Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Friday, November 9, 2018

The Unrelenting March To The Government Debt Bomb Implosion, Part 2

Over the past couple of weeks we have done three posts that show how quickly the country is going over the edge as it pertains to fiscal insolvency, given that the American political class has racked up about $109 TRILLION in debt that will have to be faced at some time soon:

Current Federal government national debt - well over $21 TRILLION.
Current unfunded Federal government liabilities from Medicare and Social Security - $82 TRILLION.
Current unfunded liabilities of state governments - $6 TRILLION.

Those three posts and the dire news they portray can be accessed at:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-unrelenting-march-to-government.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/04/dont-worry-be-happy-bursting-of.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/10/dont-worry-be-happy-any-short-term.html

Failure to address these debt mountains by American politicians will make the debt implosion worse and more devastating the longer the problem festers. And given that no politician even mentioned the debt issue in the just completed midterm elections means that they are unlikely to fix the problem anytime soon.

To the dire numbers listed above, let’s list out a few more facts that should scare you even more: but which hopefully give you a little perspective on how large the problem is:

In fiscal year 2018, the Federal government collected $3.422 TRILLION in tax revenue, the most tax revenue the government has EVER collected.
In fiscal 2018, the Federal government is expected to have paid out $952.5 billion just in Social Security benefits.
Thus, almost 28% of the Federal government’s tax revenue is sent right back out in Social Security benefits.
Given that about 10,000 Baby Boomers retire every day, the total number of dollars and percentage of Federal tax revenues paid out in Social Security benefits is going to go up dramatically in coming years.
While the Federal government paid out $952.5 billion in Social Security benefits, it only collected about $917 billion in Social Security taxes, putting it in a negative cash flow situation worth about $36 billion, a tidy sum of money that the Federal government had to close with general Treasury Department revenues.
This $36 billion will get larger and larger every year as more people retire and there are fewer and fewer workers paying Social Security taxes, adding to the $21 trillion national debt.
In fiscal 2018, the Federal government programs Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will suck up $2.7 TRILLION of the Federal government budget, about 64% of total spending and about 79% of the Federal government’s tax revenue.
50 years ago these three programs accounted for only 25% of the Federal budget, which means that this piece of the Federal government budget has grown two and half times in those years.

As you can see, trimming Federal spending around the edges (or even eliminating whole government departments) will have no real impact on this $109 TRILLION debt crisis. Taxing the rich more will have no real impact on this $109 TRILLION crisis. Blaming each other will have no real impact on this $109 TRILLION crisis. And most importantly, thinking that the American political class will take this $109 TRILLION seriously is a fool’s hope.

We have allowed the political class to get us into this situation. Thus, it is up to us to force these clowns in Washington and state capitals to face reality and come up with a coherent plan that fixes the crisis. The longer we wait, the more we let skate by on the hard decisions, the more painful the final outcome will be.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

The Unrelenting March To The Government Debt Bomb Implosion

Now that the midterm election is over, let’s review the only issue that really matters in America today, an issue that was virtually ignored at all levels of politics by those running for office. And that issue is the incredible amount of debt that the American political class has rung up at all levels of government:

The Federal government national debt is rapidly approaching $22 TRILLION.
The unfunded liabilities of the Federal government, basically debt that has not been incurred yet but which is going to incur, for Social Security and Medicare, is estimated to be $82 TRILLION over the next 30 years, per the Congressional Budget Office.
State governments’ unfunded pensions and other liabilities is about $6 TRILLION, per the American Legislative Executive Council.
Detroit, Michigan, Stockton and San Bernardino in California, and other city governments have already gone bankrupt because of debt.
Chicago for all intent and purposes in bankrupt.
Four states, California, Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut are frantically racing to see what state will be the first one to go bankrupt since none of them have a path that would prevent them from not going bankrupt.

