Quote:
Originally Posted by CDSmith
Thank you. I have no idea why people don't readily see it. Oh wait, I do. Watch any newscast on budget deficit/surplus spending and they all invariably fail to point this out. Thus people out there hear "balanced budget" and they assume quite wrongly that the federal deficiit has been eradicated.
Same thing is going on in the Canadian Fed. election right now in fact. Every nightly news talks about who is promising a 'balanced budget' while utterly failing to point out to voters that, for example, the Harper gov't doubled our existing deficite over the course of their tenure.
If either the US or Canadian gov'ts were to run at a surplus budget indefinitely from here on out it would take either of them roughly 300 years or more to pay off their current respective debts.
I honesstly have no idea how anyone, reporter or politician especially, can say the words "balanced budget" with a straight face in light of the actual debt situation that exists.  |
Having a balanced budget simply means the govt is taking in more money than it is putting out. Has nothing to do with the debt. The US govt has been in debt since the 1940's starting with WW2, even Clinton added to the debt but is known for balancing the budget because he eliminated the deficit by balancing the budget. Again, the deficit and debt are two different things, and they are calculated differently. Don't ask me how...lol.