Posted on 02/08/2012 4:16:52 AM PST by Kaslin
Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of federal revenues will go for Social Security and Medicare payments. The unfunded liability of both programs is already $106 trillion.
But not to worry. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it's possible to sustain today's level of federal spending and even achieve a balanced budget. All that Congress would have to do is raise the lowest income tax bracket of 10 percent to 25 percent and the middle tax bracket of 25 percent to 66 percent and raise the 35 percent tax bracket to 92 percent. That's a static vision that assumes that people will have no response and they'll work just as hard and send more money to Washington. If Congress did legislate such tax increases, it would be the economic equivalent of committing national hara-kiri.
Professor Daniel Klein, editor of Econ Journal Watch, and Professor Tyler Cowen, general director of the Mercatus Center, both based at George Mason University, organized a symposium to promote a better understanding of the U.S. debt crisis. The symposium's title, "U.S. Sovereign Debt Crisis: Tipping-Point Scenarios and Crash Dynamics" (http://econjwatch.org), is a strong hint about the seriousness of our nation's plight.
Professor Cowen introduced the symposium pointing out that in 2011, the major crisis was in the eurozone, where Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland dealt with the risk of default. The survival of the eurozone is now seriously doubted. Cowen added: "When it comes to a sovereign debt crisis, it is no longer possible to say 'it can't happen here.' Right now, we are borrowing about 40 cents of every dollar the federal government spends, and the imbalance has no end in sight."
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, associate professor of economics at San Jose State University, says that a default on Treasury securities appears inevitable. He says that the short-run consequences for the economy will be painful but that the long-run consequences, both political and economic, could be beneficial. That's because an economic collapse is the only way we will come to our senses. That's a tragic statement about the foresight of the American people.
Participant Garrett Jones, associate professor of economics at George Mason University, is a bit more optimistic, seeing default as being less likely. But he argues that "default is still possible, and the GOP offers a uniquely American path to default: an unwillingness to raise taxes."
Dr. Arnold Kling is a member of the Financial Market Working Group at the Mercatus Center and tells us that the "U.S. government has made a set of promises that it cannot keep." He says that the "promises that are most important to change are Social Security and Medicare."
Joseph J. Minarik is senior vice president and director of research at the Committee for Economic Development. He argues that a "U.S. financial meltdown today is eminently avoidable. The wealthiest nation on earth, despite a painful economic slowdown, maintains the wherewithal to pay its bills. The open question is whether it maintains the will and the wisdom."
Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns chair in financial policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He agrees with Kling that "the most likely source of a U.S. sovereign debt crisis ... is a failure of the U.S. political system to address the growth of the major entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid."
My translation of the symposium's conclusions is that it is by no means preordained that our nation must suffer the same decline as have other great nations of the past -- England, France, Spain, Portugal and the Ottoman and Roman empires. All evidence suggests that we will suffer a similar decline because, as Professor Cowen says, "the American electorate has dug in against both major tax increases and major spending cuts."
What if Obama made you work for free and then made you pay taxes on what you would have made if you were paid?
If Americans had good character the "crisis" would end immediately, and government would smoothly ratchet spending back down to the levels of a decade ago. The world wouldn't end. Maybe a few politicians might deservedly lose their seats over their failure to buy off certain pressure groups. Maybe a few carrier battle groups would go away. Maybe old people would have to use Advil instead of some $500/dose prescription drug that's only marginally more effective. Maybe high speed rail would remain a European fetish. Maybe some rioters would end up taking a bullet when they try to burn down their cities. And maybe the best among us would be free to be great again.
The downfall of Greece is eerily similar----it was recently revealed that the "all-knowing" GREEK govt was hollowed out from within----with some 535 fully-staffed govt departments that had no discernible purpose.
More economic nightmares below.
Stunning.
That’s really the only word we can use to describe the release of a “sensitive and confidential” 57 page memo, written by then soon-to-be U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in December 2008, about what became President Obama’s signature economic program in the first year of his presidency: the “stimulus package”.
