Trump to Propose $4.8 Trillion Budget With Big Safety-Net Cuts. White House seeks savings through curbs on Medicare, Medicaid while boosting funds for military, veterans

Wall Street Journal ^ | February 9, 2020 | Kate Davidson and Andrew Restuccia

[OIFVeteran]

The budget was balanced, deficit erased, and the debt reduced under Clinton. For that he gets an A in regards to the deficit and debt.

Q: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?

A: Yes to both questions, whether you count Social Security or not.

The Clinton years showed the effects of a large tax increase that Clinton pushed through in his first year, and that Republicans incorrectly claim is the “largest tax increase in history.” It fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers. Clinton’s fiscal 1994 budget also contained some spending restraints. An equally if not more powerful influence was the booming economy and huge gains in the stock markets, the so-called dot-com bubble, which brought in hundreds of millions in unanticipated tax revenue from taxes on capital gains and rising salaries.

Clinton’s large budget surpluses also owe much to the Social Security tax on payrolls. Social Security taxes now bring in more than the cost of current benefits, and the “Social Security surplus” makes the total deficit or surplus figures look better than they would if Social Security wasn’t counted. But even if we remove Social Security from the equation, there was a surplus of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1999 and $86.4 billion in fiscal 2000. So any way you count it, the federal budget was balanced and the deficit was erased, if only for a while.

Fact-check.org

Lot of things not to like about Clinton but I give people their due even if I don’t like them personally.

[DoodleDawg]

If it’s not an enumerated power listed in the Constitution, the feds are not empowered.

So Air Force, Space Force, air traffic control network, NASA, federal prison system, food inspections, all are unconstitutional?

[DoodleDawg]

Tell our “allies” — Europe, Japan, Korea they have 5 years to get their defenses in shape because we are pulling our troops scattered around the planet home.

You are aware, aren't you, that unless you are bringing those troops home to discharge then and deactivate the units they are assigned to then this will result in no cost savings?

[1Old Pro]

Among the agencies that would receive the biggest boost is NASA, which would see a 12% increase next year as Mr. Trump seeks to fulfill his goal of returning astronauts to the moon by 2024. On the other hand, the Environmental Protection Agency’s spending would be slashed by 26%.

Fuzzy math, NASA has been cut to the bone, so increasing by 12% might sound huge but it is not. The EPA is so overfunded it's nuts, so cutting it's budget by what seems a lot at 26% is merely a start.

[rollo tomasi]

Fact-check.org, lol.

Riddle me this and Fact-check.org too

The public debt went up so this isn't true.



For part of the rest of the story:



Boiled down to its basics, that's the budget "surplus" hoax that's coming from the president and Congress. In 1998, there was approximately $120 billion spent out of revenue earmarked for trust funds like the Social Security, highway and unemployment compensation trust funds. There's absolutely nothing in those trust funds except Treasury Department IOUs.

That means that when Congress reports there is a $60 billion surplus, we should subtract $120 billion from that so-called surplus. That would leave us with minus $60 billion -- a $60 billion deficit for 1998. As such, budget surplus talk is nothing less than a sleight-of-hand accounting hoax perpetrated on the American people.

The budget situation is actually worse. The federal government uses accounting practices that if used by private companies would land the CEO and the board of trustees in jail. Here's why: Today's estimated federal government liability is about $20 trillion. These are federal government promises-to-pay such as the public debt, Social Security, railroad retirement, bank deposit and savings and loan insurance, guaranteed student loans, International Monetary Fund and so forth.

When private companies have future promises-to-pay, general accounting practices require that they hold actuarially based reserves to cover those claims. How much reserves do you think Congress has set aside to cover federal obligations? If you say zilch, nada, zippo, go to the head of the class. The bottom line is that if Congress followed general accounting practices, instead of a reported surplus, there would be a budget deficit of at least $200 billion.

You say, "Williams, wow, what should Americans do?" Right now, we're deciding whether it's OK for a president to lie to the American people. While we're at it, we might also decide whether we should accept lies from Congress. We should give them our answer at election time.

Walter Williams explaining the fiscal bullcrap that will be peddled while it was happening (And the numbers proved him right).

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams102198.asp

[OIFVeteran]

Every single Budget has included the surpluses from Social Security, highway, and unemployment compensation.

No government budget has every used the same accrual techniques as a business. So comparing apples to apples Clinton did balance the budget and reduce the deficit.

