Tag: National Debt

Congressional Republicans, Through New Budget Deal, Give Obama a Blank Check Until He Leaves Office

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

untitled (10) Last Friday, Texas Senator and Republican Presidential Candidate Hopeful, Ted Cruz, wrote the following on Facebook:

This ‪#‎BudgetDeal‬ is a corrupt betrayal of the American people.

The entire time Republican leaders have been promising, ‘We’re going to do something on the budget. We’re going to rein in the president,’ they have been in the back room negotiating to fund every single thing Obama did.

Republican majorities have just given President Obama a diamond-encrusted, glow-in-the-dark AmEx card. And it has a special feature. The president gets to spend it now, and they don’t even send him the bill. They send the bill to your kids and my kids. It’s a pretty nifty card. You don’t have to pay for it. You get to spend it and it’s somebody else’s problem.

He wasn’t kidding.

Yesterday, The Washington Times reported that

When President Obama signs into law the new two-year budget deal Monday, his action will bring into sharper focus a part of his legacy that he doesn’t like to talk about: He is the $20 trillion man.

Mr. Obama’s spending agreement with Congress will suspend the nation’s debt limit and allow the Treasury to borrow another $1.5 trillion or so by the end of his presidency in 2017. Added to the current total national debt of more than $18.15 trillion, the red ink will likely be crowding the $20 trillion mark right around the time Mr. Obama leaves the White House.

When Mr. Obama took over in January 2009, the total national debt stood at $10.6 trillion. That means the debt will have very nearly doubled during his eight years in office, and there is much more debt ahead with the abandonment of “sequestration” spending caps enacted in 2011.

“Congress and the president have just agreed to undo one of the only successful fiscal restraint mechanisms in a generation,” said Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union. “The progress on reducing spending and the deficit has just become much more problematic.”

Some budget analysts scoff at the claim made by the administration and by House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, that the budget agreement’s $112 billion in spending increases is fully funded by cuts elsewhere. Mr. Boehner left Congress last week.

“The Boehner-Obama spending agreement would allow for unlimited borrowing by the Treasury until March 2017,” said Paul Winfree, director of economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation. “This deal piles on billions of dollars to the national debt by increasing spending over the next three years and then not paying for it for a decade — with half of the offsets not occurring until 2025.”

The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that only about half of the increased spending in the budget deal is paid for. Rather than a spending increase of $80 billion over two years, the nonprofit group said, the actual spending hike is $154 billion when interest costs and budget gimmicks are factored into the equation.

“Of this $154 billion, about $78 billion is paid for honestly” through Medicare reforms, reductions in farm subsidies, asset sales and other measures, the group said. “The remaining $56 billion of the legislation — mostly the war spending increase and interest costs — is not paid for at all.”

Of course, Congress bears equal responsibility for the high level of debt. A prime reason that Mr. Boehner left office was conservatives’ displeasure with his accommodation of the president’s budget requests, aside from three years of “sequestration” spending caps that helped limit annual deficits.

“We will be raising the debt ceiling in an unlimited fashion,” said Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who tried to filibuster the budget deal before the Senate approved it in the wee hours of Friday. “We will be giving President Obama a free pass to borrow as much money as he can borrow in the last year of his office. No limit, no dollar limit. Here you go, President Obama. Spend what you want.”

Ever-expanding debt

The president said Friday that the agreement “is paid for in a responsible, balanced way.”

“This agreement will strengthen the middle class by investing in education, job training, and basic research,” Mr. Obama said. “It will keep us safe by investing in our national security. It protects our seniors by avoiding harmful cuts to Medicare and Social Security. It locks in two years of funding and should help break the cycle of shutdowns and manufactured crises that have harmed our economy.”When Mr. Obama talks about fiscal matters, he usually takes credit for cutting the deficit by two-thirds. He also is correct that annual budget deficits have fallen from $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2009, in the depths of the recession, to $439 billion in fiscal 2015.

