Talk:Political debates about the United States federal budget

Employment growth by top tax rate image
I've started a centralised discussion here regarding File:Employment growth by top tax rate.jpg, which is used in this article. Gabbe (talk) 09:59, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Discussion of proposed removals
Let's discuss the many proposed removals. For example:
 * Unemployment is a significant part of the deficit, as unemployed folks don't pay taxes and result in higher safety net costs. CBO estimates about one-third of the deficit due to the economy / unemployment.
 * The trade deficit increases unemployment, which increases the deficit by driving safety net costs, for example. Cited sources indicate 2-3 million jobs just due to trade deficit with China.Farcaster (talk) 18:18, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you mean by "unemployment is a significant part of the deficit". I'm guessing you mean it's a significant cause of the deficit. That's fine. But then you need sources which discuss that. What I removed was a whole bunch of off topic stuff on unemployment itself, as well as unreliable OR and SYNTH.


 * Whether the trade deficit increases unemployment is a matter for debate. Most economists would actually disagree. The sources do not support what you think they support. And we need better sources than USA Today columns. At any rate, most of this stuff is also off topic. Please see WP:SYNTH and WP:OR.
 * Rebutted. There is a cited source that says the trade deficit with China represents 2.7 million jobs.Farcaster (talk) 22:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The burden of proof is on those wishing to include material, see WP:BURDEN. Hence I am restoring my shortened version (and I'm not sure I'm done cutting the off topic stuff yet). Then we can discuss if anything should be re-added.  Volunteer Marek   18:50, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Rebutted your assertions above so this follows.


 * I'm confused...The sources are cited. You seem to have a hypothesis that the economy and budget are not related. I suspect you may not be an expert on these matters and may want to move to another article. Let's discuss prior to removal.Farcaster (talk) 18:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * So you're gonna make me go through 24k of nonsense and discuss removing every single piece of SYNTH and OR in the article? Sorry, that's not how it works. The burden of proof is on the person adding the material: The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a reliable source that directly supports the material


 * And one more time, it's not that the text doesn't have sources, it's just that it is off topic and SYNTH.


 * In the section "Cause of decline in U.S. financial position" - I removed details about unemployment which are undue in this article and none of the sources provided link the given unemployment statistics to the deficit. That's a classic example of WP:SYNTH.


 * In "Unemployment and economic growth" I removed stuff from Niall Fergusson who's not an economist but a historian, the link is dead and it's an op ed piece in a newspaper not serious research. It's also off topic.
 * Fareed Zakaria stuff - also off topic.
 * "Unemployment - Is it cyclical or structural" - way, way, way off topic and WP:UNDUE. Nothing in there about the deficit.
 * Rebutted. The linkage to the deficit was established by CBO. So whether its cyclical or structural is important. Bernanke actually did a major speech on that topic; I added to the section.Farcaster (talk) 22:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * And so on and so forth, but I'm getting tired. Like I said, the burden of proof is on the person trying to add sketchy material.


 * Oh, and I'd appreciate if you kept opinions such as "I suspect you may not be an expert on these matters and may want to move to another article." to yourself. I suspect various things as well but won't mention them here.  Volunteer Marek   19:13, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Unemployment is very germane to the deficit, as the CBO indicated. And whether it is structural or cyclical unemployment is critical to policy decisions and the political debates about how to fix it--which is what this article is about. In fact, our lack of job creation since 2000 is a big part of what this issue is about. Plenty of experts cited.  I'm not sure where you are coming from, as the linkage is very clear in the economic literature and CBO studies.  Niall Ferguson is a credible source; if the link is dead put in the appropriate message. And the FRED database is a definitive source for unemployment data. The latest data shows up right next to the graphs.Farcaster (talk) 21:30, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Unemployment is very germane to the deficit, as the CBO indicated. - no one's disputing that. What is needed is sources which discuss both together, not a random collection of unemployment statistics. If the "linkage is clear in the economic literature" then provide sources from that literature rather than .... a random collection of unemployment statistics.
 * As to Niall Ferguson, the dealink issue is minor. The main thing is that this is some op-ed piece by someone who's not even an economist, talking about something which is not even directly related to the federal budget.  Volunteer Marek   21:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that this stuff is cited to another dead link from... Wells Fargo.  Volunteer Marek   21:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Wells Fargo doesn't archive stuff over a year old. But I'll find something similar from them soon.Farcaster (talk) 22:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * If you have some constructive criticism, feel free to include. Point by point, we'll make it better.Farcaster (talk) 22:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Like I said. There's 26k of unrelated, off topic cruft here. I'm not going to go through it point by point. Neither am I required to do so. The burden is on the person wishing to add the material. Virtually none of the sources given discuss whatever off-topic topic is being mentioned and the political debate about US federal budget together - that's classic example of synthesis.  Volunteer Marek   22:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

