Obama also cut the deficit by more than half. It didn't get all the way to a balanced budget because of how bad of a mess Bush left to clean up, but it was moving in the right direction.

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Rapzid an hour ago | parent | next [-]

To give credit though it was a largely republican congress that did it. You just need a democrat in the White House to motivate them.

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bryanlarsen 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And as a sibling post noted, Bush senior also both raised taxes and lowered spending on a relative basis. So the original assertion is decisively disproven -- half of our modern era presidents (along with the Congress they presided over) did not behave the way they said "only happens".

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weard_beard 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Incentives are key. If Congress does not present a balanced budget then there has to be consequences. Many other countries work this way. No balanced budget forthcoming? Then there is an immediate collapse of the current government or ruling party and run-off elections to replace them.

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ethbr1 12 hours ago | parent [-]

The issue with requiring balanced budgets at the federal level is there are a number of situations where, by any economic theory, you want to run deficits.

So what you really need is an impartial Fed-budgetary-counterpart arbiter that declares when balanced budget rules are and aren't in effect.

And probably toss in what target percent of debt needs to be paid down too.

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weard_beard 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The impartial arbiter is the voting public.

	▲	ethbr1 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The voting public doesn't know shit about economics or budgets.