But the president rarely, if ever, mentions the accumulation of those annual deficits and what the rising national debt means for the country, for the presidents who will follow him and for the nation’s ability to pay for its priorities.

That’s because he does not care.

Scooter spends Americans’ money like a teenage girl with Daddy’s Credit Card at a 75-store Outlet Mall.

On September 8, 2010, CNS News reported that

In the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan.
 
The U.S. Treasury Department divides the federal debt into two categories. One is “debt held by the public,” which includes U.S. government securities owned by individuals, corporations, state or local governments, foreign governments and other entities outside the federal government itself. The other is “intragovernmental” debt, which includes I.O.U.s the federal government gives to itself when, for example, the Treasury borrows money out of the Social Security “trust fund” to pay for expenses other than Social Security.

At the end of fiscal year 1989, which ended eight months after President Reagan left office, the total federal debt held by the public was $2.1907 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That means all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan had accumulated only that much publicly held debt on behalf of American taxpayers. That is $335.3  billion less than the $2.5260 trillion that was added to the federal debt held by the public just between Jan. 20, 2009, when President Obama was inaugurated, and Aug. 20, 2010, the 19-month anniversary of Obama’s inauguration.
 
By contrast, President Reagan was sworn into office on Jan. 20, 1981 and left office eight years later on Jan. 20, 1989. At the end of fiscal 1980, four months before Reagan was inaugurated, the federal debt held by the public was $711.9 billion, according to CBO. At the end of fiscal 1989, eight months after Reagan left office, the federal debt held by the public was $2.1907 trillion. That means that in the nine-fiscal-year period of 1980-89–which included all of Reagan’s eight years in office–the federal debt held by the public increased $1.4788 trillion. That is in excess of a trillion dollars less than the $2.5260 increase in the debt held by the public during Obama’s first 19 months.
 
When President Barack Obama took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, the total federal debt held by the public stood at 6.3073 trillion, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department. As of Aug. 20, 2010, after the first nineteen months of President Obama’s 48-month term, the total federal debt held by the public had grown to a total of $8.8333 trillion, an increase of $2.5260 trillion.

And now, thanks to a bunch of Vichy Republicans, who were scared out of their minds at the prospect of putting a cork in Uncle Sugar’s Piggy Bank and shutting down the Federal Government, they have become willing accomplices to Barack Hussein Obama’s growth of the Federal Government through irresponsible out-of-control spending, which may eventually lead to a nation who cannot meet its financial priorities.

Anyway, the problem we have with Congress is an age-old addiction. President Ronald Reagan was quite familiar with it. He described Congress’ condition perfectly,

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

As all of us parents and grandparents know, babies are expensive and unruly…if you do not discipline them. 

As we head toward the 2016 Presidential Elections, it time for the Tea Party to reform. We need a complete Grass Roosts Effort  to remind the “dedicated (to themselves) public servants just exactly who pays for their salaries, perks, and pensions.

Being an American by Birth, and Southern by the Grace of God,my favorite play of all time is “Lil’ Abner”. One of my favorite scenes in the movie they made of it, which starred Petter Palmer as Abner, Stubby Kaye as Marryin’ Sam, and the great Billie Hayes as Mammy Yoakum, was when Senator Fogbound (what a great name) holds a meeting with the townsfolk of Dogpatch, to tell them that they had to evacuate, due to an upcoming “A-tomic” Bomb Test.

Sen. Fogbound: I know y’all have been wondering what I have been doing up there in Washington on your behalf.

Mammy Yoakum: We didn’t care…as long as you wuz up there…and we wuz down here!

That’s the way that Low Information Voters feel about Congress. However, we can not allow that ignorance any more.

It’s time to get involved. It’s time to once again, rise up, get organized, and ready to go to the polls in 2016.

It’s time to prepare to take our country back.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama: More Debt, More Taxes

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

If Americans allow Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) to have a second term, he has big plans.