James Pethokoukis has summarized some of the most significant aspects of the memo, which we’ve excerpted below, and which reveals the Obama administration’s thinking behind what became an over 821 billion dollar boondoggle. The bold text represents Pethokoukis’ summary of that thinking, which is directly followed by a supporting quotation from Larry Summers’ memo:
1. The stimulus was about implementing the Obama agenda. The short-run economic imperative was to identify as many campaign promises or high priority items that would spend out quickly and be inherently temporary.... The stimulus package is a key tool for advancing clean energy goals and fulfilling a number of campaign commitments.
2. Team Obama knows these deficits are dangerous (although it has offered no long-term plan to deal with them). Closing the gap between what the campaign proposed and the estimates of the campaign offsets would require scaling back proposals by about $100 billion annually or adding new offsets totaling the same. Even this, however, would leave an average deficit over the next decade that would be worse than any post-World War II decade. This would be entirely unsustainable and could cause serious economic problems in the both the short run and the long run.
3. Obamanomics was pricier than advertised. Your campaign proposals add about $100 billion per year to the deficit largely because rescoring indicates that some of your revenue raisers do not raise as much as the campaign assumed and some of your proposals cost more than the campaign assumed.... Treasury estimates that repealing the tax cuts above $250,000 would raise about $40 billion less than the campaign assumed.... The health plan is about $10 billion more costly than the campaign estimated and the health savings are about $25 billion lower than the campaign estimated.
4. Even Washington can only spend so much money so fast. Constructing a package of this size, or even in the $500 billion range, is a major challenge. While the most effective stimulus is government investment, it is difficult to identify feasible spending projects on the scale that is needed to stabilize the macroeconomy. Moreover, there is a tension between the need to spend the money quickly and the desire to spend the money wisely. To get the package to the requisite size, and also to address other problems, we recommend combining it with substantial state fiscal relief and tax cuts for individuals and businesses.
5. Liberals can complain about the stimulus having too many tax cuts, but even Team Obama thought more spending was unrealistic. As noted above, it is not possible to spend out much more than $225 billion in the next two years with high-priority investments and protections for the most vulnerable. This total, however, falls well short of what economists believe is needed for the economy, both in total and especially in 2009. As a result, to achieve our macroeconomic objectives—minimally the 2.5 million job goal—will require other sources of stimulus including state fiscal relief, tax cuts for individuals, or tax cuts for businesses.
6. Team Obama thought a stimulus plan of more than $1 trillion would spook financial markets and send interest rates climbing. To accomplish a more significant reduction in the output gap would require stimulus of well over $1 trillion based on purely mechanical assumptions—which would likely not accomplish the goal because of the impact it would have on markets.
REALITY CHECK Obama presided over the biggest political heist in US history. The Obamanations (insiders and politicians) sucked up trillions under the guise of inheriting the "Bush financial crisis."
THIS MADE ME LAUGH OUT LOUD Obama COS Rahm Emanuel "suddenly" discovered he wanted to be Chicago's mayor---the little turn went before the mics and announced his campaign "raised $10 million in just a few weeks." Rahm also controlled the US Treasury as COS.
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What the so-called "collapse" of the banking system wrought under Obama:
FOURTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS Behind The Real Size of the Bailout; A guide to the abbreviations, acronyms, and obscure programs that make up the $14 trillion federal bailout of Wall Street
SOURCE motherjones.com
Mon Dec. 21, 2009 12:23 PM PST
The price tag for the Wall Street bailout is often put at $700 billion—the size of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. But TARP is just the best known program in an array of more than 30 overseen by Treasury Department and Federal Reserve that have paid out or put aside money to bail out financial firms and inject money into the markets.
To get a sense of the size of the real $14 trillion bailout, see our chart at web site. Below, a guide to the pieces of the puzzle:
Treasury Department bailout programs
(Remember that Obama's Treasury Dept was controlled by his then-COS Rahm Emanuel---a G/S lobbyist in the WH)
Money Market Mutual Fund: In September 2008, the Treasury announced that it would insure the holdings of publicly offered money market mutual funds. According to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), these guarantees could have potentially cost the federal government more than $3 trillion [PDF].
Public-Private Investment Fund: This joint Treasury-Federal Reserve program bought toxic assets from banks and brokerages—as much as $5 billion of assets per firm. According to SIGTARP, the government's potential exposure from the PPIF is between $500 million and $1 trillion [PDF].
