XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns
From: noway@nowhere.com
On 7/28/2024 8:04 AM, Governor Swill wrote:
> On Sat, 27 Jul 2024 17:46:01 -0700, Josh Rosenbluth
wrote:
>
>> On 7/27/2024 5:27 PM, Governor Swill wrote:
>>
>> {snip}
>>
>>> "Off budget spending." George bush paid for the entirety of the
Afghanistan and Iraq wars
>>> off budget PLUS he ran enormous budget deficits.
>>
>> Huh? Off-budget refers to an accounting vehicle that separates Social
>> Security from the rest of the budget.
>>
>>> Bush's budget deficits totaled less than 5T but debt grew by 9T. He spent
trillions off
>>> the books.
>> Here is how it works:
>>
>> On-budget (everything except SS) runs a deficit of $100.
>> Off-budget (SS) runs a surplus of $10.
>> Total budget runs a deficit of $90.
>>
>> Federal notes/bonds are sold to the public in the amount of $90 to raise
>> the case to cover the total budget deficit. Thus, the debt held by the
>> public goes up by $90.
>>
>> A special-issue federal note/bond is placed in the SS Trust Fund in the
>> amount of $10. This, the intra-governmental debt (what the government
>> owes to itself) goes up by $10.
>>
>> The total debt goes up by $100.
>
> I don't think that's entirely correct. Off budget spending tends to swing
quite wildly.
> Also the Federal budget is unified with SS. SS and the rest of the budget
haven't been
> accounted separately since LBJ unified them. Off budget is spending that
was disbursed
> outside the budget. The specific scenario as a "budget" surplus at a time
of continued
> debt growth.
>
> "The budget brings together the spending and receipts of virtually all
federal activities,
> from paying doctors who treat Medicare patients to financing the
Environmental Protection
> Agency to collecting income taxes to selling oil leases on federal land. In
two cases,
> however, Congress has separated programs from the rest of the budget. The
Postal Service
> Fund and the disability and retirement trust funds in Social Security are
formally
> designated “off-budget,” even though their spending and revenues are
included in the
> unified budget."
>
> "are included in the unified budget."
>
> "This accounting has had mixed results. Congressional budget rules prevent
spending
> reductions or revenue increases in Social Security from being explicitly
used to pay for
> spending increases or tax cuts elsewhere. In that sense, off-budget
accounting has
> protected the program. But high-level budget discussions focus on the
unified budget
> deficit and thus ignore the off-budget versus on-budget distinction. As a
result, past
> Social Security surpluses have effectively helped finance deficits elsewhere
in the
> government. Just how much is unclear, but in the three decades that Social
Security has
> been off-budget, the rest of government has run a surplus in only two years
(1999 and
> 2000)."
>
The link gets it precisely correct. It says SS and the Post Office are
off-budget (the law was changed in 1990 to make it so). We have an
on-budget, an off-budget and a unified (total) budget.
> There were also surpluses in '97 and '98.
We had unified budget surpluses in 1998 through 2001 and on-budget
surpluses in 1999 and 2000.
> This issue isn't clarifying for me with so much contradictory data.
It's just accounting. The underlying numbers are always the same.
On-budget is everything but SS.
Off-budget is SS (the Post Office is too small to worry about)
Unified budget is everything together.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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