Judging from his last four years, all of his plans require a lot of money.

Our money.

Per cnsnews.com:

According to the U.S. Treasury, the debt of the U.S. government climbed by a total of $1,275,901,078,828.74 in fiscal 2012, which ended yesterday.

That means the federal government borrowed approximately an additional $10,855 for each household in the United States just over the past twelve months.

The total debt of the United States now equals approximately $136,690 per household.

In fiscal 2011, the debt increased by about $10,454 per household–$401 less than the $10,855 per household increase of 2012.

The $1.2758 trillion that the debt increased in fiscal 2012 was about $47.18 billion more than the $1.2287 trillion that the debt increased in fiscal 2011.

The federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30.

At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2011, the total debt of the U.S. government was $14,790,340,328,557.15, according to the Treasury. At the close of business on Sept. 28, the last business day of fiscal 2012, it was $16,066,241,407,385.89

That meant the debt increased in fiscal 2012 by $1,275,901,078,828.74.

At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2010, the debt had stood at $13,561,623,030,891.79. Over the course of fiscal 2011, it increased by $1,228,717,297,665.36 before closing at 14,790,340,328,557.15 on Sept. 30, 2011.

The fiscal 2012 increase of $1,275,901,078,828.74 exceeded the fiscal 2011 increase $1,228,717,297,665.36 by $47,183,781,163.38

The Census Bureau estimated that there were 117,538,000 household in the United States in 2010. The $1,275,901,078,828.74 that the debt increased in fiscal 2012 equaled about $10,855 for each one of those 117,538,000 households.

Here is how much the debt has increased in each of the last six fiscal years:

Fiscal 2007: $500,679,473,047.25

Fiscal 2008: $1,017,071,524,650.01

Fiscal 2009: $1,885,104,106,599.26

Fiscal 2010: $1,651,794,027,380.04

Fiscal 2011: $1,228,717,297,665.36

Fiscal 2012: $1,275,901,078,828.74.

So, how does America crawl out of this financial abyss?

Will Obama pledge to be a better steward of our money, and, actually, finally be fiscally responsible?

Does Toure write Polka Music?

Don’t worry, boys and girls. Obama has a plan. He’s simply going to tax the stew out of us.

A typical middle-income family making $40,000 to $64,000 a year could see its taxes go up by $2,000 next year if lawmakers fail to renew a lengthy roster of tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, according to a new report Monday

Taxpayers across the income spectrum would be hit with large tax hikes, the Tax Policy Center said in its study, with households in the top 1 percent income range seeing an average tax increase of more than $120,000, while a family making between $110,000 to $140,000 could see a tax hike in the $6,000 range.

Taxpayers across the income spectrum will get slammed with increases totaling more than $500 billion – a more than 20 percent increase – with nine out of 10 households being affected by the expiration of tax cuts enacted under both President Barack Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush.

The expiring provisions include Bush-era cuts on wage and investment income and cuts for married couples and families with children, among others. Also expiring is a 2 percentage point temporary payroll tax cut championed by Obama.

The looming expiration of the large roster of tax cuts is one of the issues confronting voters in November, with the chief difference between Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney being the tax treatment of wealthier earners. Obama is calling for permitting rates on individual income exceeding $200,000 and family incoming over $250,000 to go back to Clinton-era rates of as much as 39.6 percent.

Both candidates call for rewriting the tax code next year, but any such effort promises to be difficult and could take considerable time.

Monday’s study, by the independent Tax Policy Center, deals with the immediate increases set to slap taxpayers in January under the existing framework of the tax code.

Few are talking of renewing Obama’s payroll tax cut, even though that would mean a healthy tax increase for many working people. Working families with modest incomes would be hit hard as the child tax credit would shrink from a maximum of $1,000 per child to $500.

