Free Republic

We wrote for the weekend (see our column Sunday morning when it goes up here) that Gov. Jerry Brown is a bad guesser. The ink wasn’t even dry yet – in fact the Sunday paper hasn’t even been printed yet – and we learn that Brown guessed wrong again. Back in January Brown guessed that the state budget would be $9.2 billion in the red. Wrong. Monday Brown revised his estimate. Then he said it would be $15.7 billion in the red. Wrong. Today the independent Legislative Analyst affirmed that Jerry’s wrong again. It will be $17 billion plus some...

The huge tax increases proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown are becoming much less popular as voters learn more about them. At the rate of decline in popularity over just the past two months, there may be no one left in California who will vote for the higher taxes by the time November balloting arrives, save, of course, Mr. Brown and the principal beneficiaries, public employee union members to whom he panders. Meanwhile, an analysis by the state Board of Equalization, which handles state business taxes, has weighed the impact of the governor's higher taxes and found them quite costly. The...

Thanks to an explosion of Keynesian deficit spending around the world, an explosion that has predictably correlated with weak economic output, major ink is being spilled about the economic crack-up unfolding before our eyes. To state the obvious, wasteful, capital destroying governments can only spend what they first extract from the private sector. SNIP The first lie we're regularly told about budget deficits. Supposedly the latter are bad, but looked at through a basic economic prism, would we prefer a balanced budget in the U.S. that coincides with $3 trillion in annual spending, or an annual budget deficit of $500...

Despite bipartisan promises to cut spending after the 2010 elections, Washington politicians are still voting to make the government even bigger and more expensive than ever. Don’t believe me? Even though the federal government is nearly $15 trillion in debt, it’s spending at record-high levels. Federal spending has gone up 5 percent in the first nine months of this year alone. Just last week, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate passed three new spending bills to increase 2012 funding above 2011 funding levels. The bills will increase spending for the Department of Agriculture by $6.4 billion; for the Departments of...

In his nightly note, BTIG's Dan Greenhaus digs into the "Buffett Tax" and some math on the deficit. First he notes that over the next 10 years, deficits are estimated at around $6 trillion. Then he looks at what socking it to the rich actually gets us. Conclusions. It doesn't get us THAT far towards balancing the budget, but it's not nothing. The below table breaks down actual tax return data from the IRS from 2009, showing how many returns were filed at each income level, what their taxable income was, what tax they paid and what percentage of the...

In a 45 to 52 vote on Thursday night, the Senate failed to advance a resolution that would have disapproved of a pending $500 billion increase in the nation's debt ceiling. Under the debt-ceiling agreement reached in early August, the Obama administration was authorized to immediately raise the debt ceiling by $400 billion. Another $500 billion increase was authorized this month, although that could have been blocked if both the House and Senate approved resolutions expressing disapproval. Earlier in the day Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) threatened to hold the Senate open for up to ten hours on Friday...

Santa Cruz, Calif.- The Santa Cruz County Office of Education and Migrant Head Start program says they are still accepting more kids in their free childcare program. It's not your typical babysitter, the childcare providers are certified teachers who offer a learning environment. Meals and diapers are provided. To qualify families must have moved within the last 24 months and over 50% of their income must come from agriculture work. If you're interested contact Sonia Cervantes, Migrant Head Start Specialist at (831) 466-5852.

Media reports today are that a target of $2.4 trillion in deficit reductions is being negotiated to match an increase in the debt ceiling of $2.4 trillion to get the government funded into early 2013. The 18 months of borrowing from August 2011 through February 2013 works out to an annual rate of $1.6 trillion. That means the current deal allows for more deficit spending than FY 2011 ($1.5 trillion) and much more than the White House proposed earlier this year for FY 2012 ($1.1 trillion).The proposed deficit reductions are spread out over the next ten years and appears to...

The budget deficit for the month of May came in at $57.6 billion, way better than last year's $135.9 billion for the same period. It also came in better than expected for this year, about $1.4 billion less than expectations, which were for a $59 billion deficit. The improvement comes down to an increase in tax revenue, year-over-year, and the absence of bailout spending from last year.

Imagine you’re irresponsible. Now imagine you’re the people in charge of California’s government budget. But I repeat myself. Imagine you have run up your credit card and borrowed beyond what’s reasonable. Imagine now that you have too little money because you have a spending problem. Then imagine you get a windfall bundle of cash. What would you do? Pay some outstanding bills? Pay down your credit card? Nah. You’d spend it. . .

