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Obama sped up the rate of growth of the debt around 2010 and the percentage growth annually has been consistent since then (i.e. linear on the log scale): https

by rayiner 26d ago

Obama sped up the rate of growth of the debt around 2010 and the percentage growth annually has been consistent since then (i.e. linear on the log scale): https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-debt-does-the-us-have/country/united-states https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-debt-does-the-us-have/.... Not even counting the jumps in response to the 2008 recession and COVID.

BoiledCabbage 26d ago
Is this serious? It's because the country went through the great recession and was attempting to pull out and avoid financial collapse. Look at Revenue per year as a % of GDP and look at Expenses per year as a % of GDP. It's pretty clear. Expenses went up avoiding a depression which was done successfully, and revenue dropped due to the falling economy. The president was handed a collapsing economy and saved it. The issue is the other party that keeps getting handed great economies since the late 90s and fails to do anything but make the problem worse.
- Frieren 26d ago
  To some extend I hope that the Republican party wins the next election. They should be the ones fixing the economy, raising taxes, and doing something responsible for once. If Democrats win they are going to be blamed for being the "bad guys" for increasing taxes, controlling inflation and trying to get the economy back to shape. For Republicans to burn down the economy during their mandates has paid of as the next government needs to focus on firefighting instead of doing the good that it could have been done.
  - rayiner 26d ago
    > To some extend I hope that the Republican party wins the next election. They should be the ones fixing the economy, raising taxes, and doing something responsible for once. The last small-government Republican was Herbert Hoover. Reagan paid lip service to the concept, but he maintained high spending levels to keep former FDR democrats in the fold.
  - stdatomic 26d ago
    They'll just say economy was doomed because of Biden anyway, and that it's not their fault.
  - masklinn 26d ago
    > To some extend I hope that the Republican party wins the next election. They should be the ones fixing the economy, raising taxes, and doing something responsible for once. Why would you ever think they’d be interested in doing any of that? A non-insignificant fraction of the gop wants to collapse the US entirely.
    - immibis2 26d ago
      And then nobody will vote for them ever again, and it'll be a utopia after the rebuild. Playing the long game.
      - cindyllm 26d ago
        [dead]
      - dctoedt 25d ago
        > And then nobody will vote for them ever again, and it'll be a utopia after the rebuild. Playing the long game. (Sarcasm noted.) There was a bitter joke about Islamist takeovers by elections after the Arab Spring: "One man [literally], one vote, one time."
        masklinn 25d ago
        Trump floated that trial balloon a few months back, though currently the administration is proceeding with the much more American plan of widespread voter suppression, intimidation, and bribery, if in the most ham-fisted and unconstitutional way possible.
      - TheCoelacanth 25d ago
        Genuine question: I think making things worse to motivate later making them better is a relatively common idea. Are there any historical examples of it actually working well? To me, it seems more likely to concentrate power among people who don't want to make things better and make it easier for them to resist ever changing.
  - mindslight 26d ago
    The Republican plan appears to be to run the de jure government into the ground so that the corporations can occupy more and more governmental roles, eliminating what little shreds still remain of our Constitutional/natural rights. So no, I wouldn't assume that there will be some clean collapse, nor that said collapse will leave a power vacuum in which a democratic government could be rebuilt.
    - rayiner 25d ago
      The current GOP plan is “if you can’t best them, join them.” So it’ll be a game of both sides buying votes from their constituencies until we need an Argentina-like reset.
      - mindslight 25d ago
        You really do seem to love this type of "Democrats made them do it" excuse. At a certain point you've got to ask yourself if you're trying to convince others or mainly just yourself.
        rayiner 25d ago
        Throwing money at recent immigrants in return for votes was a pillar of the FDR coalition and it’s a core pillar of the Obama coalition. It’s simply inevitable as the culture of the United States converges to be similar to those of the other countries in the hemisphere. There is no constituency for fiscal responsibility in any of these countries.
