I hope the White House is paying attention to the latest annual Congressional Budget Office Long-Term Budget Outlook, which offers a truly frightening picture of the scale of America’s national debt, with huge implications for the country’s future prosperity. According to the non-partisan CBO, “the federal government has been recording the largest budget deficits, as a share of the economy, since the end of World War II”….
Read it all and follow the link to the important CBO report.
fear mongering. People are still investing in the American Economy.
Re # 1
John,
Have you been paying attention to the stock market lately? People are not investing in America. They are bailing out and socking their money away in the most conservative of bonds. Even there most of the bond buying has been on the short end of the curve, shunning long term bonds because of the high risk of inflation down the road.
John, denial is not just a river in Egypt from the verbal Pollyanna evident in your comment. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is going up like a rocket. We are selling our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren into fiscal slavery. And make no mistake, we find ourselves here thanks to the diligent, misguided efforts of politicians of BOTH major parties (plus the odd Congressman or Senator of independent or socialist persuasion) over many years. This is not the time to continue doing the same old things. Yet Obama seems to continue to cleave to the (quite literally) bankrupt ideology of John Maynard Keynes while ignoring the sound prescription of low government spending, low taxes and a strong dollar.
So, John, how long have your worked for the government? Simple math can show how deadly this problem is. What is going to happen to the payments on our huge national debt when interest rates finally start going up? The ‘fear mongering’ is from the US BUDGET OFFICE!
And of course the current Congress has refused to pass a budget.
like the spill, the debt issue is just too big for Barry O to handle. It must, must be George Bush’s fault, right?
John Wilkins, according to my tax statement the value of my house has dropped 40% in the last year. That would be okay, but I am a student in another city and desperately need to sell. So, no. The “fearmongers:” Ron Paul, et al, were actually the realists.
Chris,
To answer your question, YES, he is partly responsible. The fact is the US govt was experiencing a surplus under the Clinton administration and then Bush II was elected. He then proceeded to give this surplus away to the American people who were told to go shopping and stimulate the economy. He also got us involved in two long term military conflicts funded on credit, and not the sacrifices of the American people, as previous wars such as WWII, where even pieces of scrap metal, cloth, etc…were collected. Having said all this, the people actually responsible are Americans. This is still a democracy and we can vote in and vote out public servants who we feel are being fiscally irresponsible. LOL my cynicism is now reminding me of a line from The Who: “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.” 😉
Actually we are a representative republic and the parties have figured out that playing the game of fighting each other keeps them in power. And part of fighting each other is dividing the people by making promises we will not be able to keep.
#1 John, what do you think of all those unfunded liabilities (SSN, Medicare, BarryCare)? is that all “fear mongering” too?
6. Chris wrote: It must, must be George Bush’s fault, right?
Chris, I am a Republican and I am here to tell you that George was one whale of a financial disaster landing us in more debt than the sum of all previous presidents. You can say it was the Congress — but George did nothing to stop the fiscal irresponsibility. Now we have Barak (and the Congress) doing even worse. I am all for kicking them out of office, but let’s not give George a free pass.
Ultimately the government will have to print money. Cutting the value of money in half will cut the effective debt in half.
And collasping the whole system will allow for the entry of the New World Order.
I agree that Bush was not fiscally responsible, though much of it was in cahoots with the Dems in Congress, particularly after they took over in 2006. But the acceleration under Barry O. has been so dramatic only a partisan shill like Gawain could ignore it. Here are the deficits under Bush and the projected ones under Barry O. (3-4 times higher): http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/79840/
And Bush is NOT AT ALL responsible for the housing mess, he tried to thwart it while Frank and Dodds told him to stick it. http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/22C2FA85-E516-440F-AC1D-F67F2D1535A6/
Cana Anglican I am surprised you consider yourself a Republican, I gave that affiliation up several years ago.
Reading the comments helps me understand why a political party has attracted a following by knowing nothing and doing nothing and peddling their particularly perverse form of income redistribution (and it ain’t from the rich to the poor). As long as everyone stands in a circle and points fingers and shouts ideological slogans, there really is nothing to hope for. Get rid of everyone and let the brown-shirted Tea Party Know Nothing – Do Nothings impose their own weird New World Order on us.
Politicians should just shut up and do something – how about something intelligent, honest and in the best interests of the county for a change? But hey, what the hell, we’re fighting two wars by selling the American public on the idea that we can do this without imposing taxes of any kind. Welcome to the American Wonderland which gets curiouser and curiouser every day.
Actually reading Dan Crawford’s comments makes me understand why liberals would accuse conservatives of “following” a party like the Republican party.
Conservatives would like for the Constitution to be followed — you know, that “living breathing document” that is “deconstructed” so similarly by liberals as those in TEC who “deconstruct” other “living breathing documents.” Essentially the same people, with the same “integrity” and the same character and values and foundational worldview.
Sure hope the Tea Pary will be able to “do something” rather than maintain the current system of collectivists like Dan Crawford in charge of wasting money on unConstitutional failed little initiatives like the health [sic] care [sic] boondoggle.
RE: “But hey, what the hell, we’re fighting two wars by selling the American public on the idea that we can do this without imposing taxes of any kind.”
Hopefully, yes. Hopefully conservatives are selling other conservatives on the idea of eliminating all of the crap that the State is doing so shoddily and corruptly with our money. We don’t bother trying to sell the collectivists on anything.
#11. Agreed, but I’m sure it just sort of happened that way by accident. It surely couldn’t have been planned that way since that would be a conspiracy and we know there are no conspiracies going on. Only idiot conspiracy nuts would believe such a thing. Right?
Wow Dan, two hot points in one post.
No nothing Tea Party Brown Shirts……really? I actually consider myself pretty knowledgable on the history of this country, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. If that makes me a Brown Shirt, then I wear an extra-large.
And we need to impose more taxes? Wow, that fits with my concern about being undertaxed. Hey Dan, I have an idea: how about the Fed Govt only spends money on things it is Constitutionally chartered to do; like fight wars? Get rid of all the other stuff best left to the states and you will find we need to cut taxes by a boatload.
[blockquote]Last night, as part of a procedural vote on the emergency war supplemental bill, House Democrats attached a document that “deemed as passed” a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget. The execution of the “deeming” document allows Democrats to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a budget.
The procedural vote passed 215-210 with no Republicans voting in favor and 38 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote against deeming the faux budget resolution passed.
Never before — since the creation of the Congressional budget process — has the House failed to pass a budget, failed to propose a budget then deemed the non-existent budget as passed as a means to avoid a direct, recorded vote on a budget, but still allow Congress to spend taxpayer money.[/blockquote]
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37893
It is now abundantly that the Democratic administration is operating outside the Constitution and the laws of this country.
Most of what the federal government has been doing over the last 100 years (since Woodrow Wilson) is outside the Constitution.
Unfortunately, except in time of total war, our leadership has failed us in every area of government. Consider the Post Office, financial regulation, (Madoff panzi scheme), oil drilling in the Gulf, Fannie Mai, Freddy Mac, energy policy, etc, etc.
We will implode under debt along with almost every advanced government. We will join the Third World group soon.