Lori Montgomery, a normally sensible budget reporter at the Washington Post, has written a confused and unbalanced article that seemingly blames the Bush tax cuts for the current budget woes and thus leads readers to the wrong solutions for the impending debt meltdown. The key indictment: The biggest culprit, by far, has been an erosion of tax revenue triggered largely by two recessions and multiple rounds of tax cuts. Together, the economy and the tax bills enacted under former president George W. Bush, and to a lesser extent by President Obama, wiped out $6.3 trillion in anticipated revenue. That’s nearly...

Some conservatives are getting nervous about the polls on Medicare.  Apparently about 80 percent of Americans are opposed to cuts in Medicare.  Mona Charen, for one, is steeling herself for the inevitable Mediscare campaign from the Democrats. The Democrats have always known how to scare the pants off grannie at any suggestion of cuts to Medicare and Social Security.  For years and years, Republicans didn't know how to respond to their Mediscare.  But now things are different.  These days the American people are good and scared about debts and deficits.  So it's now possible to scare the pants off...

WASHINGTON — A new budget estimate released Wednesday shows that the spending bill negotiated between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would produce less than 1 percent of the $38 billion in claimed savings by the end of this budget year. The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would pare just $352 million from the deficit through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending.

We expected Barack Obama to offer little new in his speech on the budget; I’m not sure we expected as much repetition as we got. Bookended by rhetoric on the kind of America in which he wanted to live, Obama gave a four-step plan to confront the massive and crippling deficits ahead of us that entirely relies on the kind of proposals he’s already aired in the past. He gave little in the way of specifics, and made no mention at all of his deficit commission again. Instead of offering specifics on cuts, Obama instead offered specifics on … more...

Obama’s budget credibility took a hit from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office this month, when CBO said the administration’s 2012 budget proposal will not deliver the deficit improvement in the coming decade that it promised. CBO’s analysis said deficits through 2021 would total $2.3 trillion more than those projected in the budget document prepared by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Instead of falling to 3 percent of GDP by 2017 and remaining near that level through 2021, CBO analysts say the deficit would never go below 4.1 percent of GDP and would begin to rise toward...

California Republicans, reduced to cheering and jeering from the sidelines because of their all-but-impotent political clout these days, still are “negotiating” over budget matters and other matters fiscal with Gov. Jerry Brown. He’s complained for a while that the Republicans hadn’t said what it is they want out of this ongoing drama. Now he knows. And now he’s complaining about that. . .

Alabama is the only state in the union which will not have a budget deficit in 2012. Seven other states have either not reported data or their budget deficit is “not applicable”. The current budget deficit for the fifty (not fifty-seven) states and the District of Columbia is now $125 billion. If each affected state was able to balance their budget using state worker reductions, this would amount to 2.5 million people out of work starting July 1st , 2011. This assumes an average salary of $50,000 per worker. If we assume an average salary of $40,000, this would increase...

It sounds so, well, fair on the face of it. Gov. Jerry Brown says it’s only right to fix the state budget deficit with equal amounts of reduced spending and increased taxes. Let’s not even consider for now the fact that it would be pretty dumb to give more tax money to people who have misspent and over-spent and otherwise wasted what they’ve already taken from taxpayers. Let’s just deal with the governor’s concept of fairness. . . . . . But let’s compare Brown’s actual “cuts” with the actual increased taxes Californians would pay, if the governor got his...

The Bay Area Council, a business group made up of 275 of the San Francisco area’s largest firms, today called on the state legislature to find a way to work with Governor Jerry Brown, and close the state’s $26.6 billion budget deficit. In a letter faxed to each member of the Senate and Assembly in Sacramento, the group urged members to “embrace the spirit of compromise.” The Council last week endorsed Brown’s plan after a meeting between Brown and the group’s executive committee (see story). Jim Wunderman, President and CEO of the Council, said at the time that not everything...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The government posted a record monthly budget deficit of $222.5 billion in February as spending growth outstripped revenue gains that were crimped by tax cuts enacted late last year, the Treasury Department reported on Thursday. The budget gap for February -- typically a large deficit month -- beat the previous record of $220.91 billion set in February 2010. But it came in under the consensus forecast of a $227.5 billion gap from analysts polled by Reuters.

