Posts Tagged ‘deficit’
What If George W. Bush Were President?
--SNIP-- Imagine if a Republican like Bush were President, would the media quote the 7.7 percent rate but ignore the underlying numbers of 13.8 percent unemployment among black Americans or 25.1 percent among teens?
Imagine if a white Republican President were presiding over 13.8 percent black unemployment versus 6.8 percent white unemployment, what would Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, (U.S. Senator) Barack Obama and other black leaders be screaming? Would they be leading a “million man march” on Washington, D.C.? Of course they would. Would black leaders blame this all on racism and in particular a racist white Republican President? Of course they would. Would they blame it all on conservative economic policies? Of course they would. Yet with a black President following big-tax, big-spend, big-entitlement, big-government policies, we hear not a word of anger or blame — and, of course, no mention of racism.
Read more at PersonalLiberty.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD7-6qIG5_g
The $995 billion Sequester Cut Is Actually a $110 Billion Spending Increase
The Congressional Budget Office gives its baseline budget projections for fiscal years 2013 to 2023 in its February 5, 2013 Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023. Table 1-5 shows how the CBO incorporates the $55 billion per year in sequestered defense cuts and the $37 million per year in sequestered non-defense cuts into its projections of discretionary spending.
The sequester “cuts” are subtracted after increasing appropriations subject to the sequester at the rate of inflation and adding back in more than a trillion dollars (over ten years) of spending exempted from the sequester.
Read more by Paul Roderick Gregory at Forbes.com
Ryan: The President is Shirking His Duty
The President delays needed conversations about our fiscal challenges.
February 4, 2013
WASHINGTON—Today, President Obama is required by law to submit his budget request for Fiscal Year 2014. For the fourth time in five years, however, he will miss the statutory deadline. In response, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin issued the following statement:
“I’m disappointed the President has missed his deadline. But I’m not surprised. In four of the last five years, he’s failed to submit his budget on time. We still don’t know when we’ll receive the president’s request. And for nearly four years, Senate Democrats haven’t passed a budget at all. We deserve better.
“We spend $1 trillion more than we take in each year. In fact, we spend $3 for every $2 we take in. And we can’t keep that up. If we stay on this path, our finances will collapse. The economy will stall. And the most vulnerable will suffer. We need a budget that reflects our priorities—that expands opportunity. The fact is, we cannot achieve those goals unless we budget responsibly.
“Every time the President and Senate Democrats shirk their duty, they delay choices we need to make. We’ve still got time, but it’s dwindling. Every missed deadline is a missed opportunity. We need to get serious about spending now.
“The House Budget Committee will do its job. We’ll write a budget—and submit it on time. In the past two years, we’ve offered our solutions to the country’s fiscal challenges. Now the President must do the same.”
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Press Release from Committee on the Budget: U.S. House of Representatives
Social Security – 2012 Results
Social Security (SS) has released its estimates for the December data for benefits payed and taxes received. With this info, I can estimate the 2012 results that will be formally reported in five-months. It was a ho-hummer of a year for SS, it tread water vigorously, and ended up with a cash deficit of $46.7B, just a tad more red ink that 2011’s $45.6B.
–SNIP– The $46.7B annual cash deficit is the third in a row. The 2012 shortfall confirms it; SS will never see a cash flow surplus again. Every dollar of the cash shortfall MUST be funded by selling additional debt to the public.
I hope this is clear. I’ll repeat it. Social Security is adding to the debt held by the public. It is forcing the country to borrow more to fund current operations. When Senate Democrats, like Dick Durbin and Harry Reid say, “SS does not add a penny to our debt.” – they are lying.
Read more by Bruce Krasting at brucekrasting.com
Cut a Penny from the Budget
–SNIP– But if you are an anti-tax conservative who sincerely believes that you have to cut spending and not “feed the beast” with more revenues, then one approach on spending cuts for the super committee to consider is the simple and creative “Penny Plan” introduced by Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla.
Mr. Mack’s bill, H.R. 1848, would cut one penny out of every dollar actually spent by the federal government from year to year for the next six years, from FY 2012-FY 2017.
Beginning in FY 2018, there would be a budget cap of 18 percent of GDP (the average federal revenue as a percentage of GDP over the past 30 years). And by FY 2019, America would finally have a balanced budget — that is, assuming revenues naturally increase from the current 14.8 percent of GDP to 18 percent of GDP by 2019, after which the budget would be in surplus.
There is an automatic spending cut “trigger” under Mack’s plan — one he came up with well before the trigger used in the recently passed national debt ceiling bill.
