Speaking at Georgetown University on April 14th, President Barack Obama promised: “We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity — a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest.” Nice words. But the Obama administration actions have produced all sand and no rock. From the Wall Street Bailout, to Cash for Clunkers, to Obama’s failed stimulus, this administration …
The budget shortfalls, plunging revenue, and economic woes plaguing near-broke California could foretell the future of other cash-strapped states. A new study by The Pew Center on the States found that the economic pressures that pushed California to the brink of a total economic meltdown are also found in nine other states across the country, all of which could face a financial disaster just like the one in the Golden State. Those states with economic conditions most like California’s include Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, New Jersey and …
Defending mounting job losses despite his administration’s $787 billion stimulus package, Vice President Joe Biden told ABC News George Stephanopoulos last month: “The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy. The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there.” This is just not true. Yesterday the White House released their Mid-Session Review admitting that President Barack Obama’s policies would force our nation to borrow more than $9 trillion over the next ten years. Commenting on the …
Supposedly, trends start in California and then spread to the rest of the country, a notion that seems to be confirmed by the latest economic news. In May, California’s unemployment rate hit 11.5 percent—the highest it has been since 1941. This morning, we learn that unemployment for the entire country hit 9.5 percent in June—the highest rate in 26 years. Will the country close the economic-death-spiral gap with California? Very possibly it will, if the federal government continues to follow California’s example of crushing its economy with ever-increasing government spending, …
When the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their original estimate of President Obama’s Budget , they said it was going to be expensive: in ten years the President would accumulate over $9 trillion in deficits. Turns out, that was low-balling it. In their original estimate, CBO assumed that interest rates would be held constant. This makes modeling the costs a bit easier, but makes little economic sense. In reality, as annual deficits are piled onto the national debt, any rational person (or foreign government) debating whether or not to …
Though the President made a big deal about Father’s Day, on national security issues the White House continues to look like an absent father. What can we expect from the White House on Independence Day? On issue after issue, Obama appears ambivalent or just flat wrong. Last week, President Obama continued his efforts at “spin control,” after being criticized for not speaking out more forcefully on events in Iran. Initially, the President sought to restrain his support for protesters to avoid the charge that the unrest was U.S.-inspired, rather than …
Yesterday, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest Long-Term Budget Outlook and the news is grim. The preface opens, Under current laws and policies, rapidly rising health care costs and an aging population will sharply increase federal spending for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Unless increases in revenues kept pace with escalating spending, or spending growth was sharply reduced, soaring federal debt would weigh heavily on economic output and incomes.” Make no mistake, the pressure put on the federal budget by out of control entitlement spending is massive …
President Obama today is promoting a Pay-as-You-Go (PAYGO) statute requiring that tax cuts and entitlement expansions be collectively deficit-neutral. Congress is likely to take up the proposal later this month. Since 2007, Congress has had a PAYGO rule mandating that each new tax and entitlement bill be deficit-neutral. Because it is merely a congressional rule, lawmakers can (and do) waive it easily. By contrast, a PAYGO statute—which existed from 1991 until 2002—would operate differently. Instead of requiring that each tax and entitlement bill be deficit neutral, this law would keep …
President Obama recently said, One hundred days ago, in the midst of the worst economic crisis in half a century, we passed the most sweeping economic recovery act in history…One hundred days later, we are already seeing results.” President Obama is right: In the last one hundred days, the U.S. economy has lost over 2 million jobs. The President inherited a recession and a huge budget deficit. Finding the deficit not yet huge enough, he argued for a lot more, pushing the total toward $2 trillion and putting the United …
Yesterday’s USA Today brought the not so surprising news that federal tax revenue has fallen drastically due to the struggling economy. The 34% decrease represents the largest plunge since the last major recession in 1981. Although revenue is down, the main driver of deficits is spending. Over the long term these deficits will become increasingly difficult to control because of escalating entitlement spending on Social Security and Medicare. As the article notes, The other deficit driver is government spending, which, the [American Institute for Economic Research] report says, is the …