“Other readers have noted a USA Today story stating that, under an alternative type of accounting, the final four years of the Clinton administration taken together would have shown a deficit. This is based on an annual document called the “Financial Report of the U.S. Government,” which reports what the governments books would look like if kept on an accrual basis like those of most corporations, rather than the cash basis that the government has always used. The principal difference is that under accrual accounting the government would book immediately the costs of promises made to pay future benefits to government workers and Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries. But even under accrual accounting, the annual reports showed surpluses of $69.2 billion in fiscal 1998, $76.9 billion in fiscal 1999, and $46 billion for fiscal year 2000. So even if the government had been using that form of accounting the deficit would have been erased for those three years.”
Fact-check.org

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Use the Constitution as the absolute legitimate and legal reason MANDATING most of the now totalitarian federal government to disappear.

End Social Security and Medicare now. If Grandma didn't save enough, tough.

[Jim W N]

Air Force, Space Force, air traffic control network, NASA, federal prison system, food inspections

Of course military and incarceration issues are in the Constitution.

Tell me where are the enumerated powers the Constitution delegates to the feds to meddle in your health, your drugs, energy, the environment, abortion, race, gender, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam?

Why are you defending a mostly unconstitutional totalitarian federal government that is one election away from destroying your country, your freedom, and your life as you know it?

[Jim W N]

The feds owe people money they forced from people for things like Social Security and Medicare. Those things need to be ramped down. The feds have deliberately worked on making an independent people dependent.

Remember? We’re founded on the Declaration of INDEPENDENCE from government.

Nevertheless, there are no enumerated powers delegated by the Constitution to the feds authorizing them to take your money for things like “social security” or government healthcare (Medicare).

Why are you defending a mostly unconstitutional totalitarian federal government that is one election away from destroying your country, your freedom, and your life as you know it?

[rollo tomasi]

Again, if a private entity did the accounting tricks that the Federal government engaged in during 1998-2001, they would be sent to jail.

Also, the debt went up, how do you or FactCheck.org explain that? Hint, your C/P doesn't explain crap, just bad spin.

Keep on being gaslighted by FactCheck.org and don't believe the numbers.

The money the government owes itself is still debt my friend despite what FactCheck.org regurgitates, lol.

Tried to give you the simple route of the TREASURY NUMBERS but unfortunately the brainwashing requires more deprograming from mass media outlets

The US federal gov’t fiscal year begins on October 1st and ends on September 30th. In the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000, the US federal govt had a surplus of $237 billion. In addition, the total US national debt was $ 5.655 trillion on September 30, 1999 and $ 5.673 trillion on September 30, 2000, so that was an annual increase of $18 trillion [SOURCE: Treasury Department’s ‘Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government’]. The total US national debt is the sum of the debt held by the public (“on-budget”) and the debt held by the gov’t (“off-budget”). The debt held by the public (owed to others) was $ 3.232 trillion on September 30, 1999 and it was $ 2.992 on September 30, 2000, so that was an “on-budget” decrease of $240 billion (The Clinton surplus). The debt held by the gov’t (‘owed’ to itself) was $ 2.423 on September 30, 1999 and $ 2.681 on September 30, 2000, so that was an “off-budget” increase of $258 billion, meaning a net $18 billion increase of both together, or, an $18 billion increase in the total US national debt. [SOURCE: google search ‘monthly statement of the public debt of the United States September 30, 2000’ and in the TreasuryDirect website click 1999, click September, click Summary Adobe Acrobat, repeat for 2000]

The ‘Clinton surplus myth’ movement points out this net $18 billion increase in total debt, and of that total $258 billion increase in govt-held debt, they specifically finger a $246 billion entry figure found in the same Monthly Treasury Statement [To find it, scroll to ‘Table 6. Schedule D’, ‘Net Purchases’, ‘Fiscal Year to Date’, ‘This Year’, ‘Grand total’]. This $246 billion is that year’s increase of intra-govt debt of off-budget items, mainly Social Security. What that means is the US Treasury took that year’s “off-budget” Social Security surplus, gave the Social Security trust fund an IOU in exchange for that cash money, and spent that cash money for other “on-budget” expenditures. The myth movement says that the federal gov’t surplus of $237 billion in 2000 would not have been possible without ‘borrowing’ the Social Security surplus. Only by ‘borrowing’ that fiscal year’s $246 billion off-budget surplus and by Treasury ‘trickery’ could that be called a fiscal year ‘surplus’. According to them, if there was an actual surplus, the national debt in 2000 would have come down, instead of going up $18 billion.

