The first article discussed the Federal budget deficit that the Obama administration and Congress has incurred in just the first two months of the 2010 fiscal year. The Treasury Department announced that the November deficit was $120.3 billion which was down from the $176.4 billion deficit in October. These results are almost 6% higher than the deficits that were incurred in the first two months of the 2009 fiscal year, which in total was a record setting year. A few comments and computations:
- In November, the Federal government spent about $4 billion more than it collected in taxes and fees EVERY day.
- That comes out to about $167 million an HOUR that it did not have assets to cover or $2.8 million per MINUTE. Thus, if it takes you three minutes to read this post, the Federal government would have spent almost $9 million that it would have to finance via the sale of government bonds.
- The Obama administration expects the budget deficit for all of 2010 to be $1.5 trillion, breaking the 2009 record deficit number of $1.42 trillion. If these numbers hold true and the Federal government does incur $2.92 trillion in deficits in the two year span, each of the 130 million U.S. households would be on the hook for over $22,400 in order to make the two year government deficit go away. This $22,400 would not start to pay down the other trillions of dollars that the political class has racked up in previous years and would exclude the additional taxes needed just to pay for the rest of the federal budget.
- The Obama administration expects the 2011 deficit to also be over a trillion dollars and that annual deficits would never fall below $700 billion annually for the next decade. Every trillion dollars in deficit would cost each American household $7,000 on average. This is theoretically $7,000 Americans cannot spend on consumer goods, food, shelter, and other items that would spur the economy.
- Economists are worried that record setting deficits will devalue the dollar and require the Treasury to pay higher interest rates to get investors to cover the deficit spending, producing a continual drag on he economy and recovery.
If this wasn't bad enough news, consider the second article that appeared today. The House of Representatives passed a humongous spending bill, over a trillion dollars, that on average increased spending for Cabinet level organizations by ten percent. Among the distressing aspects of the funding bill were over 5,000 local projects, i.e. pork barrel projects of no national value, the only value being to help current politicians get reelected. If these 5,000 projects average just $100,000 in value, than the total waste of taxpayer dollars is $50 billion.
According to the article, the bill rejects most of the spending cuts suggested by the Obama administration back in May, giving additional credence to my theory that Obama has lost control of his own party and is being turned into just a figure head, easily manipulated by Reid and Pelosi. At least he tried to reign in some small amount of spending and even that was ignored by the Democrats in the House. Given that no Republicans voted for the bill in the House (along with 28 Democrats) and no Republicans voted to begin debate of the bill in the Senate, you can bet we are in for another chapter of childish politicians battling over our money in the coming weeks. You can also be sure that this spending atrocity will get larger as Reid offers more local inducements to get certain Senators to vote for the bill.
However, the prize for chutzpa and stupidity goes to Congressman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts who is quoted as saying: "I see these bills as an opportunity to reverse years of neglect - neglect to our roads and bridges, neglect to our lower income neighbors and friends, neglect to our schools, neglect to our veterans." Even if these comments are true, there is NO money to pay for all of this without deficit spending. I have this image where the Democrats like Mr. McGovern are driving a car and the Republicans are in the drivers seat and the car his heading towards the edge of a cliff. Unfortunately, the Democrats are so happy to be driving they are actually accelerating towards the cliff since they like the feeling of being in control of the wheel and the gas pedal rather than the fear of going off the cliff. While the Republicans may have driven to the edge of the cliff when they were in the driver's seat, it is the Democrats that are going to drive us over the edge. That is why Step 1 (reducing government spending dramatically and immediately) and Step 44 (eliminating local pork barrel wastes of money) as outlined in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" are critical to the nation's survival.
At the end of the movie "Apocalypse Now", Marlon Brando is living in a cave and has gone quite batty. I fear that the political class in Washington are giving us their best Brando imitation. FYI, I believe that the Brando character died at the end of the movie.
Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.
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