(Note: Moving Farcaster's original responses here. Discussion on talk page should take the form of standard replies rather than comments in the middle of another person's comments).
 * Rebutted already.
 * Rebutted. There is a cited source that says the trade deficit with China represents 2.7 million jobs.Farcaster (talk) 22:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed the link. Niall Ferguson is a Harvard professor who has published multiple books on financial history. He is a widely read and notable expert.Farcaster (talk) 22:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * In your view. Zakaria explains what the U.S. must do to get its economy back on track.22:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've rebutted most of your points. Not sure why you want to take an article apart but you'll need to work as hard as I did to put it together if you want to take it down for no reason.Farcaster (talk) 22:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Here is a good example of the linkage, right at the start of the economy section: "CBO estimated in October 2011 that approximately one-third of the deficit projected for fiscal year 2012 is due to economic factors, which have caused expenditures to increase and revenues to decline: "...if the economy was operating at its potential level...the projected federal deficit under current law in fiscal year 2012 would be about a third lower, or roughly $630 billion instead of the $973 billion projected in CBO’s most recent baseline. That deficit would be equal to about 4.0 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), compared with the 6.2 percent deficit projected for 2012 in CBO’s baseline."

<-- No, you have not "rebutted" anything. In order to "rebutt" it you would have to show that the sources discuss "Political debates about United States federal budget" AND whatever other sub-topic together.  Volunteer Marek  22:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

 Zakaria explains what the U.S. must do to get its economy back on track - that's nice, but this isn't an article on "How the economy should get back on track" but rather about "Political debates about United States federal budget". And opinion pieces are not reliable sources.  Volunteer Marek  22:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