There is a difference when the federal gov’t has borrowed from itself (isn’t a liability), and when the federal gov’t has borrowed from others (is a liability), or more specifically, there’s a difference between “on-budget” and “off-budget” federal gov’t debt. What confuses everybody is that these two different types of debt are added together and called the national debt which makes them seem like the same types of debt. How are these debts different? During current “on-budget” operations, if the federal govt receives less money from individual federal tax withholding, corporate federal tax, etc., than it pays out while provisioning itself, running the country, etc., that “on-budget” deficit spending is financed with newly-created money. That newly-created money was approved by Congress and also was accounted for to the penny by selling additional “marketable” securities, or Treasury bonds, to the public. These additional Treasury bonds increase the federal gov’t debt “held by the public”. Furthermore, when the federal gov’t receives more money from “off-budget” operations, like Social Security payments deducted from paychecks, above what it pays out to those “off-budget” operations, like Social Security recipients, by law it must use that surplus to buy “non-marketable” Government Account Series securities, or what I personally like to call ‘pending’ Treasury bonds. These ‘pending’ Treasury bonds increase the federal gov’t debt “held by the govt”. These ‘pending’ Treasury bonds are placed in the corresponding trust fund for future redemption, and that surplus off-budget cash money is promptly spent on current on-budget expenditures. The sum of both those Treasury bonds issued and sold by the Treasury to finance on-budget deficit spending (debt held by the public), plus all those ‘pending’ Treasury bonds posted in off-budget trust funds (debt held by the gov’t) is the total public debt, or the national debt. The key difference is, only the marketable Treasury bonds issued that coincided with the newly created money to finance on-budget deficit spending are liabilities (because they already monetized an on-budget deficit). The non-marketable securities, or ‘pending’ Treasury bonds that are sitting in trust funds like the Social Security trust fund are not liabilities until they are redeemed by the trust fund (because they have not yet monetized an off-budget deficit)…

In other words, Treasury bonds held by the public and ‘pending’ Treasury bonds held within the federal government are both considered a debt, but both are not a liability. Only debt held by the public that financed on-budget deficit spending is reported just as a liability on the consolidated financial statements, the balance sheet of the United States government. Debt held by government accounts, or the intra-gov’t-held debt, is not (yet) reported just as a liability on the consolidated balance sheet of the United States government (not until it is redeemed by the trust fund). Using basic rules of accounting, not trickery, debt held by government accounts, or the intra-gov’t-held debt, is at the moment both an asset (to those trust funds) and a liability (to the Treasury), so they presently offset each other on the consolidated balance sheet, and why that fiscal year 2000 off-budget debt is separate from that fiscal year 2000 on-budget surplus.

So how does ‘pending’ off-budget debt (which isn’t counted in the 2000 surplus) become actual on-budget debt (that is counted in the 2000 surplus)? When any off-budget trust fund has a deficit in any given year, that trust fund needs to ‘finance’ that deficit. To finance that deficit, the trust fund will hand over some of their ‘pending’ Treasury bonds to the Treasury, and the Treasury will hand over newly created dollars. Newly created dollars means deficit spending, so just as in any on-budget federal gov’t deficit spending, those newly created dollars will be accounted for to the penny with a coinciding issuance of Treasury bonds. Those previously ‘pending’ Treasury bonds will become actual Treasury bonds. That previously ‘pending’ debt held by intra-gov’t will become actual debt held by the public. That previously ‘pending’ off-budget liability (caused by trust fund surplus savings) will become an actual on-budget liability (caused by trust fund deficit spending). Whether that given fiscal year has a total annual surplus or deficit will depend on actual liabilities (which depend on that year’s actual economic performance), not ‘pending’ liabilities (which depend on a future year’s hypothetical economic performance). To see the total debt, you look at the balance sheet, which is the entire, all-time, financial picture of the US federal gov’t from the very beginning. This total debt is the cumulative total of all the years up to the year 2000, made up of both the actual liabilities, or on-budget debt held by the public (money borrowed from others), and the ‘pending’ liabilities, the ‘pending’ off-budget debt held by gov’t (money ‘borrowed’ from itself). Conversely, to see the actual cash flow, you look at the income statement, which is the actual cash money flowing in and the actual cash money flowing out, or just the current, on-budget, actual cash flow that occurred in the year 2000. The bottom line of that US federal gov’t income statement shows that in that year 2000, the amount of actual cash money the federal gov’t took in was large enough to result in an on-budget fiscal year surplus. An increase in the total debt (+$18 billion) which includes a future-day ‘pending’ debt that is posted on the consolidated balance sheet doesn’t change the yearly income statement’s present-day bottom line cash surplus (+$237 billion). A cumulative balance sheet and a current cash flow statement are separate measures, of separate values, in separate time frames, and using separate rules of accounting. Comparing them together is like comparing apples to oranges.

