Are the debt and deficits meaningless ?

[kentuck]

I keep hearing these talking heads and so-called reporters giving grades to George W Bush. They range from B to A-minus with the Republicans and from D to F-minus with Democrats. But they never mention the huge deficits we are now burdened with? Do these deficits not matter? Will our economy simply ignore them and continue to grow at the slow pace it has for the last four years? Or are there dark clouds looming on the horizon? If so, nobody seems to notice. Except for the screwed-up economy, Mr and Mrs Joe Six-Pack, what do you think of this presidency?

[whistle]

1. I suppose deciding whether federal debt and deficit spending....

...are good or bad really depends on who is profiting from the endless debt and who has to pay it back. Republicans seem to believe that they are the ones profiting and I guess when it comes time to pay it back, they will either be long gone or like Bush is claiming about Social Security surpluses which were borrowed to pay for the tax cuts for the wealthy, he is claiming that the federal notes that he issued are worthless and don't have to be paid back.

[tabasco]

2. Of course they matter.

1. It is immoral for the republicans to borrow and spend for political gain toady, while burdening our children and grandchildren with the debt. The tired insult "tax and spend" is in reality a compliment which means "paying the bills."

2. As the Chinese and Japanese, etc., loan us money, they gain more power over our currency and our economy. Not a good thing.

3. Huge deficits cause foreign investors to lose confidence in our economy.

[BillZBubb]

3. The Gipper and The Dick have told us deficits don't matter.

To Mr. and Mrs Joe Sheep, they don't.

Historically this country has been able to deal with debt fairly effectively. That leads a lot of people to wishful inference. In the past, our working age population has been growing and our number of elderly has been managable. Our natural resources were still abundant. Our economic and technical dominance in the world was increasing. We had big capital account surplusses and were THE major creditor nation. Now, ALL of those advantages have disappeared.

We are heading for a nasty, nasty rude awakening in a few years. It will all be Clinton's fault!

[Skittles]

4. only when republicans are in office

they are a complete disaster if Democrats are ruling