We have covered this dire situation many times in this blog with the following two posts being just two of the most recent discussions and the most extensive:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/04/dont-worry-be-happy-bursting-of.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/10/dont-worry-be-happy-any-short-term.html

The Heritage Foundation recently ran an article by Jack Grant that updates some of the most dire statistics and realities as it concerns government debt in the country day, “8 Years After the Tea Party Wave, Congress Still Spends Like There’s No Tomorrow:”

An organization known as the Committee For A Responsible Federal Budget recently released its budget analysis titled, “The 75 Year Budget Outlook.”
Their findings are not optimistic for the future of the country, the Federal government, and our democracy.
The Federal Reserve Board has been raising interest rates recently as the U.S. economy gets stronger and stronger.
While this is a good sign for the short term economic outlook, as interest rates rise the interest payments on existing and newly created debt by Washington politicians will increase the cost of serving that debt in the future, adding to the Federal deficit.
At the going rate of Federal government spending, annual trillion dollar deficits are likely to occur sooner rather than later, reaching the magic trillion dollar deficit mark that the Obama administration hit four times during its spending heydays.
According to that Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget report, they estimate that in 75 years just the annual Federal government debt interest payments will rise from 1.6% of GDP today to an out of control 14.9% by 2093.
In other words, almost 15% of the entire economic output of the United States will be needed to service the Federal debt.
This 14.9% will not likely be reached because the Federal government will likely go bankrupt long before this happens.
By 2093 the Federal debt will be a whopping six times the size of the whole economy/GDP if no changes are made to current government policies and budgeting practices.
The Congressional Budget Office has an alternative long range fiscal forecast that varies assumptions but which lines up with this forecast, finding that under current Federal government policies, the national debt could exceed 600% of the economy by 2093.
According to the report, four major Federal spending categories, the Highway Trust Fund, Disability Insurance Trust Fund, Medicare Trust Fund, and Social Security Trust Fund will go bankrupt, without major changes made to their funding, by 2021, 2025, 2026, and 2032 respectively.
But as readers of this blog know, these funds are already for all intent and purposes bankrupt, e.g. Social Security went cash flow negative a few years ago, i.e. they were paying out more than they were taking in, and thus, needed to raid the general income funds of the Treasury Department to stay solvent.
The four bankruptcy dates above are simply the years that those funds officially go broke from an accounting perspective.

There are a number of undeniable conclusions that cannot be avoided:

We are heading down a fiscal path that cannot be sustained.
Things are worse than they appear from an official government accounting perspective.
The above report and discussion does not include that dire economic and fiscal conditions of many, many other state and local government entities.
You cannot fix the problem by raising taxes on only the rich, the second post listed above proved how stupid and doomed that strategy is.
You cannot fix the problem by trimming around the edges of government spending, massive changes have to be made to the major government entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, including benefit reductions and increased taxes, and entire nd mostly useless government departments need to be eliminated with our starting recommendations being the departments of Commerce, Education and Energy, low performing and unnecessary entities.

Our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” laid out some plans that would start to get this problem corrected:

Every Federal government entity would develop and go about executing a ten year plan that would reduce its spending by 5% a year until it got down to half of its current budget size.
Hundreds of times we have shown examples of purely wasteful Federal government spending (e.g. remember when the National Science Foundation spent half a million dollars to develop a video game that simulated high school prom week!), there is massive amounts of wasteful spending that could be easily cut with no economic harm to any American.
Criminal fraud would be a top priority to be weeded out of every major government program, with Social Security and Medicare being the biggest targets, since according to multiple sources they easily lose tens of billions of dollars every year to incompetence and criminal fraud.
Millionaires, over a to be determined threshold, and all billionaires in this country would no longer receive Social Security and Medicare benefits, they can afford to do without and those funds can be used to offset the inevitable cuts to the benefits of other, less wealthy recipients.
The cap on earnings subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes should be lifted to bring some additional funding into those programs.
The age of retirement for those that can afford to wait because they are financially well off should be raised to take some of the pressure off of the programs that support retirees.
And it is probably unavoidable that all Social Security and Medicare recipients will need to take a cut in benefits in order to resolve this national debt problem, the only question is how large a cut needs to be taken, the longer the delay the bigger the cuts.

But does anyone really think that American politicians have the will, the courage, and the unselfish to attack these debt problems. American politics today is no longer a means to an end, today the means are the ends and that involves a politician only worrying about getting elected and staying elected, issues of the country be damned.

