[gunsequalfreedom]

"Instead of butting heads over whose taxes to raise and which programs to cut, lawmakers should be haggling over how to use the tool of a federal deficit to boost incomes, employment and growth."

[Drill Thrawl]

Oh my. The Stupid is strong with this one.

[Matthew10]

All it is paper, it is backed by nothing, it is simply and easy way to carry around what you want to trade for something of value. All the fed needs do is print more of the stuff, no country on earth has paper money backed by anything, the value is in the thing you trade the money for.

All this fiscal cliff stuff is nothing but a smoke screen, same with the national debt. It is being used as a distraction, a distraction against what is the question.

Opps planes fueled, gotta go.

[holyscroller]

The whole issue is phoney. Obambi spends money like a drunken sailor (sorry sailors), and then screams about obstructionist Republicans who won’t pay his bills. If he hadn’t spent money he didn’t have (and R’s didn’t want spent), there wouldn’t be a problem. The only REAL problem is Obama and his Socialist spending.

[Kickass Conservative]

Let me guess, this guy has a side business selling Wheelbarrows.

[familyop]

"The public has been badly misinformed. We do not have a debt crisis,...the U.S. government is an issuer of currency. It can never run out of its own money or face the kinds of problems we face when our books don’t balance."

LOL! After the default conclusion, maybe she'll learn to iron shirts.

[shove_it]

The unemployment rate is like a macroeconomic thermometer — when it registers a high rate, it’s an indication that the deficit is too small.

That's the problem - our deficit is too small. Facepalm. This is modern economic theory from an expert in the field.

[Bishop_Malachi]

Whoever wrote this article is guilty of some very sloppy research. Economic data compiled by the National Bureau of Economic Research doesn’t even begin until the mid 1800s. There are only two time periods that are generally considered depressions (and even these are very debatable as data is unreliable/incomplete)...from 1807-1810, and from 1815-1821. There are numerous recessionary periods but the vast majority last one-two years (with very few lasting 3 years). The author has an agenda.

[csmusaret]

Guy sounds like Krugman...We owe more than $16 Trillion, but everything would be peachy keen if only we owed $20 Trillion.

[ctdonath2]

When interest payments exceed revenue, the system stops.

[Teacher317]

Let's accept his misguided premise and his slanted data... he is STILL demonstrably off-base with his conclusion.

The total national debt was only higher than 100% of annual GDP once before in our history, and that was during WWII (when we were financing massive supply dumps into Russia and England so that their children could die at the ends of Nazi machine guns instead of our children... a pretty good purchase, considering... and we paid the debt back down to 40% within 6 years).

Pelosi and Reid took over Congress with the ratio at 43% in 2007. It's now at 105%, in just 5 years. The IMF calls 125% as "unsustainable". Only 10 nations have a higher ratio right now, and most of them are in sever financial trouble (and most of the rest are tiny Caribbean island-nations). We are not currently paying 40 million Europeans to die in our place, and we are not about to enter an era where we have the the vast majority of the world's modern manufacturing plants that don't have bomb damage.

The "tool" of deficit spending may be occasionally useful... but as in all things (even milk consumption), too much can be fatal. We are nearing the practical limits, but the Left wants to race Forward anyway. Idiots.