Comments for Adam Smith's Prophecy: Today's Sovereign Debt Crisis at http://www.rcreader.com , comment 1 to 3 out of 3 comments http://www.rcreader.com Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:50:38 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.rcreader.com/commentary/adam-smiths-prophecy/#comment-2128 To Bill Handel: Most of the budget during WW2 was for the war, so it was cut after the war. Today most of the budget is mandatory. Back then the huge budget reduction was clear cut, today it is nearly impossible. We are not in the same situation as back then. http://pair.offshore.ai/38yearcycle/#debtlevel - Vincent Cate Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:01:51 +0100 http://www.rcreader.com/commentary/adam-smiths-prophecy/#comment-1871 With govt. spending added into GDP then this statistic doesn't reflect reality because the government does not "produce" anything. So as a percentage of GDP, these programs probably reflect much larger liabilities than the official numbers indicate. - steven montross Sat, 27 Feb 2010 07:02:15 +0100 http://www.rcreader.com/commentary/adam-smiths-prophecy/#comment-1856 Some good points here about the rise of entitlement spending, but some of the conclusions are unduly alarmist. If you look at the national debt as a percentage of GDP, it reached a high point at the end of WWII and steadily declined under every presidential administration until the Reagan/Bush I years - a period in which 25 years of those declines were wiped out and the debt tripled. To be fair, the first couple years of Reagan's deficits did what the Obama stimulus plan is doing, and helped pull us out of the 1982 recession, but there was no justification for twelve years of such a course. In the '90's, Clinton reversed the course, andbrought the debt fraction down, but the figure rose again during the Bush II administration with the combination of two unfunded wars, the unfunded Medicare drug benefit, and tax cuts targeting (predominantly) high-income earners. So far, the Obama stimulus has kept us from experiencing 13 percent unemployment- 9.7 percent is bad enough! I would be surprised if the President proposes a second round of it. - Bill Handel Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:37:33 +0100