If Congress failed to enact a budget implementing the 1 percent actual spending cut required under Mack’s measure, then there would be automatic, across-the-board actual cuts in all federal programs to meet the 1 percent reduction, and that means all: in defense, Social Security, Medicare, Food Stamps, defense, and national security spending. Everything.
Read more by Lanny Davis at NewsMax.com
Now Obama wants your 401(k)
Treasury, Labor on path to nationalize retirement
Two years ago, as WND reported, the Obama administration was proceeding with a novel way to finance trillion-dollar budget deficits by forcing IRA and 401(k) holders to buy Treasury bonds by mandating the placement of government-structured annuities in their retirement accounts.
Remarkably, those financial professionals specializing in private retirement savings and the U.S. citizens investing in private retirement plans now face the possibility the Obama administration and its allies on the political left will impose rules and regulations that effectively abolish the private retirement savings and investment markets.
Recent evidence suggests government officials continue to eye the multi-trillion dollar private retirement savings market, including IRAs and 401(k) plans, eyeing the opportunity to redistribute private retirement savings to less affluent Americans and to force the retirement savings out of the private market and into government-controlled programs investing in government-issued debt.
Read more by Jerome Corsi at WND.com
Question: Are We That Stupid?
Recently I received an email from a very worried senior citizen. She forwarded a poster to me and asked me, “Can this really be true?” The poster was of Obama saying, “Some people say I’m Stupid. Really? Here’s how stupid I am:
“I was hired by over 69 million voters who didn’t even do a routine background check on me. I’m doing a lousy, stinking job, with a record number of people out of work. I gave guns to Mexican drug gangs, I kill innocent people all over the world with drone strikes, and I decide which laws I’m going to enforce and which ones I won’t.
I’ve doubled the deficit. I’ve ruined our health care system. And yet I still stand an excellent chance of being rehired. That’s how stupid I am. Now, How Stupid Are You?”
That’s a good question because in spite of the fact that this administration failed miserably in not securing our embassies and State personnel on 9/11 before Ambassador Stevens and others were brutally assassinated, poll numbers show Obama leading Romney in swing states.
The media and his sycophants are still covering for this foreign policy disaster. When it was pointed out that Obama hadn’t bothered to attend intelligence briefings, National Security Council spokesman, Tommy Vietor told Marc Thiessen of the Washington Post that Obama didn’t need to because he was “among the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet.” Oh really?
When the entire Middle East Arab world exploded, President Obama went to Las Vegas in vigorous campaign mode. He fundraised with Beyonce and scheduled David Letterman while refusing to meet with Israeli PM Netanyahu. He expects to be reelected and if he is the answer to my headline’s question is a resounding YES!!!
Read more by Alicia Colon at IrishExaminerUSA.com
Barrett & Falk Won’t Say How They Would Have Balanced WI Budget
“I’m not answering. None of us will answer that question.”
Democrats have hammered Wisconsin governor Scott Walker over the past year for cutting nearly one billion dollars in state aid to school districts as part of his plan to close the state’s $3.6 billion deficit. Democratic anger with Walker’s budget cuts is a huge reason why Walker is facing a recall election on June 5. But the two leading Democrats vying to replace Walker, Dane county executive Kathleen Falk and Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, were unwilling to say Wednesday night how they would have balanced the budget or even how much they would have cut from the state’s education budget.
“Education is the top funding priority for the state budget,” Falk said at a Democratic candidate forum in Madison on Wednesday night. “I do not support public dollars for private school vouchers.”
But when asked how much state aid to local school districts should have been cut in last year’s budget, Falk told THE WEEKLY STANDARD: “Well, nobody’s going to answer that, needless to say. But I have a track record as county executive what I’ve done, which was shared sacrifice.”
Read more by by John McCormack at Weekly Standard
Social Security reserves forecast to run dry in 2022
Social Security’s bank account will go bust in 2022 — the first time the program’s combined trust funds will run a deficit, according to President Obama’s budget released Monday.
One of Medicare’s trust funds also will be in the red for much of the next decade, according to the numbers in the briefing book that the White House provided to Congress along with the budget, which lays out Mr. Obama’s tax and spending plans for fiscal year 2013 and beyond.
Social Security has taken in less in taxes than it has paid out in benefits since 2010, but the shortfall has beenmade up as the government has dipped into IOUs left in the trust funds from previous years.
Read more by Stephen Dinan by The Washington Times
An Economy Built to Crash
Geithner admits Obama’s budget ‘unsustainable’ for second year in row
President Obama described his fiscal year 2013 budget – the most expensive in United States history – as “a blueprint for an economy that is built to last.”
But even his own Treasury Secretary does not agree with that assessment.
Read more by Andrew Stile at FreeBeacon.com