Members of Congress have been working frantically to bring the cost of the health care bill below $1 trillion, make it “deficit-neutral,” per the President’s instructions, and meet Blue Dogs’ expectations that it be “paid for.” As the Congressional Budget Office has pointed out, so far they’ve had no such luck. But the bigger problem is that in focusing on $1 trillion, Congress is missing the forest for the trees. All the estimates they evaluate are 10-year figures, yet nationalized health insurance, if it passes, will likely be around much longer than that. Longer-term …
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently warned that entitlement-driven growth is unsustainable and would debilitate the economy over the long-term. In their best-case scenario, the national debt would become three times the size of the entire economy in the next 75 years. (In 2008, debt was about two-fifths of the economy). Given that the budget is already on an unsustainable course, it is strange that Congress is considering making things worse by tacking on an expensive national health program. While many members of Congress are claiming they can find …
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 …
Only politicians determined to spend $1 billion a day to “stimulate” the economy could balk at committing tens of millions less than that to bolster our national defense. So it was good news this evening when the Senate Armed Services Committee added funds to buy seven more F-22 fighters and a backup engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, as Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told Bloomberg.
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. …
According to an analysis by USA Today, American taxpayers “are on the hook for an extra $55,000 a household to cover rising federal commitments made just in the past year for retirement benefits, the national debt and other government promises.” Federal obligations now stand ata record $546,668 per household, quadruple what the average U.S. household owes for all mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other debt combined. Fortunately for Americans, President Barack Obama recognizes that the federal government has a spending problem. He told CSPAN this weekend: “We are out …
Reuters reports: Recession Hurts Medicare and Social Security. The New York Times blares: Recession Drains Social Security and Medicare. And CNN follows suit: Recession Hits Social Security Hard. This spin all comes out of the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees annual report which is signed by Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Obama Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and Obama HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Their report blames the “economic recession” for growing shortfalls in both the Medicare and Social Security programs. But our entitlement crisis existed long before the current recession, …
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 …
In the past 12 months the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration, and the Democrat controlled Congress have laid out $1.2 trillion in the name of stimulus, $700 billion for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, and over $400 billion for the Omnibus spending bill in debt on future generations of America. As big a hole as all that deficit spending has already put us in, the long term entitlement spending explosion is just as much of a fiscal threat, if not worse. As President Barack Obama said Tuesday, “The biggest problem …
Budget Trickery The President also employs budget trickery on spending. He first assumes that Iraq spending will continue indefinitely at 2008 levels (which was never going to happen, according to the military’s own Joint Campaign Plan), and then calculates $1.5 trillion in savings against that baseline. If you eliminate that gimmick, President Obama increases spending by nearly $500 billion over ten years – not even counting the $634 billion health care reserve fund The budget proposes $1.133 trillion in regular discretionary spending in 2010, and claims that is a 7 percent …