        mindslight 24d ago
        Your game here seems to be throwing out simplistic partisan tripe, to either prompt an equally-inflammatory opposite-partisan response that will leave you feeling vindicated, or you can always fall back to arguing the shreds of truth in it while continuing to ignore the big picture. I would ask you to "do better", but the whole problem is that once you've bought into the contradictions of destructionism, there is no doing better without coming to terms with what you're actually advocating. Talking about an "an Argentina-like reset" you're closer than most, but I suspect that's due to a better ability for rationalization. In other conversations of ours, you've gone on about the need to preserve American culture in the face of immigration. So once again I will implore you personally, to do your part by working to adopt our culture rather than proudly championing the exact zero-sum politics you're bemoaning (regardless of having changed the color of the partisan flag you're waving). A core tenet of American culture is personal responsibility (for better and for worse), and so these types of choices right here are where the rubber meets the road.
- rayiner 26d ago
  [dead]
- jsisto 26d ago
  Yes bailing out the banks was great for the common man. This is sarcasm
  - jmye 26d ago
    [dead]
caycep 26d ago
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/gfdegdq188s https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/gfdegdq188s Debt per GDP/size of US economy is more useful. Debt/GDP has the 2008 jump as the Obama Admin tried to (but not nearly enough) stimulate out of the housing crisis. Debt/GDP looks flat until 2020. 2008 and 2020 jumps make sense in the setting the 2008 crisis and COVID which was effectively a recession assuming you believe in Keynesian economics. Paying for US debt if you are the US is cheap when interest rates low. Trump/Bessent/Elon have been doing everything they can to drive up inflation, so now interest rates are necessarily going higher...
- Jtsummers 26d ago
  > Debt/GDP has the 2008 jump as the Obama Admin tried to Remember that 2008 was still Bush, Obama didn't become president until 2009.
  - caycep 26d ago
    ah true, bipartisan stimulus then!
    - pdoege 25d ago
      Well, Trump was President in 2020. Biden started January 2021. Both of your examples show the aims and actions of the Republican Party. It isn’t bipartisan.
      - caycep 25d ago
        that was supposed to be a joke...
khriss 26d ago
Let's see, the biggest increases of debts under Democrats have been during the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression And the biggest worldwide pandemic in a century. On the other hand, the biggest debt increases under Republican presidents have been to A) Start and fight multi trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and B) To cut taxes for billionaires and corporations.
- Jtsummers 26d ago
  And probably C) start a multi trillion dollar war in Iran.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 26d ago
    With a $1.5 trillion ~bribe~ rebate to keep them in power.
mindslight 26d ago
Cool story bro? I remember a whole lot of people who complained about the debt during the Obama years (I was right there with them), who are now completely silent or even full-throated support. Perhaps a few of the more "honest" ones you might be able to get a "I don't like everything he does" out of them. If I recall though, you personally did support Obama? Which would make your point doubly moot. Also note that my condemnation wasn't just about the debt per se, but rather the decreasing creditworthiness. Say what you will about Obama (I certainly have), but at least he kept up relations with our allies so they saw us as a strong partner worthy of holding their wealth.
- rayiner 25d ago
  > If I recall though, you personally did support Obama? Which would make your point doubly moot. I did personally support Obama. I still think he was a pretty good President! I’m simply describing the chart I linked to of debt levels on a log scale. Obama increased the slope of debt growth around 2010 and it has stayed around the same slope, with a vertical jump during covid. The point is that the debt growth rate isn’t a Trump thing. It’s the “new normal” since Obama, Trump, Biden, and Trump again.
  - mindslight 25d ago
    So you were "simply" responding to one small part of my comment, with a narrative that sane-washes the whole larger picture. If you personally don't care about the debt, that's fine. But there are a lot of people who had claimed to, who have now turned their denial circuits up to 11. My "$40T more in the hole" aside was aimed at them.

