Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
I checked the link and don't deny that some in the government might define "balanced budget" the way you describe. But others define it differently. About.com says...Definition: A balanced budget occurs when the total sum of money a government collects in a year is equal to the amount it spends on goods, services, and debt interest. I can only conclude that Greenspan defined balanced budget the same way About.com does.
What's really interesting is that neither includes the repayment of debt as an expense to be counted when determining whether a budget is balanced. Unlike any normal household which has a mortgage or car payment to make, I guess the politicos feel that once borrowed, they needn't worry about repaying the debt any more.
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Then they use the Clinton Dictionary in which anything can mean something else.
The numbers don't lie. Either the interest was not fully paid during the Clinton years, or more debt was incurred, or both. No matter what, ALL definitions for "balanced budget" were violated. And if the intent is to return to the Clinton Definition of Balanced Budget, the red ink just continues to get brighter, and we are no better off than the person with the 5-year interest-only ARM who never gets a raise.
And any loan I've ever seen which allows only interest payments curing any time frame - and no requirement to pay principal at any percentage - eventually has a balloon payment due. Not placing anything in escrow to cover that balloon payment, while living at 100% income-outgo, requires a windfall somewhere down the pike to make the balloon payment. That's the major reason for the "mortgage crisis" which led to the financial institution bailout mess. What makes anyone think the same isn't true for the federal debt? Where's the windfall to come from?
What the Treasury"s own historical numbers show is that the press, the politicians, and the financial lobby - all of whom who had to know the truth in the numbers - lied to all of us.
An old mentor of mine once told me, "
Watch for the little lie. If they will lie to you about something small, they will have no compunction to tell you the big lie. And if you accept the little lie, you'll really get socked when the big one (which will eventually happen) is told to you."
Have we heard the $Trillion "little one," or was that the big one?