Category Archives: Debt

BO The Joker

Barack Obama, Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation

“Obama signed a bill Friday reinstating budget rules known as ‘paygo’ — short for ‘pay as you go.'” (The Washington Examiner)

President Barack Obama said Saturday new budget rules that say spending cuts must accompany spending increases will force Congress to “pay for what it spends, just like everybody else.”

A list of the programs that are exempt is here..

This, after having just increased the debt ceiling from $12.4 trillion to $14.3 trillion.
The National Debt is $12.3 trillion! It increases an average of $3.85 billion per day in lieu of interest payments.
The federal budget deficit is “a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, $1.3 trillion next year, $8.5 trillion for the next 10 years combined.”

Not that this is what he’s promising, but if BHO never again spent another dime, the US would still never again run surpluses, not in my lifetime.

‘More Government Equals Fewer Jobs’

Debt, Economy, Government, Labor, Regulation, Socialism, Taxation

My own version of the title’s maxim invoked “zero-sum economics, or parasite vs. host. The larger the parasitical sector gets, the weaker the productive host will grow. The first is sucking the lifeblood of the second.”

Peter Schiff expertly drives home the principle in his latest column:

“The fiscal 2011 budget proposed by President Obama contains $3.8 trillion in federal spending. Think of government as a cancer feeding off the private sector. The larger it grows, the more jobs it kills. Unfortunately, most politicians follow the misguided advice of economist John Maynard Keynes, who advocated government spending as a means of job creation. In reality, government spending merely results in government jobs replacing more efficient private sector jobs.”

Read on about the effects of regulation, subsidies and, yes, tax cuts when borrowing continues apace. As they bay for the tax-cuts panacea, I bet beautiful Sarah and her supporters have not figured out that:

“… a dollar borrowed kills more jobs than a dollar taxed. Therefore, cutting taxes and borrowing the shortfall kills more jobs then [sic] it creates. This is true because jobs require capital and government borrowing more directly crowds out private capital investment than taxes do.”

Bush, I noted in “Deficit Disorders,” cut taxes while “spending like there was no tomorrow—for every dollar that may or may not remain with its rightful owner, the president blew tens of non-existent bucks on brand-new spending.” And, “Each of the morally bankrupt parties has used tax cuts as a decoy to avoid addressing the cause of the deficit: government’s spending more than it steals.”

The News In Brief

Debt, Democrats, Economy, Glenn Beck, Ilana Mercer, Labor, Liberty, Ron Paul, Taxation

• “The first national Tea Party convention opened its doors Thursday night amid widespread interest and some controversy,” reports CNN. I’m not sure what CNN considered controversial, other than that Anderson Cooper and his house boys had not been invited. Naturally, I worry about the direction of the Tea Party’s leadership. I see that no leaders from Ron Paul’s platoons have been invited. On the other hand, since I am unlikely to be asked to partake, having been excluded from at least one of the forums, I don’t intend to sweat the issue.

• When he spent more than he had stolen from taxpayers, Bush simply raised the ceiling on a whopping $6.8 trillion national debt. At the same time, Mr. Bush made a loud commotion about returning plunder to the people in the form of a tax cut. Barack has followed suit. House Democrats voted yesterday to raise the nation’s debt ceiling to more than $14 trillion. This time, Republicans opposed the move.

• The WSJ’s uneasy headline today reads:

U.S. Payrolls Slide;
Jobless Rate at 9.7%

The U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly declined to 9.7% in January, but the economy shed 22,000 jobs, casting doubt over the labor market’s strength.

* Opinions Split on Job Creation
* Immigrants Top Ranks of Jobless
* CEOs Remain Hesitant to Hire

Unlike Glenn Beck, the WSJ, at least, had not forgotten to add immigrants to the unemployment miasma (I have not read further, but, no doubt, perfunctory excuse-making will follow).
Glenn put on an informative show today, examining “what puts states with progressive policies at greater risk than states with more conservative ideal,” except that Beck omitted the illegal immigrant variable, the expenditure on which would pretty much overwhelm all other considerations.

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My weekly, WND column will be back next week. In the meantime, do read (which means purchase) my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material. Get your copy (or copies) now!

Updated: $3.8 Trillion Budget, All Borrowed

Barack Obama, Debt, Democrats, Economy

Courtesy of FoxNews, below is the “U.S. Federal budget fact sheet for fiscal year 2011.”

Remember: When government sports a ‘surplus,’ this implies that the political pickpockets have stolen more funds than they can possibly dream of spending. The property is not theirs to keep! Conversely, when ‘deficits’ are reported, this means that the kleptomaniacs have not been able to steal sufficient funds to cover their profligacy.”