The Clinton-surplus-myth mentality is yet another variation of the same theme, which is a gold-standard mentality that trips up many people when talking about the federal government. This outdated thinking from a bygone era contributes to a ‘federal-government-is-the-same-as-a-household’ groupthink (patterned behavioral and self-reinforcing group dynamic) that is widely pervasive today. Since leaving the gold standard for good in 1971, the federal gov’t is no longer like a household. In the post-gold standard, modern monetary system, when the federal gov’t, the issuer of dollars, ‘borrows’ dollars, it is not the same as when a household borrows dollars. As the saying goes, you can have your own opinions, but not your own facts. According to the Treasury Monthly Statement, in fiscal year 2000, the United States government had receipts of $ 2.025 trillion and outlays of $ 1.788 trillion and “the final budget results and details a surplus of $237 billion.” As per the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the US federal budget was in surplus and the Public Debt, or “debt held by the public” (money borrowed from others) was decreased during Clinton’s second term. Rather than grasping this hard reality and instead preferring to deny the accounting science, the Clinton-surplus-is-a-myth movement wants to engage you in a childish ‘What came first, the chicken or the egg’ argument. It bothers them that Clinton took a Social Security surplus and shamelessly used it to get his budget in surplus.

I have a compromise to offer to The-Clinton-surplus-is-a-myth folks: I’ll admit to them that Social Security being in surplus gets all the credit for putting Clinton’s budget in surplus if they’ll admit that the U.S. economy under the leadership of President Clinton was so strong that it put Social Security in surplus. If anyone says or posts otherwise, well, they won’t get a ‘like’ on their Facebook page from me.

"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality ." – Ayn Rand

http://thenationaldebit.com/wordpress/2016/01/06/clinton-surplus-myth-myth/

[rollo tomasi]

Part II

Simple rebuttal made above by my c/p by spewed by an idiotic source above that FactCheck.org uses is that combined with intragovernmental holdings, there was no surplus at all despite the meanderings of the Clinton Surplus myth, myth that uses so many words to explain so many lies.

[Soul of the South]

“You are aware, aren’t you, that unless you are bringing those troops home to discharge then and deactivate the units they are assigned to then this will result in no cost savings?”

There will be cost savings. No transportation of men and materials to foreign bases. No maintenance and upkeep on facilities in foreign countries, many of which have higher costs than in the US. For example maintaining bases a base in Iraq or Afghanistan is certainly more expensive than maintaining a facility in the US. Costs in many European countries are also higher than the US. There is the cost of transporting dependents to European and Asian bases as well as the cost of maintaining schools for dependents.

Many overseas bases hire local civilians for various jobs on bases. The money spent on those salaries, as well as supplies and food purchased locally, goes into the foreign nation’s economy. Those same dollars spent for civilian workers and supplies in the local economy surrounding a US base supports US citizens and results in tax revenue which does not flow to the US government when money is spent in local economies overseas.

Certainly the withdrawal of troops from overseas will and should result in assessment as to manpower requirements and there will almost certainly be reductions in the number of troops. Bringing them home today and discharging them into a full employment economy, where they can easily find jobs, should be a net plus for the economy.

Even if there was minimal reduction in force, expanding existing bases to accommodate soldiers returning from overseas would cost less than renting land and maintaining hundreds of individual installations in foreign countries.

Any other nation in the world would deploy the military to defend its borders if foreigners were crossing the border with impunity and settling in the homeland. The purpose of the military is defending the population of the homeland. It has never made sense to me for us to have troops deployed around the world to defend other nations when millions of invaders cross our southern border every year.

[Soul of the South]

“You are aware, aren’t you, that unless you are bringing those troops home to discharge then and deactivate the units they are assigned to then this will result in no cost savings?”

There will be cost savings. No transportation of men and materials to foreign bases. No maintenance and upkeep on facilities in foreign countries, many of which have higher costs than in the US. For example maintaining bases a base in Iraq or Afghanistan is certainly more expensive than maintaining a facility in the US. Costs in many European countries are also higher than the US. There is the cost of transporting dependents to European and Asian bases as well as the cost of maintaining schools for dependents.

Many overseas bases hire local civilians for various jobs on bases. The money spent on those salaries, as well as supplies and food purchased locally, goes into the foreign nation’s economy. Those same dollars spent for civilian workers and supplies in the local economy surrounding a US base supports US citizens and results in tax revenue which does not flow to the US government when money is spent in local economies overseas.

Certainly the withdrawal of troops from overseas will and should result in assessment as to manpower requirements and there will almost certainly be reductions in the number of troops. Bringing them home today and discharging them into a full employment economy, where they can easily find jobs, should be a net plus for the economy.

