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  • Reductio

    From Earl Croasmun@1:261/38 to Bob Klahn on Sat Apr 24 15:27:48 2032
    No it is not. The budget is a wish list of where the
    administration and congress plan to spend money, it does not
    actually spend one single penny.

    Here is another amazing klahnism for your entertainment.
    If that is all there is to a budget, it would be really
    easy to balance the budget. All you have to do is WISH for
    it to be balanced!

    Yep.

    It is no fun when you illustrate his error by reducing his
    position to an absurd conclusion, and then instead of
    recognizing his error he embraces the absurdity.

    You can balance the budget that way in the beginning of the
    fiscal year, but not at the end.

    There he is, folks, in his red nose and his floppy shoes, acting like a fool for the sake of entertaining people. Here, he has just done a complete back-flip.

    This started with him making the the absurd claim that a budget surplus is not needed in order to pay off the federal debt. Just having a BALANCED budget, he
    said, would cause the debt to disappear over time.

    In an effort to make that seem less stupid, he tried to argue that debt IS revenue. And he tried to argue that paying off debt IS spending. He later came up with a limited definition of "budget" as "wish list" which would mean that NO merely-wished-for surplus or deficit would EVER affect actual debt, since they are just wishes. And now, when the absurdity of that is pointed out
    to him, he uses "budget" in a manner that completely contradicts his own definition of the word.

    Applaud. Laugh. He is putting on a show.



    --- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Dada-1
    * Origin: Prism bbs (1:261/38)
  • From Earl Croasmun@1:261/38 to Bob Klahn on Sun Nov 24 13:19:00 2013
    http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05734sp.pdf
    A bit more specifically, from page 102 of that document: "A
    ⌠budget,÷ in customary usage, is a plan for managing funds,
    ...

    Note, "the federal budget" as used by HIS source, is not
    just the plan but the whole process through the END of the
    fiscal year.

    How did you miss the words, " For purposes of this overview,
    however,"?

    I did not miss them, I quoted them. The GAO distinguishes between the customary general usage of the term "a budget" and the specific meaning of the term "budget" in the context of the Federal Budget Process, in a publication entitled A GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED IN THE FEDERAL BUDGET PROCESS. Throughout YOUR cited document they discuss the budget process, not just the "wish list" stage that you are pretending is the beginning, middle, end, and totality of it. I showed the same thing in the 2014 budget request, where they show the ACTUAL budget receipts and the ACTUAL budget outlays, not just the ones wished for before the BEGINNING of the fiscal year. I showed the same thing in the very idea of a BALANCED BUDGET, which requires balance at the end of the fiscal
    year, not just a wished-for balance. And your own use of the term in your last
    post just did the same!

    You got into all of this as a diversion from your earlier belief that debt just
    goes away if the budget is balanced. Your one foolish claim lead you to make a
    whole string of other foolish claims, a long string of unforced errors.


    --- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Dada-1
    * Origin: Prism bbs (1:261/38)