[Vision2020] He's Back!!!

Nicholas Gier ngier006 at gmail.com
Wed Dec 14 23:02:30 PST 2016


We've not heard from Dale Courtney in ages, so I was surprised to see this
critique of me in the Daily News.

Nick Gier displays the same partisanship, arguing elsewhere Sept. 3 the
national debt is the fault of the GOP. He argues Democratic presidents have
reduced the debt the most; and as proof, the Obama administration has
reduced the deficit from 11.1 percent to 2.7 percent. Either the philosophy
professor doesn't know the difference between debt and deficit or he's
being duplicitous, which is tragic for an ethics professor. The national
debt went from $10.6 trillion the day President Obama took office to $20
trillion today.

Nowhere I have ever written that the GOP is solely responsible for the
national debt.  That's of course absurd.  What I have repeated is the well
known truth--backed up by non-partisan data--that Democratic
administrations have run up less debt, have had higher economic growth, and
have had lower unemployment rates.

Yes, the national debt has doubled under Obama, but the important question
is: who is responsible for this continuing red ink?The Center for Budget
and Policy Priorities has calculated the long-term effects of various
elements of the national debt, assuming that the Bush tax cuts are still in
place. (Trump's tax cuts will increased the debt even more.)  By 2019 those
cuts will amount to $600 billion of the debt burden as opposed to $75
billion for Obama’s stimulus. We will still be paying $320 billion for the
Great Recession (primarily caused by the financial sector) and $150 billion
for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As I like to say: Bush borrowed money
to wage two wars, but Obama borrowed money at much lower interest rates and
saved the economy.

Courtney claims that I confuse deficits and debt, but he is the one that is
confused. If my monthly budget runs a deficit, I will go into debt, and I
might borrow some money to get by, but my debt is still there plus
interest.  It is no different with the government.  The Obama
administration has brought down the annual deficit from 11.1 percent to 3.2
percent (it's gone up a bit since Courtney quoted me.  That means that less
was added to the national debt over six years.

Are you still lurking on the Vision, or do I need to dig out your email
address to set your "Right Mind" straight?

Your Pal, Nick

-- 

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
shall never sit in.

-Greek proverb

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.

--Immanuel Kant
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