But as the Heritage article points out: “It’s impossible to predict when the massive national debt will bring about a fiscal disaster. There are incredibly smart people who disagree with each other on when it will happen. Yet all but a few would agree that this level of debt is unprecedented and is something that no nation has ever endured.” The debt implosion is going to happen the only two questions that exist are 1) when will it happen and 2) how severe will it be with the guarantee that the longer we wait to address it, the more severe the consequences will be.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

The Horrors And Destruction That Donald Trump Has Imposed On America...Just Kidding! Part 18

Before we start today’s discussion, let’s review my voting history:

I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life.
Thus, I did not vote for Trump.
I have rarely voted for a Republican for national office in my life.

About 21 months ago, many liberals, Democrats, and millennials were besides themselves with grief and fear because their pre-ordained queen, Hillary Clinton, was not elected President. Instead, Donald Trump was elected, an individual that these same people despised, hated, and feared, an individual they felt would endanger and possibly destroy the country and our democracy. For the past year and a half they fretted, worried and lashed out at anything or anyone that even remotely smelled of Donald Trump.

Given that Trump has been in office for over 21 months or so, I thought, that as someone who did not vote for him, it would be a good idea to review the horror, trauma, and terrible things that Trump has subjected the country to in just eighteen month’s time. This is obviously a very sarcastic comment when you take an unbiased look at what has happened during the Trump Presidency. The many previous posts we did on this topic identified over 190 good things that have happened to America and Americans since Trump became President can found by entering the phrase “the horrors and destruction” in the search box above.

Today’s format is a little different that the previous 17 posts on the subject. Rather than listing brand new Trump accomplishments, we are going to list 24 accomplishments as posited by David Reagan, son of Ronald Reagan. We have already listed many of these listed accomplishments, with a few new ones added, but it is a nice summary of some of the most significant Trump accomplishments in one place:

More than 4 million jobs created since the election.
More Americans employed than ever recorded.
Economic growth last quarter hit 4.2 percent.
Economic growth more than twice Obama's rate.
Median household income has hit highest level ever recorded.
African-American unemployment lowest rate ever recorded.
Hispanic-American unemployment lowest rate ever recorded.
Asian-American unemployment lowest rate ever recorded.
Women's unemployment lowest rate in 65 years.
Youth unemployment lowest rate in nearly half a century.
3.9 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps since the election.
Signed the biggest package of tax cuts and reforms in history.
Helped win U.S. bid for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Helped win U.S.-Mexico-Canada's united bid for 2026 World Cup.
Opened ANWR and approved Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.
Record number of government regulations eliminated and billions of dollars saved.
Obamacare individual mandate penalty GONE.
Secured $6 billion in NEW funding to fight the opioid epidemic.
Signed VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act.
United States is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
Withdrew the United States from the job-killing Paris Climate Accord.
NATO allies are spending $69 billion more on defense since 2016.
Moved U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
Concluded a historic U.S.-Mexico trade deal to replace NAFTA.

For those of you that have hated on Trump since day one, and given your obvious gross error in judgment relative to Trump given the 200 accomplishments we have previously listed and the two dozen accomplishments listed above, let me ask that you to do us all a favor by implementing the following changes in your behavior and attitude:

Chill out, tamp down your TDS affliction. No matter how much you hate Trump on a sexist, personal basis, get over it. He is the legally and duly elected President, he will be around for a while so refocus your hatred on more constructive issues and matters. You will live a lot longer if you take your hatred out of your heart and soul and devote it to something positive.
I would really appreciate it if some of you would apologize to the Trump voters you have disrespected in some of the grossest terms possible over the past year. You have called millions of voters racists, ignorant, stupid, Nazis, KKK members, and other horrible names simply because you disagreed with their voting choice. No American should be called such disgusting names simply because they exercised their Constitutional rights to the best of their abilities. Plus, slandering over 60 million Americans is no way to unite the country and get it focused on the real issues facing us all.
More personally, I would like, no I am demanding, an apology from some of you for your slanderous and disgusting name calling because in doing so, you insulted and disrespected my sister, my family members, my friends, and my co-workers who simply voted their conscience. I will defend their right to vote anyway they wanted and will no put up with your childish and vicious venom and bile directed at them, very important people in my life.
And finally, I challenge you to read the following blog post, a post that shows quite clearly that it was hateful people like some of you and your silence during the Obama years that actually caused Trump to be elected. Thus, the people you hate for voting for Trump are actually looking back at you in the mirror:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-american-liberals-and-washington.html