Even if there was minimal reduction in force, expanding existing bases to accommodate soldiers returning from overseas would cost less than renting land and maintaining hundreds of individual installations in foreign countries.

Any other nation in the world would deploy the military to defend its borders if foreigners were crossing the border with impunity and settling in the homeland. The purpose of the military is defending the population of the homeland. It has never made sense to me for us to have troops deployed around the world to defend other nations when millions of invaders cross our southern border every year.

[DoodleDawg]

Of course military and incarceration issues are in the Constitution.

Hence the mention of an army and a navy. If we're talking that only explicit powers are listed in the Constitution then an Air Force and a Space Force are missing. Along with the other organizations I mentioned.

[OIFVeteran]

The social security surplus has always been placed into the general funds and the social security trust fund given IOUs from the beginning of the program. It was the way the law was written. Your source is trying to claim that this was something new that Clinton did, it is not.

In other words every federal budget from the start of the social security program had the social security surplus included in it.

"The Social Security trust funds date back to the “Old-Age Reserve Account,” established under the 1935 Social Security Act. The act authorized Congress to appropriate funds to the reserve account and separately established a new payroll tax sufficient to provide those funds. However, because a recent Supreme Court decision (unrelated to Social Security) had raised questions about the constitutionality of appropriating the tax revenues directly to the reserve account, the act did not explicitly earmark those revenues to the account. Nevertheless, it was understood that Congress would simply appropriate the tax revenues for that purpose even without a statutory requirement to do so. By the time the act was first amended in 1939, the constitutional questions had been resolved, and the 1939 amendments provided for automatic appropriation of the payroll taxes to the reserve account. Under both the 1935 act and the 1939 amendments, the accumulated reserves were invested in interest-bearing Treasury securities, with the interest accruing to the reserves.

The Social Security Act provides that the funds are maintained “on the books of the Treasury.” The Treasury manages the Social Security accounts in much the same way that a bank manages a checking account: Accurate accounts are kept of the cash deposits and the accruing interest; cash (plus interest) withdrawals are allowed whenever needed; and in the meantime, the bank can put the cash to other uses. Thus, the Treasury uses procedures that fully and accurately account for the cash from trust fund tax income deposited with the Treasury and the interest that accrues on those deposits. Until the invested amounts are needed to pay benefits, the cash is intermingled with the Treasury's cash operations for the rest of the government. The size of the accumulated reserves is tracked by special Treasury securities. Those securities are issued to the trust funds both when cash from tax income is deposited and when interest is paid on the invested reserves. When Social Security benefits are paid, trust fund securities are redeemed for the cash to pay beneficiaries.

source-socialsecurity.gov

As far as counting the debt the government owes itself this debt has never been counted. One reason is because the government doesn't count future revenue either. Bottom line upfront is that if Clinton's budgets are held to the same standards as all other budgets since the creation of the social security program then he did balance the budget and reduce the debt.

[Jim W N]

The Constitution (as all law) is properly interpreted as written and originally understood and intended.

Aspects of military forces are mentioned throughout Art I, Sec. 8. Military protection was one of the main reasons for creating the Constitution.

Again, you focus on what is NOT the problem. You cannot find enumerated authority delegated to the feds to meddle in your health choices, your drugs, energy, the environment, abortion, race, gender, ALL communications (regulated by the unconstitutional FCC), etc., etc.

You’re on the wrong side of this argument - the Leftist side who love tyranny and unlimited government - utterly unconstitutional - and hate individual freedom which the Declaration of Independence declares and the Constitution protects.

[DoodleDawg]

You’re on the wrong side of this argument...

Hard to argue with someone who says there are no implied powers unless they decide there are.

[Jim W N]

Show me where the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution intended “implied powers” to the feds to create essentially a totalitarian government in taking over things like your health choices, your drugs, energy, the environment, abortion, race, gender, ALL communications (regulated by the unconstitutional FCC).

You need to study the Federalist Papers (explanation of the Constitution by the creators) and the size of the federal government as a % of the GDP, and SCOTUS cases in the 1800’s, like the Slaughterhouse Cases - all confirming that the Constitution, framed by the Declaration of Independence, gave us a limited government.

You make a good Leftist argument but as with all Leftist argument, it fails. It’s hard to image why someone who seems to love unlimited government is on a site such as FR which stands for the individual freedom the Constitution protects and is the antitheses of your big government.

[rollo tomasi]

Did you not read the links?
The Federal Government did IOU accounting tricks which is HIGHLY UNETHICAL AND FLAT OUT WRONG when declaring a surplus. Sorry to say but you are in bootlicking territory by swallowing the propaganda. The National Debt went up, at least explain that in a logical manner.