Gov. Jerry Brown, asked Friday by a reporter in San Francisco about The Wall Street Journal’s report that he has met quietly with California Republicans who may support his budget plan, said he doesn’t read the Journal and declined to confirm any Republicans he is talking with privately. “I’m not going to blow their cover,” he said. Then he playfully mentioned the biblical story of Nicodemus, a Pharisee who is said to have visited Jesus in the middle of the night to avoid raising eyebrows among his colleagues. The governor compared the New Testament tale to his secret discussions with...

If Congressional Republicans need a little spine-stiffener in the budget battle, Rasmussen provides just the tonic. This poll question differs from the earlier survey by The Hill on the question of a government shutdown. Rather than focus on blame, Rasmussen instead asked about priorities in the debate over spending, and clearly the priority of the majority of likely voters isn’t continued government operations: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 33% of Likely U.S. Voters would rather have Congress avoid a government shutdown by authorizing spending at the same levels as last year. Fifty-eight percent (58%) says...

In Madison, Wis., thousands of public employees and their supporters have gathered to protest a plan by Gov. Scott Walker (R) and Republican legislators that would strip them of their collective bargaining rights. Some Democratic lawmakers have left the state, depriving the legislature of the quorum necessary to pass the plan.

We all know by now that Meredith is a witch: an unpatriotic, racist witch, who eats kittens for breakfast, who deserves to be grilled by Joe McCarthy's exhumated corpse for telling communist truths, pardon, lies (just a Freudian slip dear Department of Central Planning and Internet supervision), and who will soon be accused of having unprotected (yet arguably consensual) sex with a Swedish man. But just in case she is on to something, here comes the president's plan to bail out the (otherwise perfectly solvent and all, we promise) states. The NYT reports that "President Obama is proposing to ride...

Let’s look on the bright side: it’s another first for the Obama administration! Better yet, it’s the last accomplishment of the Democratic Congress, which proved so inept on budgeting that they couldn’t actually pass the FY2011 plan with large majorities in both chambers and a friendly President in the White House. The Washington Post reports that the CBO blames this in part on the “tax cuts� in the lame-duck agreement, but somehow glosses over the spending increases over the last four years: The weak economy and fresh tax cuts approved last month will help drive the federal budget deficit to...

The New Jersey Supreme Court appointed a judge to gather more evidence to help it decide whether Governor Chris Christie unlawfully cut $1 billion in school aid during a budget crisis. Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne will hold a hearing to gather facts and make conclusions of law on whether the cutbacks violated a funding formula for students in the poorest districts, the court ruled today.

If Republicans want to keep power, they are going to have to show the courage to make some very, very tough decisions. Although the polls are still in flux, it looks increasingly likely that Republicans will win a big victory next Tuesday. But that doesn’t mean that Americans have fallen in love with them. In fact, even as voters prepare to put Republicans in charge of the House and possibly even the Senate, polls show the Republican party to be only slightly more popular than used-car salesmen. A recent Pew poll showed that only 24 percent of voters approve of...

The top issues on the minds of Americans include the economy, jobs, “dissatisfaction” with government, the federal budget deficit, health care and immigration... Based on polls and my experience, a majority of women fear our children will grow up to find a world with fewer opportunities — and where 10 percent unemployment is the norm. We fear that when our sons and daughters start working, most of their paychecks will be consumed by taxes used to pay the debts we incurred. The women with whom I’ve spoken are outraged at how government recklessly spends our money. We care when government...

The U.S. government spent itself deeper into the red last month, paying nearly $20 billion in interest on debt and an additional $9.8 billion to help unemployed Americans. Federal spending eclipsed revenue for the 22nd straight time, the Treasury Department said Wednesday. The $165.04 billion deficit, while a bit smaller than than the $169.5 billion shortfall expected by economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires, was the second highest for the month on record. The highest was $ 180.68 billion in July 2009. SNIP

White House budget chief Peter Orszag said on Wednesday it would be "foolish" to cut the U.S. deficit while economic growth was still frail, but it would be equally foolish not to significantly curb the deficit by 2015. Orszag told an audience at The Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank, that failing to take real steps toward closing the record U.S. budget gap would do as much harm to the economy has choking off fiscal stimulus now. It was his last public speech before stepping down as head of the White House Office of Management and Budget on Friday. SNIP The...