If you were silent in the dozens of instances listed in this post then you were responsible for the very thing you hate: a Trump Presidency. Or put another way, a so far successful and productive Trump Presidency. 200 accomplishments in a little more than a year and a half is not too shabby despite many of you wanting both Trump and the country to fail.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

The Horrors And Destruction That Donald Trump Has Imposed On America...Just Kidding! Part 17

Before we start today’s discussion, let’s review my voting history:

I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life.
Thus, I did not vote for Trump.
I have rarely voted for a Republican for national office in my life.

Given that Trump has been in office for over 21 months or so, I thought, that as someone who did not vote for him, it would be a good idea to review the horror, trauma, and terrible things that Trump has subjected the country to in just eighteen month’s time. This is obviously a very sarcastic comment when you take an unbiased look at what has happened during the Trump Presidency. The many previous posts we did on this topic identified over 190 good things that have happened to America and Americans since Trump became President can found by entering the phrase “the horrors and destruction” in the search box above.

Since the last “horrors and destruction” post an additional ten accomplishments and good tidings have occurred as a result of this Presidency:

- Nonfarm payrolls grew a robust 250,000 jobs in October despite the depression of economic activity due to two major hurricanes over the past few months.

- Average wages incurred the largest gain in nine and a half years, 3.1%

- Blue collar wage growth rates are growing faster than white collar wage growth rates.

- According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 40% of likely African American voters approve of Trump’s job performance, an all time high, up from 36% in August and more than double what it was in August, 2017.

- The same Rasmussen poll found that Trump’s overall approval rate is back over 50%.

- African American median income is at the highest level ever while African American unemployment levels are still at around an all time low.

- There a a record 7.14 million open jobs in the economy right now.

- The employment-to-population ratio rose two-tenths of percentage point to 60.6 percent, the highest since January 2009.

Another seven reasons to add to the previous 192 or so reasons why the first year and a half of the Trump Presidency has not wrought disaster on the country.

For those of you that have hated on Trump since day one, and given your obvious gross error in judgment relative to Trump, let me ask that you to do us all a favor by implementing the following changes in your behavior and attitude:

Chill out, tamp down your TDS affliction. No matter how much you hate Trump on a sexist, personal basis, get over it. He is the legally and duly elected President, he will be around for a while so refocus your hatred on more constructive issues and matters. You will live a lot longer if you take your hatred out of your heart and soul and devote it to something positive.
I would really appreciate it if some of you would apologize to the Trump voters you have disrespected in some of the grossest terms possible over the past year. You have called millions of voters racists, ignorant, stupid, Nazis, KKK members, and other horrible names simply because you disagreed with their voting choice. No American should be called such disgusting names simply because they exercised their Constitutional rights to the best of their abilities. Plus, slandering over 60 million Americans is no way to unite the country and get it focused on the real issues facing us all.
More personally, I would like, no I am demanding, an apology from some of you for your slanderous and disgusting name calling because in doing so, you insulted and disrespected my sister, my family members, my friends, and my co-workers who simply voted their conscience. I will defend their right to vote anyway they wanted and will no put up with your childish and vicious venom and bile directed at them, very important people in my life.
And finally, I challenge you to read the following blog post, a post that shows quite clearly that it was hateful people like some of you and your silence during the Obama years that actually caused Trump to be elected. Thus, the people you hate for voting for Trump are actually looking back at you in the mirror:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-american-liberals-and-washington.html

If you were silent in the dozens of instances listed in this post then you were responsible for the very thing you hate: a Trump Presidency. Or put another way, a so far successful and productive Trump Presidency. Almost 200 accomplishments in a little more than a year and a half is not too shabby despite many of you wanting both Trump and the country to fail.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Friday, November 9, 2018

The Unrelenting March To The Government Debt Bomb Implosion, Part 2

The Unrelenting March To The Government Debt Bomb Implosion

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

The Horrors And Destruction That Donald Trump Has Imposed On America...Just Kidding! Part 18

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

The Horrors And Destruction That Donald Trump Has Imposed On America...Just Kidding! Part 17

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