2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Factual talking points on the economy (UPDATED) [View all]progree
(10,928 posts)[font color=blue]#57. Like I said, I agree it's about 1/3 of total spending. The chart showing more than 50% is ...some form of discretionary spending. No need to start accusing people of lying, right? [/font]
I was referring to your OP and post #32 as they were before the Aug 27 edits (the edits were done after my #53 was posted). I'm very happy and relieved to see the edit change in #32 and the OP, and I am feeling that you are dedicated to providing factual information as opposed to what I call "Dem Porn" which is when someone deliberately misleads or lies to make a stronger case (at the expense of credibility). I acknowledge that #37 also clarified the situation.
[font color=blue]Can we even consider war debts as discretionary spending? Debt is debt. [/font]
I assume this is interest on some portion of the national debt due to military spending. I only quickly glanced at your
http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175361/ link in the OP and #58, and he's counting 39% of the debt as war debt. Seems a bit high, but if it was cranked down to say 33%, it wouldn't change the grand total that much so not a big deal. I haven't dug into why he uses 39% so he might have valid reasons. Whether to count it at all I think might be dubious, as it is kind of like we're counting spending that we don't pay for (by not collecting enough taxes) twice: we count the expenditure, and then we count the interest charges that result because we borrowed rather than paid for it.
The same argument could be made by a rightie for Head Start and the school lunch program and things like that which most of us cherish -- some portion of the national debt results from these expenditures, again because we choose not to tax ourselves enough to pay for all our expenditures. But most of us would cry foul if the righties claimed that Head Start or whatever cost what Head Start nominally cost plus some proportionate share of interest on the national debt. Just one way to look at it I guess.
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