As a result, a married couple earning $50,000 with three dependent children that currently receives an almost $1,500 income tax refund largely due to the child tax credit would see their fortunes reversed by more than $3,000 next year and pay more than $1,500 in income taxes while seeing their payroll taxes go up by $1,000 if the full menu of tax cuts expire.

“It’s just a huge, huge number,” said Eric Toder, one of the authors of the study.

Economists warn that the looming tax hikes, combined with $109 billion in automatic spending cuts scheduled to take effect in January, could throw the fragile economy back into recession if Washington doesn’t act. The automatic spending cuts are coming due because of the failure of last year’s deficit “supercommittee” to strike a bargain. The combination of the sharp tax hikes and spending cuts has been dubbed a “fiscal cliff.”

“The fiscal cliff threatens an unprecedented tax increase at year end,” says the report. “Taxes would rise by more than $500 billion in 2013 – an average of almost $3,500 per household – as almost every tax cuts enacted since 2001 would expire.”

The Greatest President of our Generation, Ronald Wilson Reagan once said:

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Ronaldus Magnus was a prophet.

The Obama Administration, quite frankly, for all of his platitudes, does not  care that average Americans are having trouble paying their bills. As we say in Dixie,

It don’t bother him none. He’s got his.

In fact. he and Moochelle are worth $11 million!

He would rather everyone turned to Uncle Sugar in their time of need, instead of pulling themselves up by their boot straps, bucking up, and carrying on, with help from their family, friends, and neighbors.

There are several catch phrases that we’ve learned during these last few years such as  “social justice” and “spread the wealth around”.

However, one phrase has been missing from Obama’s vocabulary:

American Exceptionalism.

He doesn’t believe in it…or us.

We’ll make believers out of him on November 6th.

Jar Jar Biden Stumbles Upon the Truth.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

Shortly after the immaculation of the leader of the Regime, as I was beginning my journey into the world of blogging, I made the statement that, in terms of Vice-President, America had gone from Darth Cheney to Jar Jar Biden.

I didn’t exaggerate.

Thehill.com reports on the latest open mouth, insert foot moment from the Gaffemeister:

Vice President Biden said he understood the frustration that led many West Virginia Democrats to vote for a felon over President Obama in the state’s presidential primary.

Asked what he made of a felon sitting in a Texas prison who won four out of 10 Democratic primary voters in West Virginia, Biden told Ohio television station WTOV that he doesn’t blame people who are frustrated and angry over the economy.

“Look, I come from a household where whenever there’s a recession, somebody around my grandpop or my dad’s table lost a job. A brother, a sister a friend, a neighbor,” Biden said. “When you’re out of work, man, it’s a depression.” [Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then.]

Biden said a lot of Americans are still hurting because of the recession the Obama administration inherited.

“And so I don’t blame people. They’re frustrated, they’re angry,” Biden said.

He added that Americans would eventually decide that the path back to employment and prosperity would lead them to Obama’s approach rather than Mitt Romney’s.

You need to stop those liquid lunches, Joe.

Average Americans are drowning in a sea of debt.

Here are some depressing statistics, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, from an article published May 7th:

Consumer credit outstanding surged by $21.36 billion, or 10.2%, to $2.542 trillion, Federal Reserve data showed Monday. That was the biggest jump since November 2001, in both dollar and percentage terms. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast an $8.5 billion increase. February’s expansion in consumer credit was revised up, as well, to $9.27 billion from an initial estimate of an $8.73 billion rise.

With consumer credit expanding at the fastest rate in the six months ending in February since late 2007–before the credit crunch caused a painful contraction–and commercial banks showing an increasing willingness to lend, Deutsche Bank analysts said earlier Monday the household deleveraging process may finally be running its course.

Still, much of the credit expansion has reflected a shift in student loans to direct borrowing from the federal government, with loans held by the Department of Education surging more than four-fold since 2008. Federal student credit outstanding rose to $460.2 billion in March from $453.3 billion the previous month.

