should be.  The baseline should not be the current level of spending, it should be expected future level of spending given the reasonable assumptions.

I might agree if the baseline were tied to, say, inflation.  But as it is, it's extremely misleading to the public and helps enable and conceal politicians' (on both sides of the aisle) spending addicition.

Yeah, when an increase in spending is presented as a cut, that's just doublespeak.

As long as the increased spending does not represent an increase in federal share of GDP, then it isn't actually an increase at all. Apparently.

And when it is an increase, say a 40% increase since the previous low ratio, and the highest peacetime rate ever, then we should ignore that as well, since it is probably just a fluke anyway.

[DGuller]

Yeah, when an increase in spending is presented as a cut, that's just doublespeak.

No, it's not.  Economically speaking, the baseline is not the current numbers, the baseline are the reasonable projections of the future.  After all, a dollar saved is a dollar earned.  Comparing numbers without factoring in the projected growth is how Laffer Curve myths are supported.

[Razgovory]

I am not in a tribe, of course*. Tribalism/partisanship is bad, that is my point. The world would be a better place if people made more of an effort to think objectively instead of just spouting off comments about how everyone in the "other" trbe is stupid/ignorant/deluded/whatever.

And why in the world would I care to try to "prove" anything to you? I know I never made the claim ascribed to me, whether YOU accept that or not is not really very important to me,.

*At least not in reference to this discussion. Of course I have my own groups I identify with and tend to agree with due to that identification (for example, I am an American, and hence tend to look on our actions with more favor than non-Americans), but this is an attriubte that should be recognized and minimized as much as possible. When it comes to politics, I make a very conscious effort to understand what motivates people and why they take the positions they take, even if I do not agree with them. Of course, it is much more intellectually simple to just decide that everything the other guy says is just lies and crazy talk, and then you can quit thinking.

I see that you are delusional then.

[DGuller]

As long as the increased spending does not represent an increase in federal share of GDP, then it isn't actually an increase at all. Apparently.

And when it is an increase, say a 40% increase since the previous low ratio, and the highest peacetime rate ever, then we should ignore that as well, since it is probably just a fluke anyway.

Still continuing the repeat the same line, even after I addressed it time after time?

The original statement that I responded to, and that you repeatedly try to sweep under the carpet and pretend you said something else, is that size of government has been increasing over the last several decades.  How else are you going to define size of government, if not by the share of GDP that it consumes?

Alternatively, what you can say that you meant to say that in the last three years, the size of government shot up, after staying relatively constant over the last several decades.  Or you can choose the most honest of routes, and just admit that your impression of the size of government over the last several decades turned out to not be borne out by facts.

[Berkut]

As long as the increased spending does not represent an increase in federal share of GDP, then it isn't actually an increase at all. Apparently.

And when it is an increase, say a 40% increase since the previous low ratio, and the highest peacetime rate ever, then we should ignore that as well, since it is probably just a fluke anyway.

Still continuing the repeat the same line, even after I addressed it time after time?

As long as you continue to pretend that a 40% increase in spending as a percentage of GDP and the largest government in US history doesn't give the tea baggers a valid beef not motivated by being liars and scoundrels, why would I stop?

Whether your graph shows that government over time is sometimes larger as a percentage of GDP and sometimes smaller is not material to the point that RIGHT NOW it is larger than it has ever been, and has grown by over 40% since its previous low.

Whether or not that low was lower at some other time is immaterial. But you know that, which is why you keep harping on about the laffer curve and what liars people who do not agree with you are...

[Berkut]

As it should be.  The baseline should not be the current level of spending, it should be expected future level of spending given the reasonable assumptions.

I might agree if the baseline were tied to, say, inflation.  But as it is, it's extremely misleading to the public and helps enable and conceal politicians' (on both sides of the aisle) spending addicition.

Yeah, when an increase in spending is presented as a cut, that's just doublespeak.

Those who say that increasing spending is in fact increasing spending are all liars. Turns out that only increasing spending by a LOT counts as increasing spending, and even then sometimes that is not actually increasing spending.

[derspiess]

I'm late in posting this because I lost the email that contained the link, but here's a "Feminist Economist" take on running budget deficits.  Who knew that our debt gets paid by a few clicks on a keyboard-- just like the one I'm typing on right now!

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/07/14/a-woman-economist-speaks-out-deficits-are-a-grrrls-best-friend/

[Admiral Yi]

It seems like the default is averted.  Yi, how do you want your $5 to be sent?

I propose the same terms offered Josephus (?) earlier on a bet: hold on to that 5, and the other three fives you owe me, until the balance reaches 50.

[Admiral Yi]

I love the combined rhetoric of forcing a balanced budget amendment along with the "no tax hikes" party line.  Are these guys completely unaware that taxes are going to have to be raised to balance the budget?

You're stating a preference (one that I happen to support) as if it were some law of mathematics.

[DGuller]

As long as you continue to pretend that a 40% increase in spending as a percentage of GDP and the largest government in US history doesn't give the tea baggers a valid beef not motivated by being liars and scoundrels, why would I stop?

When have I pretended that?  You're attributing to me something I didn't say.  I never denied that the last three years saw a big spending spike, the issue was with claims over how big the government was over the last few decades.

Whether your graph shows that government over time is sometimes larger as a percentage of GDP and sometimes smaller is not material to the point that RIGHT NOW it is larger than it has ever been, and has grown by over 40% since its previous low.

Of course it's not material to this point; however, it's material to the point that it was originally addressing, and the point you keep pretending you never made.

Whether or not that low was lower at some other time is immaterial. But you know that, which is why you keep harping on about the laffer curve and what liars people who do not agree with you are...

I'm harping on those people because they're being disingenous, and the Laffer Curve lie is actually related to the lie about constant growth of government over the last few decades, and not just in the bogus analysis tricks employed. 

When conservatives say that government has been growing over the last few decades, and that they were partially guilty of this as well, they're not being as contrite as it sounds.  What they're actually doing is deflecting attention from the fact that lots of tax cuts were enacted in the last few decades, and deficits exploded in the last few decades.  Flogging themselves for "spending too much" serves a dual disingenous purpose:  pretending that it wasn't tax cuts that increased deficits, and building a case that stuff like Social Security and Medicare should be cut. 

When you repeated their mantra that government has been growing in size over the last several decades, you just regurgitated a conservative propaganda point that created to misdirect.  I don't think you intended to mislead with it; you probably at some point just uncritically took that talking point as a factual given.  Now that I pointed out your error and you dug your feet in, you can't concede that you mistook conservative talking point for a fact, so you keep trying to change the issue from what happened over the last few decades, to what happened in the last three years.

[DGuller]

It seems like the default is averted.  Yi, how do you want your $5 to be sent?

I propose the same terms offered Josephus (?) earlier on a bet: hold on to that 5, and the other three fives you owe me, until the balance reaches 50.

Nothing slips past you. 

[DontSayBanana]

You're stating a preference (one that I happen to support) as if it were some law of mathematics.

Fair enough, but my suspicion is that balancing the budget without a tax increase is a mathematical impossibility.

[Admiral Yi]

Nothing slips past you. 

I studied your people very carefully for two years during grad school.

[Admiral Yi]

Fair enough, but my suspicion is that balancing the budget without a tax increase is a mathematical impossibility.

[LaCroix]

i dunno, berkut. i get what you're saying about the whole tribal/group mindset, but i don't think it can apply to condemnations of the tea party. when you get right down to it, at its core, there are a lot of stupid people involved with that movement who have no idea what they're talking about. that they might be accidentally right on some level is no surprise, what with stopped watches and all, but that doesn't mean they're any less ignorant of the world around them