Man, I miss the fiscal discipline of the Bush era!Gulp. I never expected to write those words. The Bush-era Republicans were out-of-control big spenders, fiending for appropriations, handing out largesse, creating giant new health-care entitlements here, building nations there, all with a devil-may-care attitude about where the money would come from. They were all carrot and no stick, cutting taxes but not doing a thing about spending.And then: A mid-year budget review by the Obama administration forecasts the deficit will be $1.47 trillion this year and $1.42 trillion next year as the U.S. struggles to recover from the recession. This...

Democrats have been running Congress for nearly four years, and President Obama has been at the White House for 18 months, so it's not too soon to ask: How's that working out? One devastating scorecard came out Friday from the White House, in the form of its own semi-annual budget review. The message: Tax revenues are smaller, spending is greater, and the deficits are thus larger than the White House has been saying. No wonder it dumped the news on the eve of a sweltering mid-July weekend. Mr. Obama inherited a recession, so let's give him a pass on the...

PHOTO CAPTION: "Correspondents say the deal is part of Washington's attempts to counter anti-US sentiment in Pakistan" SNIPPET: "US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced aid projects worth $7.5bn (£5bn) for Pakistan at the start of talks in the capital Islamabad. The package, agreed by Congress last year, is part of Washington's attempts to counter anti-American sentiment in the country, correspondents say. The five-year deal includes projects for two hydro-electric dams and renewable energy sources."

Hoping to lift sagging confidence in President Barack Obama's economic leadership, the White House will make the case on Wednesday that his policies are creating jobs and spurring private investment. A report to be unveiled at 11 a.m. EDT will estimate that Obama's $862 billion economic stimulus package, which passed last year, has saved or created 3 million jobs and is on track to meet its goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of this year. The analysis from the White House Council of Economic Advisers will say that government funding of clean energy, economic development, construction projects and...

Schäuble moots hiking 'solidarity' tax to help rescue budget Published: 3 Jun 10 18:32 CET Online: http://www.thelocal.de/money/20100603-27631.html As the German government scrambles to rein in the ballooning deficit, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has reportedly proposed a hike in so-called 'solidarity' surcharge - the unpopular reunification tax. In one of the more surprising ideas being thrown about, Schäuble stunned his senior colleagues by suggesting raising the Soli surcharge from the present 5.5 percent of a worker’s income tax to 8 percent, the Financial Times Deutschland reported Thursday. The solidarity surcharge was set up nearly 20 years ago to pay for the...

The $145 billion “extenders” package that the Obama administration and its allies in Congress are attempting to pass has revealed most of what they told us publicly over the last 18 months — about the stimulus, the health-care bill, the budget deficit, and taxes — to be a gusher of lies. BP has apparently plugged the hole that was hemorrhaging oil into the Gulf. Who will plug the hole Obama and his never-ending stimulus have blown in the U.S. budget? The $145 billion is above all an extension of the $800 billion stimulus bill that passed last year. We were...

WASHINGTON – The federal budget deficit hit an all-time high for the month of April as government revenue fell sharply. The Treasury Department said Wednesday the April deficit soared to $82.7 billion, the largest imbalance for that month on record. That was significantly higher than last year's April deficit of $20 billion and above the $30 billion deficit private economists had anticipated. The government normally runs surpluses in April as millions of taxpayers file their income tax returns. However, income tax payments were down this April, reflecting the impact of a severe recession which has pushed millions of people out...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's updated budget proposal won't be unveiled until Friday, but Assembly Democrats are already responding to the yet-to-be released May revise. Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez and Assembly Budget Committee Chair Bob Blumenfield are holding a 10 a.m. presser to lay out their expectations and pledge to maintain openness in the budget process. Those promises include bucking the Big 5 meetings and televising committee hearings online.

Obama: Is He Helping Or Hurting Your Business? Timothy Shea has been providing IT solutions for 21 years and has never worked as hard or felt as much economic pressure. Shea, CEO and senior consultant at Alpha NetSolutions, a solution provider based in Marlborough, Mass., says his income as the owner of an "S" corporation that files a personal tax return has dropped 25 percent from 2007 to 2009. At the same time, the health-care costs for his eight-employee, $1.2 million business have doubled over the past three years. Shea is one of many small-business solution providers interviewed for this...

