Ben Bernanke made an important point while testifying before the House Budget Committee: lawmakers must reduce the federal deficit and return the nation to fiscal sustainability. The deficit, set to hit $1.8 trillion this year, is not expected to dip under $500 billion per year during the next decade, even under President Obama’s unusually optimistic economic forecast. Chairman Bernanke notes, “With the ratio of debt to GDP already elevated, we will not be able to continue borrowing indefinitely.” Put simply, the country is on a fiscally unsustainable path and action …
Your family’s share of the national debt just got a lot bigger thanks to the recent increases in federal spending. According to an analysis by USA Today, in 2008 an additional $55,000 per household in new federal obligations was added onto the already massive figure, bringing the total to $546,668. USA today does well to illustrate this point, noting, That’s quadruple what the average U.S. household owes for all mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other debt combined.” This increased debt takes an already bad situation and makes it worse. …
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 …
The Tax Foundation released its “2009 Survey of U.S. Attitudes on Taxes, Government Spending and Wealth Distribution” yesterday. Some interesting findings include: 56 percent of respondents think taxes are too high; Only 14 percent are willing to pay more than $10,000 a year in total taxes for the government services they receive from all level of governments—federal, state and local; 34 percent prefer decreased government services and lower taxes, 36 percent want services and taxes to stay the same, only 10 percent want more services and higher taxes; 44 percent …
That’s a bit of an exaggeration. No serious person can deny the importance of the global financial crisis. We can only hope that the U.S. and Britain don’t get swept away by its urgency and agree to a lot of European and Russian proposals that would make it worse, and themselves poorer and less sovereign. But as bad as the financial crisis is, it’s not nearly as bad as the coming entitlements one. That’s the message the IMF, in its latest paper on “The State of Public Finances: Outlook and …
Is President Obama’s economic policy preventing the economy from recovering? The Wall Street Journal thinks so. Tuesday’s editorial notes, After five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.” This observation is not unique. In his March 2nd op-ed, Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) wrote: …
Liberal author Robert Kuttner doesn’t believe in the entitlement crisis. His argument – reflecting conventional far left thinking on the issue – goes something like this: Conservatives exaggerate the entitlement problem by using shady figures. Social Security is just fine, so don’t worry about it. Medicare is a problem, but only because of rising health care costs. Once the country embraces socialized medicine the costs will fall, thus solving the problem. History proves this correct because the government ran up heaps of debt during World War II setting the country …
President Obama will host a three-hour “Fiscal Responsibility Summit” at the White House Monday to “underscore how big the problems are.” Sixty members of the House and Senate, and representatives from various think-tanks and advocacy organizations from across the political spectrum will attend in an effort to sort out the nation’s fiscal woes. The basics of the long-term entitlement problem are generally agreed upon. In April of 2008 members of the politically diverse coalition know as the Heritage-Brookings Fiscal Seminar published the paper, “Taking Back Our Fiscal Future.” In it, …
Congressman Barney Frank met with reporters recently to further voice support for the $700 Billion TARP allocation while concurrently hinting at the need for defense cuts. In his statement, the Congressman said, “The biggest ongoing threat, I believe, to fiscal sanity in this country is an open-ended ever-expanding military budget.” These remarks are not a huge surprise considering recent rhetoric from our government and military leaders. Within the last month, Secretary of Defense Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services …
Washington – Michigan Congressman Dave Camp raised doubts and highlighted confused realities of the Democrat Spending Bill at today’s Conservative Bloggers’ Briefing, held at the Heritage Foundation. Camp compared provisions in the Spending Bill and the recently passed SCHIP Bill, calling their contradictions ‘absurd.’ “You’re too rich to get a tax cut, but your not poor enough to get health care for free,” he said, referring to Democrat’s refusals (in Ways and Means Committee and on the House Floor) to cut taxes on unemployment benefits for those who earn $50,000 …