by rayiner 26d ago

BoiledCabbage 26d ago

Is this serious? It's because the country went through the great recession and was attempting to pull out and avoid financial collapse. Look at Revenue per year as a % of GDP and look at Expenses per year as a % of GDP. It's pretty clear. Expenses went up avoiding a depression which was done successfully, and revenue dropped due to the falling economy. The president was handed a collapsing economy and saved it. The issue is the other party that keeps getting handed great economies since the late 90s and fails to do anything but make the problem worse.

Frieren 26d ago
To some extend I hope that the Republican party wins the next election. They should be the ones fixing the economy, raising taxes, and doing something responsible for once. If Democrats win they are going to be blamed for being the "bad guys" for increasing taxes, controlling inflation and trying to get the economy back to shape. For Republicans to burn down the economy during their mandates has paid of as the next government needs to focus on firefighting instead of doing the good that it could have been done.
- rayiner 26d ago
  > To some extend I hope that the Republican party wins the next election. They should be the ones fixing the economy, raising taxes, and doing something responsible for once. The last small-government Republican was Herbert Hoover. Reagan paid lip service to the concept, but he maintained high spending levels to keep former FDR democrats in the fold.
- stdatomic 26d ago
  They'll just say economy was doomed because of Biden anyway, and that it's not their fault.
- masklinn 26d ago
  > To some extend I hope that the Republican party wins the next election. They should be the ones fixing the economy, raising taxes, and doing something responsible for once. Why would you ever think they’d be interested in doing any of that? A non-insignificant fraction of the gop wants to collapse the US entirely.
  - immibis2 26d ago
    And then nobody will vote for them ever again, and it'll be a utopia after the rebuild. Playing the long game.
    - cindyllm 26d ago
      [dead]
    - dctoedt 25d ago
      > And then nobody will vote for them ever again, and it'll be a utopia after the rebuild. Playing the long game. (Sarcasm noted.) There was a bitter joke about Islamist takeovers by elections after the Arab Spring: "One man [literally], one vote, one time."
      - masklinn 25d ago
        Trump floated that trial balloon a few months back, though currently the administration is proceeding with the much more American plan of widespread voter suppression, intimidation, and bribery, if in the most ham-fisted and unconstitutional way possible.
    - TheCoelacanth 25d ago
      Genuine question: I think making things worse to motivate later making them better is a relatively common idea. Are there any historical examples of it actually working well? To me, it seems more likely to concentrate power among people who don't want to make things better and make it easier for them to resist ever changing.
- mindslight 26d ago
  The Republican plan appears to be to run the de jure government into the ground so that the corporations can occupy more and more governmental roles, eliminating what little shreds still remain of our Constitutional/natural rights. So no, I wouldn't assume that there will be some clean collapse, nor that said collapse will leave a power vacuum in which a democratic government could be rebuilt.
  - rayiner 25d ago
    The current GOP plan is “if you can’t best them, join them.” So it’ll be a game of both sides buying votes from their constituencies until we need an Argentina-like reset.
    - mindslight 25d ago
      You really do seem to love this type of "Democrats made them do it" excuse. At a certain point you've got to ask yourself if you're trying to convince others or mainly just yourself.
      - rayiner 25d ago
        Throwing money at recent immigrants in return for votes was a pillar of the FDR coalition and it’s a core pillar of the Obama coalition. It’s simply inevitable as the culture of the United States converges to be similar to those of the other countries in the hemisphere. There is no constituency for fiscal responsibility in any of these countries.
        mindslight 24d ago
        Your game here seems to be throwing out simplistic partisan tripe, to either prompt an equally-inflammatory opposite-partisan response that will leave you feeling vindicated, or you can always fall back to arguing the shreds of truth in it while continuing to ignore the big picture. I would ask you to "do better", but the whole problem is that once you've bought into the contradictions of destructionism, there is no doing better without coming to terms with what you're actually advocating. Talking about an "an Argentina-like reset" you're closer than most, but I suspect that's due to a better ability for rationalization. In other conversations of ours, you've gone on about the need to preserve American culture in the face of immigration. So once again I will implore you personally, to do your part by working to adopt our culture rather than proudly championing the exact zero-sum politics you're bemoaning (regardless of having changed the color of the partisan flag you're waving). A core tenet of American culture is personal responsibility (for better and for worse), and so these types of choices right here are where the rubber meets the road.
rayiner 26d ago
[dead]
jsisto 26d ago
Yes bailing out the banks was great for the common man. This is sarcasm
- jmye 26d ago
  [dead]

caycep 26d ago

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/gfdegdq188s https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/gfdegdq188s Debt per GDP/size of US economy is more useful. Debt/GDP has the 2008 jump as the Obama Admin tried to (but not nearly enough) stimulate out of the housing crisis. Debt/GDP looks flat until 2020. 2008 and 2020 jumps make sense in the setting the 2008 crisis and COVID which was effectively a recession assuming you believe in Keynesian economics. Paying for US debt if you are the US is cheap when interest rates low. Trump/Bessent/Elon have been doing everything they can to drive up inflation, so now interest rates are necessarily going higher...

Jtsummers 26d ago
> Debt/GDP has the 2008 jump as the Obama Admin tried to Remember that 2008 was still Bush, Obama didn't become president until 2009.
- caycep 26d ago
  ah true, bipartisan stimulus then!
  - pdoege 25d ago
    Well, Trump was President in 2020. Biden started January 2021. Both of your examples show the aims and actions of the Republican Party. It isn’t bipartisan.
    - caycep 25d ago
      that was supposed to be a joke...

khriss 26d ago

Let's see, the biggest increases of debts under Democrats have been during the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression And the biggest worldwide pandemic in a century. On the other hand, the biggest debt increases under Republican presidents have been to A) Start and fight multi trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and B) To cut taxes for billionaires and corporations.

Jtsummers 26d ago
And probably C) start a multi trillion dollar war in Iran.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 26d ago
  With a $1.5 trillion ~bribe~ rebate to keep them in power.

mindslight 26d ago

Cool story bro? I remember a whole lot of people who complained about the debt during the Obama years (I was right there with them), who are now completely silent or even full-throated support. Perhaps a few of the more "honest" ones you might be able to get a "I don't like everything he does" out of them. If I recall though, you personally did support Obama? Which would make your point doubly moot. Also note that my condemnation wasn't just about the debt per se, but rather the decreasing creditworthiness. Say what you will about Obama (I certainly have), but at least he kept up relations with our allies so they saw us as a strong partner worthy of holding their wealth.

rayiner 25d ago
> If I recall though, you personally did support Obama? Which would make your point doubly moot. I did personally support Obama. I still think he was a pretty good President! I’m simply describing the chart I linked to of debt levels on a log scale. Obama increased the slope of debt growth around 2010 and it has stayed around the same slope, with a vertical jump during covid. The point is that the debt growth rate isn’t a Trump thing. It’s the “new normal” since Obama, Trump, Biden, and Trump again.
- mindslight 25d ago
  So you were "simply" responding to one small part of my comment, with a narrative that sane-washes the whole larger picture. If you personally don't care about the debt, that's fine. But there are a lot of people who had claimed to, who have now turned their denial circuits up to 11. My "$40T more in the hole" aside was aimed at them.