And your "good example of the linkage" ("CBO estimated in October 2011...")) is indeed a good example of the kind of info that this article should contain but ... that's precisely why I did not remove it! . Since this is text which I did not remove, what's the point of bringing it up?  Volunteer Marek   22:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * My thought on the logic of the article is basically this: Unemployment is a major driver of the deficit (so says CBO, a source which you approve). Larry Summers says economic growth is the biggest deficit factor. So things that bear on unemployment are relevant, such as cyclical vs. structural elements, globalization/trade deficit, automation, offshoring etc (Bernanke). Deficits are ultimately a function of other things, rarely the cause. I've cited a variety of sources that support this basic concept. Seems pretty straightforward. Your insistence that every source must triangulate budget, economy, and jobs is not realistic. So if there is a particular linkage point you think is weak (e.g., Farcaster, can you clarify how automation bears on jobs?) go ahead.  But just appearing one day and removing giant blocks of text because you don't see the linkage is not appropriate. Pretty tough to expect much cooperation with that approach.Farcaster (talk) 01:44, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The logic is roughly correct (deficits are related to unemployment, or more precisely the business cycle, but trade deficits or offshoring aren't necessarily related to unemployment - the Bernanke source you added makes no mention of either) but the execution - the article itself - is completely wrong. This isn't an article about unemployment, or offshoring or whatever else. It's an article about "Political debates about the United States federal budget". All that other stuff is off topic.
 * Yes, the issue is straight forward - you need sources which discuss these sub-topics (unemployment, trade deficit, whatever else) in the context of how these relate to the federal budget. It's that simple. If the links are as strong as you say, then there should be no problem in finidng such sources. Otherwise this is just a bunch of random facts - sourced and mostly true facts, but completely unrelated to the topic.
 * I've removed large chunks of text for a very good reason. It didn't belong in this article. You have not provided ANY sources which establish these links or that would justify having 26k bites (a length more than 60% of Wikipedia's articles) on off topic subject matter here.
 * The only instance of a source which links unemployment to the budget is text and source... which I didn't remove (exactly because it does what it's suppose to). I'm really not sure how to explain it in a way which is clearer.
 * Find sources which link a particular phenomenon to the political debate about the budget. That's it. All you got to do. Not make excuses. Find relevant sources.  Volunteer Marek   02:33, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The debate about how to put Americans back to work is probably the most important budget issue. CBO mentions it is about one-third of our deficit (the economy works through fewer workers, who pay less in taxes but cost more in safety net spending) and a huge part of the "swing" from surplus to debt. That is bigger than any other single source. So I'm having a tough time understanding why drivers of unemployment are off-topic. I have cited the sources that say China trade deficit cost us 2.7 million jobs. A long-standing rule of thumb with economists is 1% GDP is about 1 million jobs, and the goods trade deficit of $740 billion or so is about 5% GDP. Other sources (Krugman and Stiglitz, both Nobel winners in Economics) explain the impact on jobs as well as on wage stagnation, quoted in the article. Volker argues we need more production here; Bill Gross says globalization is gutting our economy. I've also added several lead-in sentences and some additional sources to link the economy, trade deficit and employment to the budget deficit. David Walker's 2008 GAO presentation brings up the four deficits affecting the U.S. financial condition, one of which is the balance of payments or trade deficit. The Economist linked the trade deficit-related capital inflows to the mortgage crisis.Farcaster (talk) 05:40, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm gonna put the China source aside for a second because that has a whole bunch of problems of its own (aside from being off topic), but basically what you are doing above is original resource. For the umpteenth freakin' time, find sources which discuss these topics together with "Political debates about the United States federal budget", or at least together with the federal budget. None of the source you added address the fact that the material is off topic.
 * And did I mention that WP:BURDEN says that YOU are required to provide sources which support this synthesis? Not your own feelings or thought or theories on the subject matter, sources.  Volunteer Marek   07:11, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with much of your objections - the article is too much of a kitchen sink. The better procedure might be to look at the content and conceive of a better title for it!  Perhaps much of it could find a good home in other articles. But that isn't really what WP:BURDEN is meant for. The problems are really with synthesis and OR,  not verifiability and reliability. Of course they're always linked, but WP:CONSENSUS is more relevant policy.John Z (talk) 10:28, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi John, most of this stuff is already in the articles United States federal budget and Unemployment in the United States. This article is basically a redundant content or even POV fork. IF this article were legitimate then we would have secondary sources about these debates. But we can't even have it stay on the topic of the US budget itself!   Volunteer Marek   18:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

And for god's sake, this is an article about "Political debates about the United States federal budget", it is NOT an article about unemployment or globalization. At the very least, take the POV pushing to a more appropriately titled article.  Volunteer Marek  07:17, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