US Stock Market is $18 Trillion US Residential Real Estate $23 Trillion US Commercial Real Estate $5 Trillion US GDP $14 Trillion US National Debt $13 Trillion 2009 Federal Spending $3.5 Trillion 2009 Federal Receipts $2.1 Trillion US Household Debt $14 Trillion US Federal Land Value (Unknown)

BATON ROUGE -- Slumping tax collections have punched a $319 million hole in the state budget, a forecasting panel determined Wednesday, giving Gov. Bobby Jindal and the state Legislature less than 10 weeks to decide what mix of spending cuts and one-time revenue sources should be used to fill the gap. In addition to lowering the current-year forecast, the Revenue Estimating Conference, a four-member panel that decides how much the state can spend each year, also lowered the forecast for the 2010-11 fiscal year that begins July 1 by $245 million. State officials have been anticipating another round of midyear...

Mr. Obama said the government takeover of health care would "lift burdens" off the middle class and reduce the deficit "by more than $1 trillion over the next two decades." Yet this questionable claim is a paltry sum compared to the trillions of dollars of debt Mr. Obama's policies will levy on the same middle class he pretends to be helping.... Mr. Obama can make all the claims he wants about his fiscal responsibility but, unlike some politicians, the numbers don't lie.

Economy: A major problem this administration has is it continually downplays the power of free markets to right themselves. That was apparent in remarks made by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on Thursday. Speaking on NBC's "Today" show, Geithner said the bailouts and buyouts and other aid to companies were "deeply unfair" — especially given the way it's played out. True enough, today many companies are reporting booming earnings. Even banks look healthier. Average joes don't look so good. More than 8 million have been laid off since the recession began in December 2007, and unemployment at 9.7% is "terribly high...

As part of the White House Forum for Workplace Flexibility, the CEA released a report today presenting an economic perspective on flexible workplace policies and practices. Work-Life Balance and the Economics of Workplace Flexibility (pdf) highlights changes in American society over the past half century, including the increased number of women entering the labor force, the prevalence of families where all adults work, increasing eldercare responsibilities, and the rising importance of continuing education. These changes are among those that have increased the need for flexibility in the workplace. This increased need can be met with flexibility in terms of when...

Entitlements: Social Security's chief actuary reports that the social safety net will run a deficit for 2010, nine years earlier than predicted. Put down that big gavel, Madam Speaker, we're about to hit the iceberg. No sooner had House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, carrying the gavel used when Medicare was enacted, taken a victory lap around the Capitol Building after passage of the health care bill than did the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration report that his part of the social safety net had a big hole in it and would run a deficit for all of 2010. Stephen...

The Obama administration plans to overhaul how it's tackling the foreclosure crisis, in part by requiring lenders to temporarily slash or eliminate monthly mortgage payments for many borrowers who are unemployed, senior officials said Thursday. Banks and other lenders would have to reduce the payments to no more than 31 percent of a borrower's income, which would typically be their unemployment insurance, for up to six months. In some cases, administration officials said, a lender could allow a borrower to make no payments at all. The new push, which the White House is scheduled to announce Friday, takes direct aim...

Today, after almost a century of trying; today, after over a year of debate; today, after all the votes have been tallied — health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America. Today. It is fitting that Congress passed this historic legislation this week. For as we mark the turning of spring, we also mark a new season in America. In a few moments, when I sign this bill, all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform. And while the Senate still has a last round of improvements to make on this...

<p>Last week, Moody's released guidance stating that the US and UK Aaa bond ratings are at risk. Debt levels are rising rapidly to levels where those ratings cannot be maintained, and avoiding that outcome will require "fiscal adjustments" -- read, spending cuts and/or tax increases -- that are likely to "test social cohesion."</p>

"Congress Votes to Socialize Health Care in United States" Monday, March 22, 2010 By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief SNIPPET: "According to the CBO, by 2016, the cheapest family health care plan that Americans will be required to buy under the law will cost $12,000 per year. The average family plan will cost $15,200. A family of four making $88,201 per year—or more than 400 percent of the poverty level—will not receive any federal subsidy to purchase such a plan. They will pay taxes, however, to subsidize the health care purchases of people earning less than 400 percent of poverty. According...

"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. " Federalist 10, James Madison In the late 1990's I managed a large portfolio for a German re-insurance company. I loved visiting my client in the quaint city of Cologne. Church bells, spires, street markets with handmade goods including colorful steins and wooden nutcrackers, baked goods that looked like works of art in shop windows. Though I was working I felt like I had been transported to a surreal fairyland. Except for one thing. The persistent double-digit unemployment. I asked my client about the cause of Germany's relentless unemployment. His reply?...