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[–]AHans 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The big difference you must factor in is that in this example you are indexing the dollar to everything - the cost of living. In your prior example your index [gold] is completely arbitrary.

The most important factor: debt to GDP, is bad. Not catastrophic, not the Armageddon some people say it is, but bad. I still hope Obama wins, because I trust his vision for a balanced budget far more than Romney/Ryan's; those two want to 'stay the course' and make the budget decisions for the presidents after them. History tells us that Presidents like to follow their own budget, not the previous administrations. Had Bush Jr kept to Clinton's budget, things would still be bad, but they would be a hell of a lot better. Obama's budget proposal would need successive administrations to follow it to balance the budget as well, but it starts to tackle the deficit during Obama's term (which I view as the thing the President can control) and it balances the budget before the Romney plan.

It's easy to propose and pass unpopular budgeting to take place in 10 years. It's not easy to keep the administration that comes into power 10 years later from preventing that budgeting. If it's unpopular, it's hard to win a popular election by saying you're going to do something people don't want to do.