One more thing. The EPI is an advocacy institution, not a reliable source. Paul Krugman used to mercilessly make fun of them for their basic economic ignorance. Reading the source given (especially footnote 6) indicates that nothing has changed since then - the author obviously does not even understand basic National Income Accounting. Even IF this was relevant to the topic (it's not), it'd be unreliable (just like things like lewrockwell.org or mises.org are unreliable). Need better sources - academic, peer reviewed, published sources, not junk off the internet.  Volunteer Marek  07:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a think tank. Whether you agree with their views or not is irrelevant. 2.7 million unemployed due to the trade deficit is a gigantic number. Employment and the budget deficit are tightly linked. And the citation I added from David Walker (GAO Comptroller General) has the trade deficit as one of the 4 deficits driving the economy. CBO reports that safety net costs are driving over 2% GDP of the deficit driven by the economy.Farcaster (talk) 15:54, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The bottom line: The economy, acting via unemployment, is the main cause of our budget deficit. So sayeth CBO and a host of other sources cited. And unemployment is caused by a combination of many factors, including the trade deficit. So really further discussion is moot. I've proved my point over and over again. You may want the article to be about decisions about spending and revenue. But even Mitt Romney in a recent debate said there are three ways you address a budget deficit: growth, revenue policies, and spending policies. Larry Summers is quoted in here as saying its about growth. And growth is about jobs and income; the latter has been stagnant for 10 years so where does that leave us?. If we want to change the title of the article to "Causes of the budget deficit" that is fine with me. This was originally created to remove detail from the main federal budget article.Farcaster (talk) 15:54, 13 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The issue IS moot in fact, because you are refusing to provide sources which actually discuss the topic of this article together with all the off topic cruft that's in here. Please read WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. I don't know how to make myself any more clearer.  Volunteer Marek   16:01, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Here is what is in the article already:
 * David Walker, GAO comptroller general, trade deficit is one of four deficits affecting U.S. financial position.
 * CBO, pointing out that safety net costs/automatic stabilizers jump during recession, adding significantly to the deficit.
 * CBO and a host of media that covered their report, arguing the economy is the major source of our fiscal deterioration.
 * Bernanke and The Economist arguing the financial crisis was due in part to our trade deficit, and hence our budget deficit.
 * Larry Summers arguing growth is the major determinant of our budget deficit over the next few years.

Not sure what other burden of proof you need. Solving the budget deficit is about solving the unemployment problem (Krugman has made the argument many times, saying we don't have a budget crisis but we have an unemployment crisis). That means doing more production here (Paul Volcker, cited) rather than overseas. You are working pretty hard to not see the linkage.Farcaster (talk) 16:07, 13 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Obviously, if a text is cited to a source which discusses the federal budget and sub-topic x, then that text can stay. This isn't any text I've removed though. I did not remove David Walker. I did not remove the CBO and I did not remove Summers. So why are you talking about??? I removed a whole bunch of OTHER stuff which was off topic and irrelevant. You still haven't provided sources for that piece of synthesis. That is the burden of proof I need, not telling me that we should keep stuff which I'm not removing anyway. Your arguments are bordering on dishonesty right now.
 * I did remove one or two instances of Bernanke, the ones where he's NOT talking about the Federal Budget, as in here. The text starting with "Fed Chair Ben Bernanke stated in April 2010: ..." should likewise be removed as there's nothing there related to the deficit.


