Free Republic

It appears there’s growing concern over the management of federal debt and deficit amidst the backdrop of recent financial maneuvers. Janet Yellen’s decision to draw down $5.7 billion from the Treasury cash account raises eyebrows, seen by some as an attempt to obscure the true scale of the deficit ahead of upcoming elections. This move, while potentially reducing immediate debt figures, could inflate long-term debt obligations to record highs once the accounting is adjusted.

MESQUITE, Texas — In a warehouse off Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway in an industrial area outside Dallas, the future of American military ammunition production is coming online. Here, in the Pentagon’s first new major arms plant built since Russia invaded Ukraine, Turkish workers in orange hard hats are busy unpacking wood crates stenciled with the name Repkon, a defense company based in Istanbul, and assembling computer-controlled robots and lathes. The factory will soon turn out about 30,000 steel shells every month for the 155 mm howitzers that have become crucial to Ukraine’s war effort. Ukraine fired 4,000 to 7,000 such...

The Social Security Act, enacted on August 14, 1935, provided a new federally administered system of social insurance for the aged financed through payroll taxes paid by employees and their employers. Under the system, which applied only to workers in commerce and industry, people would earn retirement benefit eligibility as they worked. With some exceptions, benefits would be related to workers' average covered earnings, and workers could not have earnings and still be eligible for benefits. No benefits were provided for spouses or children, and lump-sum refunds were provided to the estates of workers who died before age 65 or...

Is the economy booming or busting? Depends on whom you ask. The official data is buoyant — economic growth is solid, the job market is strong, and stocks keep hitting record highs. Yet many Americans think the economy stinks. The latest gloomy indicator is a Guardian-Harris survey in which 55% of respondents said they think the economy is shrinking and 56% think we’re in the midst of a recession. Economic output, adjusted for inflation, grew by a solid 3% during the most recent 12-month period. The unemployment rate is 3.9%. And the US economy created over 3.5 million jobs in...

The United States has long had the world’s biggest defense budget, with spending this year set to approach $900 billion. Yet this spending is rapidly being eclipsed by the fastest-growing portion of federal outflows: interest payments on the national debt. For the first seven months of fiscal year 2024, which began last October, net interest payments totaled $514 billion, outpacing defense by $20 billion. Budget analysts think that trend will continue, making 2024 the first year ever that the United States will spend more on interest payments than on national defense. ... Just two years ago, interest payments were the...

The ease and “fortuitousness” by which birth names evolve into perfectly descriptive and denigrative monikers seems like a God-has-a-sense-of-humor moment—a slimy-looking man that screams “greasy salesman” just happens to have a last name that can easily accommodate the word “scum” into it? Providence, no? And, there are few things slimier and scummier than taking an oath of office to represent the people, making promises to act in their best interest, and then reneging on them—but that’s just who Gavin Newscum is. From Susannah Luthi report at The Washington Free Beacon:Earlier this month, the governor repeatedly pledged he would not raise...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has turned to climate change to explain how the state went from a $100 billion surplus two years ago to a $28 billion deficit, which would have been even higher prior to drastic actions last month. As CalMatters noted, deficit estimates ranged from $38 billion to $73 billion: That prompted Newsom and the Legislature to take “early action” last month to reduce the deficit by more than $17 billion ahead of the regular budget process. Their plan included some program cuts, but mostly relied on new revenue, internal borrowing and funding delays and shifts for...

Stop! Stop! Stop! … all the printing! These people have to be stopped! We are talking about the nation’s unhinged monetary politburo domiciled in the Eccles Building (The Federal Reserve), of course. It is bad enough that their relentless inflation of financial assets has showered the 1% with untold trillions of windfall gains, but their ultimate crime is that they lured the nation’s elected politician into a veritable fiscal trance. Consequently, future generations will be lugging the service costs on insuperable public debts for years to come. For more than two decades these foolish PhDs and monetary apparatchiks drove the...

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) released the first photos of the pier under construction off the coast of Gaza which is intended to provide a means of getting aid to the war-torn region. "Construction of the floating JLOTS pier in the Mediterranean is underway," they wrote Monday:Pier-building beginsConstruction of the floating JLOTS pier in the Mediterranean is underway.The pier will support @USAID and humanitarian partners to receive and deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. @USTRANSCOM and @USEUCOM support the movement of of #humanitarianaid. pic.twitter.com/tC9J12wz4Z— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) April 29, 2024JLOTS stands for "Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore."The pier was announced...

