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Gregg: U.S. Could Be On Path To A 'Banana Republic' Situation
PoliticalTicker ^ | October 18th 2009

Posted on 10/18/2009 8:04:34 PM PDT by Steelfish

October 18, 2009

Gregg: U.S. Could Be On Path To A 'Banana Republic' Situation

From CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A leading fiscal mind on Capitol Hill and a one-time Obama Cabinet pick sounded the alarm Sunday over the projected long-term financial challenges the country faces. “This deficit is driven by us,” New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg candidly said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union when asked about the federal government’s projected $1.42 trillion operating deficit for the 2009 fiscal year.

“You talk about systemic risk. The systemic risk today is the Congress of the United States,“ the Ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, “that we’re creating these massive debts which we’re passing on to our children. We’re going to undermine fundamentally the quality of life for our children by doing this.”

“Now you can’t blame that on [former President] George [W.] Bush,” Greg said, noting that using the Obama administration’s projections the budget deficit for the next ten years is $1 trillion per year. And Gregg said that during the same ten-year period, public debt as a percentage of gross domestic product would increase from 40 percent — which Gregg called “tolerable but still too high” — up to 80 percent.

The figures, Gregg told King, “mean we’re basically on the path to a banana-republic-type of financial situation in this country.

And you just can’t do that. You can’t keep running these [federal] programs out [into the future] and not paying for them. And you can’t keep throwing debt on top of debt.”

“Standards of living will drop if we keep this up,” Gregg also said.

(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Politics
KEYWORDS: 111th; bananarepublic; byebyeusa; juddgregg; welcome3rdworld

1 posted on 10/18/2009 8:04:34 PM PDT by Steelfish
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To: Steelfish

This guy been sleeping under a rock??? We’re already there!!


2 posted on 10/18/2009 8:05:54 PM PDT by Doc Savage (SOBAMP!)
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To: Steelfish

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2365396/posts?page=17#17


3 posted on 10/18/2009 8:07:09 PM PDT by LibFreeOrDie (Obama promised a gold mine, but will give us the shaft.)
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To: LibFreeOrDie

Oops-apologies.


4 posted on 10/18/2009 8:08:41 PM PDT by Steelfish
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To: Steelfish
The systemic risk today is the Congress of the United States

Yes we are

5 posted on 10/18/2009 8:09:18 PM PDT by GeronL (They Made It Happen On Purpose Economically. MIHOPE)
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To: Doc Savage

We are on the path but we ain’t there yet.


6 posted on 10/18/2009 8:09:39 PM PDT by GeronL (They Made It Happen On Purpose Economically. MIHOPE)
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To: Doc Savage

Indeed, sadly, I happen to agree with you.


7 posted on 10/18/2009 8:13:32 PM PDT by Steelfish
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To: Steelfish

HE’S RIGHT....

Obamais monetizing BILLIONS of dollars in ebt, nearly every day now, and only Fox Biz News even DARES to mention it.


8 posted on 10/18/2009 8:17:53 PM PDT by tcrlaf ("Hope" is the most Evil of all Evils"-Neitzsche)
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To: Steelfish

The GOP handed the Rat’s a loaded gun by refusing to cut spending. Third party or bust.


9 posted on 10/18/2009 8:25:00 PM PDT by VRWC For Truth (Throw the bums out who vote yes on the bail out)
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To: GeronL

>We are on the path but we ain’t there yet.

Why do you say that?
We live in a country where the supreme court has decided that wheat grown in one state and not sold falls under the interstate commerce clause because if he hadn’t he would have had to buy on the market and his lack of buying on the market impacted the interstate commerce... this is equivalent to convecting every vehicle owner of vehicular homicide because at any given point in time the owner MIGHT decide to use the vehicle to run someone down that could POSSIBLY kill them.

IE, in such a country we could achieve roughly the same tax-effect of cap-n-trade by applying the above argument to breathing. Your breathing impacts the carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere, which in-turn impact the growth of plants, which in-turn impacts agriculture as a whole, which in-turn impacts interstate commerce... your supposed right to life notwithstanding, your action of breathing impacts interstate transactions and is therefore regulatable (read taxable).

QED, we live in a country where the law means whatever the government says it means; if the sky is declared to be neon construction-worker-vest green then that’s what it is legally speaking, reality notwithstanding. Obviously that is not the intent of a Constitution by which the government was intended to be bound by.


10 posted on 10/18/2009 8:54:33 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: Doc Savage

We’re already there!!

no, not yet, but close
once we have double digit inflation we will be there. i don’t know why we don’t yet, but it is not too late.


11 posted on 10/18/2009 9:13:25 PM PDT by genghis
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To: OneWingedShark

The pieces are falling into place, no doubt. We ARE on that road but it is not yet irreversible. I think the 2010 or 2012 elections could be the end of the road. Its hard to tell.


12 posted on 10/18/2009 9:14:03 PM PDT by GeronL (They Made It Happen On Purpose Economically. MIHOPE)
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To: tcrlaf

=inflation first

=unsustainable debt along the way

= collapse of the currency

= monetary death of the USA

=death of the west and technology

= death of the golden goose

And then officially ushering in the new era... the Obamanana REpublic where all are equally broke doing the beck and call of the Obamanana republic


13 posted on 10/18/2009 9:30:25 PM PDT by himno hero
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