 * A more serious problem is that looking over the entire article a bit more, the ONLY part which is relevant to the stated title - "Political debates about the United States federal budget" - is actually in the lede itself (the stuff about Keynesian economics vs. supply side economics). The remainder of the article - the main body - is not even about "debates", a lot of is not even about the budget. We already have an article on the United States federal budget so this comes off as essentially a WP:CONTENTFORK or even a WP:POVFORK. It might be useful to just cut the article to its lede and start over, with stuff that is actually ABOUT DEBATES (rather than having a debate itself), with secondary not primary sources. Or just delete the entire article as a POVFORK.  Volunteer Marek   18:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * So let me see if I get this. You acknowledge credible sources have established linkage between the budget deficit, unemployment, and economic growth. But articles that talk about one of these in isolation are somehow not appropriate. So Krugman explaining that a savings surplus is affecting economic growth should not be included. Or The Economist arguing the trade deficit was a major contributor to our financial crisis? Can you see why that makes absolutely no sense? A source that explains what is driving employment trends, or the trade deficit, or economic growth is relevant to the budget deficit in my view. Based on your comments, I have added verbiage and sources tightening the linkage. But excluding sources that only talk about one of the drivers of the deficit (e.g., unemployment by itself, like the Bernanke speech) because that individual source also doesn't point to how it affects the deficit is pretty silly.  If the article title presents an issue, we can maybe talk about re-titling it, to say "Causes of the budget deficit" if that will solve the issue.Farcaster (talk) 22:35, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * No, you're not getting it straight, and I'm getting sick of trying to explain it to you. This isn't an article on Unemployment in the US. This isn't an article about the US trade deficit. This isn't even an article on the US federal budget. Yes, these things are related and sources which explicitly talk about the relationship between these things should stay in the article (possibly, the whole thing is a contentfork). What - at the very least - needs to be removed is all the off topic stuff about the distribution of unemployment by education, or editorializing about the trade with China, or what would have happened to gdp if there had been no housing market bubble.
 * "Causes of the budget deficit" might be a step in the right direction. It would certainly fit the scope better. It would also be a POV magnet which would invite OR and SYNTH. Oh, wait, that's already in here.  Volunteer Marek   02:50, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm ok with changing the title. Further, there is an article on Unemployment in the U.S. (which I mainly wrote using this information) where we could move some of this, pointing to that article from here. That should take some of the pressure off. Serious discussion of the budget deficit is not just about tax and spending policy; that is like discussing the deck chairs on the Titanic. If we don't create about 20 million jobs a decade (as we did each decade from 1970-2000, versus zero from 2000-2010), the tax and spending debate will just be a distraction. Shortchanging the things it will take to get America back to work would be the ultimate POV fork.Farcaster (talk) 06:05, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think what Marek is trying to say is that this article is supposed to be about "Political debates about the United States federal budget". The article (and Wikipedia in general) isn't the venue to have a political debate about the United States federal budget. The article should document the debate, not hold it, since this is an encyclopaedia, not a soapbox. Gabbe (talk) 10:34, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Graph removal
EllenCT is well aware of the discussion of these graphs - maybe it's a divide and conquer strategy, but if you want to talk about it here as well, that's up to you. Consensus of an RFC on Talk:Progressive_tax has concluded that File:Employment growth by top tax rate.jpg implied correlation without causality and that it represented WP:SYN. It's misleading and not appropriate for any article. In fact discussed it above and we had a sock-puppet defending it with three different accounts. As for File:US high-income effective tax rates.png, that is being discussed in several places but you can talk about it Talk:Taxation_in_the_United_States. The graph was highly criticized, redacted, non-peer reviewed and partisan (created by an Obama campaign donor in the hight of election). It seems many of these partisan graphs got inserted and no one really questioned their inclusion. For the moment, it made sense to remove such a graph until consensus is achieved for actually adding it or a new graph found that is more neutral. Feel free to discuss here or at the Taxation in the United States article. Morphh  (talk) 15:37, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I am well aware of the discussion surrounding both of the graphs which Morphh removed, and I have concluded beyond a doubt that both graphs are appropriate, accurate, and informative. Morphh has recently removed various graphs from more than half a dozen articles without any discussion or attempt to follow WP:BRD. I believe this is because he was embarrassed recently at Talk:United States after being caught referring to the Tax Policy Center's web site as a peer reviewed publication. That seems to have renewed Morphh's resolve to try to push his supply-side, trickle-down political opinion into Wikipedia. I will continue to oppose this blatant disregard for the neutrality policy, disregard for the primacy of the peer reviewed literature, disregard for economics capable of predicting historical outcomes from empirical data, and disregard for mathematical accuracy. EllenCT (talk) 15:51, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What the heck are you talking about? WP:NPA  I'm going to assume you're recalling incorrectly and not just blatantly lying.  Provide a diff for your accusation.  When you don't find it, I expect a retraction and apology.  Also, I'm not pushing anything into the article, I'm removing graphs which have been found to be misleading.  Morphh   (talk) 16:07, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

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How do we feel about "voodoo economics" linking to Reaganomics?
In the debates about tax policy > supply side arguments section "voodoo economics" is mentioned only this one time in the article:

"Economist Nouriel Roubini wrote in October 2010 that the Republican Party was 'trapped in a belief in voodoo economics, the economic equivalent of creationism' while the Democratic administration was unwilling to improve the tax system via a carbon tax or value-added tax."

There is voodoo economics, but it redirects to reaganomics. That might be sensible under some circumstances, but it stands out as particularly odd here. Unless Roubini specifically means that the 2010 Republican taxing plan was very much like reaganomics. I'd check the source, but it's paywalled. If this article scope is supposed to be recent-ish political arguments, the numerous charges of trickle-down economics is far more prevalent and meaningful. Hillary Clinton's "Trumped up trickle down" was a pretty big example from 2016, much newer than 2010. Heavy Chaos (talk) 06:14, 11 February 2023 (UTC)