Little-Acorn
Well-Known Member
I was fiddling with Excel and playing with charts today (OK, so I'm a geek, so sue me! :-p )
And I found I could get a whole bunch of numbers from the U.S. Govt website http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np . You can plug in any two dates, and it will tell you the official U.S. Govenment dollar amount for the National Debt, for every weekday from the one date to the other.
It fluctuates day to day, obviously. Almost every day, the Fed Govt borrows a lot of money by issuing new bonds. Then the next day, it uses that money to pay off last month's (or last year's) bonds. So the daily total-debt rate bounces up and down every day.
But it's the long-term trends that are interesting.
First I made a chart for the National Debt from the beginning of George W. Bush's administration, to today. As it shows, Bush spent like a drunken sailor, almost from the beginning of his admin. Then Obama got elected, with Dem majorities in both Houses, and started a spending spree that put Bush to shame. Here's the chart, from pure government figures:
.
The big bump just to the right of center, was the "stimulus", where we borrowed an extra $trillion and blew it, to no apparent effect.
But something interesting seems to be happening at the upper right corner. Let's look at a chart of just the last six months (Jan 1, 2011 to today):
You can see the bouncing up and down from day to day as I mentioned. But what's happening in the upper right portion, from about mid-May till today?
Now THAT'S a debt ceiling!
This chart says that, for about the last two months, WE HAVE HAD A BALANCED BUDGET.
An even closer look, from May 1 through today:
This has not happened in my lifetime, before now. For nearly two months, the U.S. Government has not spent any more than it has taken in.
In fact, we have actually been PAYING OFF PART OF THE TOTAL NATIONAL DEBT, slowly but steadily, for that period!
Again, this is something that has not happened in most of our lifetimes.
What a difference an election makes.
Of course, this is not for an entire one-year period. It is for slightly less than two months, and the Natl Debt WAS rising before then. So we have a long way to go before having something that we can really point to.
But... if Democrats had not lost their majority in the House, and lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (when only 1/3 of it was up for election!) in 2010... does anyone think that this sudden flattening out of the Natl Debt, and even its very slight DECREASE, would ever have happened? Or would Congress have gone on merrily hiking the Debt Limit, and spending like there was no tomorrow?
Republicans, as I pointed out, spent like drunken sailors from 2001-2008. But now it's starting to look like they just might have "got religion", especially after seeing what happened in 2010 to Democrats that spent even more. But they need to (in fact they'd damned well BETTER) stick to this a lot longer than they have so far.
Those Republicans now have their principle campaign issue for the 2012 election. They can hold up charts similar to these, point to the flat area (which hopefully will be much longer by then) and say, "Do you want more of this? Then vote for us." And they can also point to the super-steep area that came before, and say, "Or do you prefer this? If you do, then vote for the Democrats that gave it to you."
And I found I could get a whole bunch of numbers from the U.S. Govt website http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np . You can plug in any two dates, and it will tell you the official U.S. Govenment dollar amount for the National Debt, for every weekday from the one date to the other.
It fluctuates day to day, obviously. Almost every day, the Fed Govt borrows a lot of money by issuing new bonds. Then the next day, it uses that money to pay off last month's (or last year's) bonds. So the daily total-debt rate bounces up and down every day.
But it's the long-term trends that are interesting.
First I made a chart for the National Debt from the beginning of George W. Bush's administration, to today. As it shows, Bush spent like a drunken sailor, almost from the beginning of his admin. Then Obama got elected, with Dem majorities in both Houses, and started a spending spree that put Bush to shame. Here's the chart, from pure government figures:
.
The big bump just to the right of center, was the "stimulus", where we borrowed an extra $trillion and blew it, to no apparent effect.
But something interesting seems to be happening at the upper right corner. Let's look at a chart of just the last six months (Jan 1, 2011 to today):
You can see the bouncing up and down from day to day as I mentioned. But what's happening in the upper right portion, from about mid-May till today?
Now THAT'S a debt ceiling!
This chart says that, for about the last two months, WE HAVE HAD A BALANCED BUDGET.
An even closer look, from May 1 through today:
This has not happened in my lifetime, before now. For nearly two months, the U.S. Government has not spent any more than it has taken in.
In fact, we have actually been PAYING OFF PART OF THE TOTAL NATIONAL DEBT, slowly but steadily, for that period!
Again, this is something that has not happened in most of our lifetimes.
What a difference an election makes.
Of course, this is not for an entire one-year period. It is for slightly less than two months, and the Natl Debt WAS rising before then. So we have a long way to go before having something that we can really point to.
But... if Democrats had not lost their majority in the House, and lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (when only 1/3 of it was up for election!) in 2010... does anyone think that this sudden flattening out of the Natl Debt, and even its very slight DECREASE, would ever have happened? Or would Congress have gone on merrily hiking the Debt Limit, and spending like there was no tomorrow?
Republicans, as I pointed out, spent like drunken sailors from 2001-2008. But now it's starting to look like they just might have "got religion", especially after seeing what happened in 2010 to Democrats that spent even more. But they need to (in fact they'd damned well BETTER) stick to this a lot longer than they have so far.
Those Republicans now have their principle campaign issue for the 2012 election. They can hold up charts similar to these, point to the flat area (which hopefully will be much longer by then) and say, "Do you want more of this? Then vote for us." And they can also point to the super-steep area that came before, and say, "Or do you prefer this? If you do, then vote for the Democrats that gave it to you."