Volodymyr Zelensky recently released a statement revealing that his regime and the government of Washington D.C. were in continued contact, “working on a bilateral security agreement” that would see “monetary aid” sent to Ukraine for an agreed-upon time of ten years.###Despite an individual’s personal feelings on the Russia-Ukraine war, the facts of the matter are that Ukraine is not a NATO country—and at this point, the cost-benefit analysis of being a member of the NATO pact is definitely not worth it for the American people—and Zelensky is not a good guy. This isn’t to say that Vladimir Putin is…but between...

Congress is facing the most significant and transformational opportunity to strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) since the end of World War II. The heritage equipment that the United States has provided to Ukraine for its self-defense in the face of the brazen and illegal invasion by Russian forces in 2022 needs to be replenished to ensure the United States is postured to continue to deter its adversaries. The new hardware will be produced at factories across the nation. Of the $113 billion appropriated by Congress to date related to the conflict in Ukraine, as much as $68 billion...

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) blasted the House for passing foreign aid bills, arguing Congress is spending money that “we don’t have” and that the U.S. should be focusing on securing its own borders instead. “We’re gonna further mortgage and plunder our children’s future, over $100 billion,” Johnson said during his Saturday morning appearance on NewsNation. “We spend close to $900 billion on defense, but every time there’s some kind of defense action seems like we need to do a supplemental.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “personally” grateful to “Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track” after Johnson shepherded a $61 billion Ukraine aid package through the House Saturday. The image of scores of Democrats waving Ukraine flags and cheering on the House floor as the bill passed will forever sting the conservatives from whose ranks Johnson rose, only to serve them with the ultimate betrayal.

@_wake_up_USA 🚨BREAKING: House Speaker Mike Johnson moves forward with a $95 billion dollar aid package, including funds for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. $61 Billion for Ukraine $26 Billion for Israel $8 Billion for Taiwan

The International Monetary Fund sounded the alarm on the Biden administration’s rampant spending as “out of line with what is needed for long-term fiscal stability.” The latest forecast from the IMF — a Washington-based group tasked with fighting financial crises worldwide — warned that the ballooning national debt and the fiscal deficit threatened to exacerbate sky-high levels of inflation while posing a long-term risk to the global economy. The IMF noted in its forecast that the US federal budget deficit grew from $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2022 to $1.7 trillion last year. ... The debt held by the public, which...

A series of weak auctions for U.S. Treasurys are stoking investors’ concerns that markets will struggle to absorb an incoming rush of government debt. ... inflation not tamed ... Federal Reserve will leave interest rates at multidecade highs for .. years to come. The 10-year yield—the benchmark for borrowing rates on everything from mortgages to corporate loans—finished the week around 4.5%... At the same time, the government is poised to sell another $386 billion or so of bonds in May—an onslaught that Wall Street expects to continue no matter who wins November’s presidential election. While few fear a failed auction—an...

President Biden was at it again Tuesday, telling tall tales and shouting gibberish. He was speaking at Union Station in Washington, D.C. on the care economy—described by the United Nations as including “paid (employed in the formal and informal sectors) and unpaid work through which care is provided for others”—when he was interrupted by a heckler. The president angrily responded, “Well, I’ll tell you what…you wanna come make a speech or shush up, okay?” Then he took a look at the protester and thought better of it because, evidently, the guy looked tough. “I’m not messing around with him!” Biden...

Most readers regularly consume staggering numbers about our debt and deficit, but not all those that report this news will put those numbers in a perspective that provides meaningful context. I will try to do that here. The USA is on track to have a national debt of $35 trillion very soon, which is rising by $1 trillion about every 100 days. That’s $3.6 trillion every year. We’re no longer doling out free cash for COVID, so it’s a good assumption the $3.6 trillion additional annual debt is this administrations “business as usual.”According to Financebuzz total private wealth in the...

The US must be aware of and avoid Russian disinformation operations at all costs if it wants to maintain its Western values and help Ukraine win the war, conflict analysts argue."Basic facts are in question daily as the Kremlin floods the Western debate with its narratives," analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a March 27 report.The analysts said that "the notion that the war is unwinnable because of Russia's dominance is a Russian information operation, which gives us a glimpse of the Kremlin's real strategy and only real hope of success."For years, Russia has...

Governor Gavin Newsom bragged of a surplus, but California is seriously underwater. The next recession will hit the state extremely hard.Golden State Budget FantasyThe City Journal founder Ed Ring comments on the Golden State Budget FantasyWhile finalizing the upcoming fiscal year’s state budget back in May 2022, California governor Gavin Newsom boasted of an extraordinary projected surplus: $97 billion. The governor immediately collaborated with an enthusiastic state legislature to spend it all. Of course, new spending on new programs and benefits tends to become permanent.This has happened repeatedly in California. Between fiscal year 2012–13 and fiscal year 2022–23 (the year...