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Comment by jhoechtl | Hacker News Reader

Cutting the deficit? Which one? If you are referring to the National Debt you are grossly wrong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_St...

Of course, if you look up in the dictionary you'll find that deficit and debt are distinct words:

  debit: something that is owed or that one is bound to pay
  to or perform for another

  deficit: the amount by which expenditures or liabilities
  exceed income or assets

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/deficit http://www.dictionary.com/browse/debt

The Federal deficit was about $1.4T when Obama started and its about $600B now. Obama has been very fiscally conservative. In particular, he put the Afghanistan and Iraq wars on normal rather than emergency funding basis.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.ht...

Only tangentially related, but I'm amazed by the absolute value of the US deficit. The German federal deficit used to be around 10-20 billion € (now down to zero) and everyone was crying over how horribly high it is. (I know that Germany is smaller, but it has at least a fourth of the US population.)

Post WWII, US deficits grow under Republicans and shrink under Democrats.

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-EX454_wwii10_G_...

It's a lagging indicator.

We have run massive trade deficits since Reagan. Those ultimately either have to show up as national debt or personal debt. After 35 years, we're nearly maxing out both. Germany has a trade surplus (basically doing the same thing to the rest of the EU.)

edit:

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/national-income-account...

http://www.dw.com/en/italian-pm-renzi-lashes-out-at-german-t...

you are out of your mind. the only reason the deficit is south of a trillion is interest rates are HALF what they were in 08.

2008 fed debt: ~10T

2016 fed debt: ~19T

2008 int exp: ~450M

2016 int exp: ~450M

he's spent like a lunatic, and his aca has just gotten started.

Spent like a lunatic would be his predecessor with two unfunded off the books wars, Medicare Part D, the 'Ownership' Society all paid for with tax cuts.

What could he have feasibly done otherwise?

uh, cut spending?

LOL. jesus.

Right. Given that Congress controls the purse, how?

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