Overall nonrevolving credit, which includes student credit as well as auto loans, rose $16.17 billion to $1.739 trillion.

Revolving credit, which includes credit-card debt, increased in March by $5.18 billion to $803.63 billion. That was the first gain in three months.

The consumer-credit report doesn’t include numbers on home mortgages and other real-estate secured loans. But the Fed data are important for the clues to behavior by consumers, whose spending helps propel the economy.

So, what sort of economic example is our Federal Government setting for us average consumers?

A horrible one, per cnsnews.com:

The White House and the congressional leaders of both parties in Congress have begun maneuvering this week over the issue of the federal debt and what to do when the government hits the latest statutory limit on that debt–$16.394 trillion—which Congress and the president agreed to when they cut a deal on the debt limit last August.

The federal debt is currently $15.709 trillion, or about $685 billion below the limit.

The first spending deal the White House and leaders of both parties in Congress made last year was on March 2. On that day, the president signed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded past March 4, when the previous continuing resolution, passed by a lame-duck Congress in late 2010, expired.

The March 4 CR kept the government funded for two weeks and was approved by a bipartisan 335-91 vote in the House and a bipartisan 91-9 vote in the Senate.

Since that March 4, 2011 bipartisan continuing resolution, the federal government has been funded by a series of bipartisan deals cut between the White House and congressional leaders.

In the meanwhile, under these bipartisan spending deals, according to official figures published by the U.S. Treasury, the federal debt has climbed from $14,182,627,184,881.03 to $15,708,753,671,767.64.

That is an increase of $1,526,126,486,886.61.

Given that the Census Bureau estimates there are about 117,538,000 households in the United States, the per household increase in the federal debt since Congress enacted its March 4, 2011 bipartisan spending deal has been approximately $12,984.

So, what is President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) doing about our National Debt?

Per openmarkets.org, he’s trying to add to it:

President Obama’s proposed budget is so irresponsible that even the Senate, controlled by Obama’s own political party, just rejected it in a 99-to-0 vote. Reading the proposed budget does not inspire confidence, even in liberal journalists. In February, USA Today wrote that “Obama’s budget plan leaves debt bomb ticking… The best test of a budget proposal these days is whether it reins in the national debt… The election-year budget President Obama sent to Congress on Monday fails that test.”

The Los Angeles Times noted on February 14 that Obama’s proposed budget “offers no real solution to the United States’ long-term fiscal problems.” That same day, the Washington Post wrote that “Mr. Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 falls short. At the end of the 10-year budget window, he would have the national debt at a disturbing 76.5 percent of gross domestic product” even under very optimistic assumptions. “The final budget of his first term does not reflect the leadership on issues of debt and deficit that Mr. Obama once vowed.”

The Detroit News noted that “President Barack Obama’s 2013 budget proposal should be dismissed as a blueprint for his re-election campaign. But it’s worse than that. If passed as presented — and there’s little likelihood of that — the spending plan would lock America on an auto-pilot course for Greece.” (Editorial, “Obama Budget Shirks Off Any Pretense To Fiscal Responsibility,” The Detroit News, 2/14/12.) The Chicago Tribune called Obama’s budget the blueprint for a “debt debacle.” In March, the House rejected the Obama budget in a 414-0 vote. In 2008, Obama promised a “net spending cut,” but as soon as he was elected, he proposed massive spending increases.

While the GOP-controlled House has passed a budget plan of its own, the Democratic-controlled Senate has not passed a single budget during the Obama administration, leaving the country without an official budget for over a thousand days. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) acknowledged that “there’s no excuse” for Senate Democrats’ failure to pass a budget, and that a state governor might face impeachment for similarly failing to put together a budget.

No chance of that happening in Washington, DC.  A realistic National Budget would lead to those professional politicians actually being held accountable.  And those jokers up there have never seen a tax dollar that they did not want to spend.