TARP: As part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Treasury has made loans to or investments more than 750 banks and financial institutions. $650 billion has been paid out (not including HAMP; see below). As of December 21, 2009, $117.5 billion of that has been repaid.
Government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) stock purchase: The Treasury has bought $200 million in preferred stock from Fannie Mae and another $200 million from Freddie Mac [PDF] to show that they "will remain viable entities critical to the functioning of the housing and mortgage markets."
GSE mortgage-backed securities purchase: Under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the Treasury may buy mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. According to SIGTARP, these purchases could cost as much as $314 billion ---SNIP---.
LONG READ---go to web site to read more and checkout the shocking financial charts.
SOURCE http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/behind-real-size-bailout
New York (CNNMoney) - More than one in three Americans lived in households that received Medicaid, food stamps or other means-based government assistance, according to a new report. And when Social Security, Medicare and unemployment benefits are included, nearly half of the nation lived in a household that received a government check, according to the analysis of third-quarter 2010 Census data done by the Mercatus Center at George Washington University. That's more than 148 million Americans.(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
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Unemployment checks are said to be contributing to Greece's downfall. People get jobs and work 6 mos----just to qualify---then sit back and collect UI for a year.
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US GETTING BILKED BIGTIME
Illegal Manuel Mejia Ordonez ordered to repay $3M in Calif employment fraud
San Francisco Chronicle | June 26, 2010
FR Posted June 26, 2010 by artichokegrower
A former Marysville resident has been sentenced to prison and ordered to pay back $3 million in fraudulently obtained unemployment compensation.
US Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner said 31-year-old Manuel Mejia Ordonez was sentenced to eight years and one month in prison for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and identity theft. (Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
QUESTION How does a citizen of Mexico make $3 million in unemployment claims? A. By establishing multiple identities. The fraudster, Manuel Mejia Ordonez, got eight years for conspiracy to commit mail fraud........and identity theft.
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A common practice among "impoverished" illegals is to buy several forged identities for several thousand dollars each---- to vote and to ride the US gravy train under several names.
Jose Madrigal---the Washington state rapist---had some 30 identities.
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THE "JUST HERE FOR A BETTER LIFE" SCAM "Impoverished" illegals buy multiple fake identities for several thousand dollars each. Jose Madrigal---the Washington State rapist---had some 30 identities.
A family of four can have an income of $30,000 a year and still qualify for food stamps----with just one identity. A single mother, with two children who has a full time job that pays $7.25 an hour has an effective income of $48,000 a year when you add all the benefits she and her children receive from the government: food stamps, Medicaid coverage, subsidized child care, school lunch program, “Temporary” Assistance to Needy Families, subsidized housing, Earned Income Tax Credit, etc......with just one identity.
REFERENCE The Federal ID that Pays Illegal Aliens Billions -----November 28, 2011
......a recent analysis entitled, “Treasury Department Says Illegal Aliens Collection Billions in Tax Credits,” revealed that according to the Department of Treasury’s Inspector General, more than $4.2 billion in additional child credits were paid out in 2010 to illegal immigrants. In 2005, the pay outs totaled $924 million. This program allows low income earners to claim a $1,000 per child credit.
EITC claims---can run up to over $3000 per claim. $20 billion is estimated to have been paid out to these cunning "impoverished" illegals. Most of them are collecting over and over again-----using multiple identities-----falsifying apps---claiming children they do not have and/or falsely stating kids are back in their homelands.
You are singing my song!
LLS
The fairtax concept, a major rethinking of how we pay for government, would spur saving and investment and repatriation of money to America!
LLS
That is what is coming... one way or the other.
LLS
LLS
LLS
LLS
I guess being called a “Capitalist” is like being called a “cracker”...
it just doesn’t sting.
Quite right, Sir. They’re playing at King of the Hill. Lead hyena gets the heart and liver.
We’d have to cut federal spending 50% across the board to pay this debt off in 30 years.
Ain’t no way recipients of gov’t spending would stand for it.
Next step is hyperinflation, then war. Stock up, folks.
Yes - in terms of "taxation by teleportation". When a new dollar is created by fiat, its value is extracted from all other dollars. Trivial for a single dollar, huge impact when issuing a trillion of 'em. (BTW: there's less than US$3T cash in circulation, hoarding included.)
Taxable imputed income.
An evil concept whose time is just about here.
BFL
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