Like Bush’s budgets, this one is borrowed.

Why Fox calls tax credits “tax cuts” is beyond me, although, judging from the questions GOPer posed to BHO the other day, they do not distinguish between the two.

HERE GOES:

Key Budget Facts

· Overall 2011 Spending: $3.834 trillion.

· 2011 Discretionary Spending: $1.415 trillion.

· 2011 Projected Deficit: $1.267 trillion or 8.3 percent of GDP (down from $1.556 trillion or 10.6 percent of GDP in 2010).

· 10-year Deficit Reduction: $1.2 trillion, excluding war savings.

· Tax Cuts: More than $300 billion in the next 10 years for individuals, families, and businesses.

Jumpstarting Job Creation and Helping Middle-Class Families

· The Budget reflects the President’s commitment to make job creation his top priority this year. The Budget includes $100 billion for immediate job-creating investments in small business tax cuts, infrastructure, and clean energy. This includes a new Small Business Jobs and Wages Tax Cut to spur small business hiring and wage increases; this will cost $33 billion.

· Extend for another year the broadest tax cut in American history – the Making Work Pay Tax Credit – for 110 million American families.

· Increase the child care tax break for middle-class families.

· Eliminate the tax on capital gains from new investments in small business.

· Extend through 2010 the Recovery Act provision that allows small businesses immediately to expense up to $250,000 of qualified investment.

Tough Choices

· A three-year spending freeze on non-security discretionary spending – a move that will save $250 billion over 10 years.

· More than 120 terminations, reductions, and savings for more than $20 billion of savings.

· A financial crisis responsibility fee on the nation’s largest financial institutions to repay the taxpayer for the extraordinary action taken through the TARP program, as well as to reduce the chance of future risky behavior – raising $90 billion over 10 years.

· Eliminate tax preferences for oil, gas, and coal companies – raising $40 billion over 10 years.

· Allow the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to expire for households making more than $250,000 – raising $678 billion over 10 years.

Education: Preparing Our Children for the Jobs of the Future

· $28 billion – a $3 billion increase – for programs authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), plus up to $1 billion in additional funding if Congress successfully completes a fundamental overhaul of the law. Together, these measures would represent the largest funding increase for ESEA programs ever requested.

· $1.35 billion to continue the President’s Race to the Top challenge and to expand the competition from states to school districts that are ready for comprehensive reform.

· $17 billion increase in Pell Grant funding from 2010.

Innovation, Infrastructure, Science, and Technology: New Industries and New Jobs

· $61.6 billion in civilian R&D, an increase of $3.7 billion or 6.4 percent.

· Over $100 billion in aid to states and localities for infrastructure investment.

· A new $4 billion dollar National Infrastructure Innovation & Finance Fund to focus on infrastructure investments of national and regional significance.

· Over $6 billion in funding for clean energy technologies, most of which focuses on research, development, and demonstration.

Keeping America Safe

Defense and Diplomacy

· $33.0 billion for a 2010 supplemental request and $159.3 billion for 2011 to support ongoing overseas contingency operations, including funds to implement the President’s strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

· DOD family support programs grow more than 3 percent over the 2010 enacted level, to $8.8 billion.

· State Department funding, excluding war costs, is up 2.6 percent.

Homeland Security

· Department of Homeland Security funding up 2 percent to $43.6 billion.

· $734 million to support the deployment of up to 1,000 new Advanced Imaging

Technology (AIT) screening machines at airport checkpoints and new explosive detection equipment for baggage screening.

· Funding to increase the number of international flights covered by Federal Air Marshals to defend against attempted attacks on aviation.

Veterans Affairs

· Record funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs; the Budget builds on the historic increase in funding for the VA with a 20 percent total increase since 2009.

· $50.6 billion in advance appropriations for the VA medical care program so that care for the Nation’s veterans is not hindered by budget delays.

Update (Feb. 2): Peter Schiff on BHO’s plan for America:

“Rather than tightening the reins on the reckless monetary policy that undermined our savings, diminished our industrial output, inflated asset bubbles, and led to reckless speculation on Wall Street and excess consumption on Main Street, we are loosing them further. Rather than repealing regulations that distort markets and create moral hazards, we are adding new ones that do more of the same. Rather than cutting government spending to reduce the burden it places on our economy, we are increasing both the amount of the spending and the size of the burden. Rather than making government smaller so that the private sector can grow, we are making government bigger and forcing the private sector to shrink. Rather than paying off our debts we are taking on even more. Rather than encouraging people to save we are enticing them to spend. Rather than creating jobs, we are merely creating unemployment benefits.

As a result, instead of seeding the soil for a real recovery we are setting the stage for a prolonged depression.”