Free Republic

The most brilliant man in the universe said in 2008: "We are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression..." "The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."Sure sounds like he meant "the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."Now he says he had no idea how bad it was. "So, the die had been cast, but a lot of us didn't understand at that point how bad it was going to get. That increases the deficit because less tax revenues come in, and it means that more people are getting unemployment insurance, we're helping states more so they...

Obama’s phony recoveryBy Dick Morris - 02/14/12 06:11 PM ET President Obama, faced with no recovery from the recession as he enters an election year, has come up with a handy political gimmick: Fake the statistics. The economic data that portend recovery are totally and completely inventions of Obama’s political operation. The reality is that no recovery is taking place! Economist James Fitzgibbon, of the Highlander Fund, explains how cooked the economic statistics on which the president bases his claims of recovery really are. Begin with “gains” in the stock market. Fitzgibbon explains that they are no indication of changes...

President Obama's new budget, with its trillion dollar deficit and interest payments of $5.6 trillion on the debt over the next decade, is only part of America's unfunded liability. The state and local pension crisis is the subject of a new report by the Republican staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, entitled "State and Local Government Defined Benefit Pension Plans: The Pension Debt Crisis that Threatens America." Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said last month, "Today, public pension debt stands at an alarming $4.4 trillion with outstanding state and...

n an interview with Atlanta's local Fox affiliate WAGA-TV Preisdent Obama explains why he was unable to cut the deficit in half in his first term, a promise he made as a candidate. Obama was lobbed the question by a sympathetic reporter who said he is getting "pelted in the media" for making a campaign promise he did not keep.

During an interview with WAGA, President Obama attempted to make excuses for his failed promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office.

When animated television tyke Lisa Simpson had to announce a tax increase to the American public, she deftly called it a "temporary refund adjustment," avoiding any mention of the three-letter T-word. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration stole a page from The Simpsons last week, repackaging a projected deficit in his new budget as a conditional surplus -- all without using the D-word. But while Lisa earned accolades from the fictional voters who only heard her mention a "refund," it remains unclear whether Malloy effectively steered the political debate -- and media coverage -- away from the $424 million hole his...

Federal budgets are by definition political documents, but even by that standard yesterday's White House proposal for fiscal year 2013 is a brilliant bit of misdirection. With the abracadabra of a tax increase on the wealthy and defense spending cuts that will never materialize, the White House asserts that in President Obama's second term revenues will soar, outlays will fall, and $1.3 trillion annual deficits will be cut in half like the lady in the box on stage. All voters need to do is suspend disbelief for another nine months. And ignore the first four years. The real news in...

Despite increased economic activity that will bring additional tax revenues to the government. Barack Obama's budget to be released on Monday shows an increase in the budget deficit from last year.The Hill: President Obama's 2013 budget due out Monday will estimate the deficit for 2012 to be $1.33 trillion, higher than the $1.29 trillion deficit in 2011, according to senior administration officials.The increase happens largely because the budget assumes enactment of a $350 billion stimulus package, including extension of the payroll tax cut. That package is a scaled-down version of the $447 billion American Jobs Act that Obama proposed...

Obama budget sees increased deficitBy Erik Wasson - 02/10/12 06:07 PM ET President Obama’s 2013 budget due out Monday will estimate the deficit for 2012 to be $1.33 trillion, higher than the $1.29 trillion deficit in 2011, according to senior administration officials. The increase happens largely because the budget assumes enactment of a $350 billion stimulus package, including extension of the payroll tax cut. That package is a scaled-down version of the $447 billion American Jobs Act that Obama proposed in the fall. The budget estimates that the deficit in 2013 will be $901 billion. This means that Obama will...

WASHINGTON — In the final budget proposal of his term, President Obama on Monday will revive the deficit-reduction and job-creation proposals he first called for last September and forecast a $1.3 trillion deficit for this fiscal year that drops to $901 billion next year, administration officials said on Friday. The election-year budget calls for more than $350 billion in short-term spending and payroll-tax cuts to continue spurring the economy like those in the September plan, including proposals for infrastructure projects and subsidies to states to help keep teachers and first responders in their jobs, requests that Congressional Republicans have blocked...

Worth watching.... and thinking about. But do so soon, because if we don't the system will collapse, and then there will be no benefits at all. Bill puts into graphs in a couple of minutes what I've been writing about for the last five years. Your choice is to either act on it or go to the store, right now, and buy all the vasoline you can find -- because if you don't act you're going to need it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u24nH03NccI&feature=player_embedded#!

TAPPER: President Obama is going to be introducing his outline for a budget. Fed Chair Bernanke has said the lack of a budget having been passed by the Senate has had an adverse affect on growth because it’s created uncertainty. Harry Reid has said that he doesn’t think there’s a need to introduce a budget this year. Who does the president think is right, Harry Reid or Ben Bernanke? CARNEY: Well, I think the president will be presenting his budget. That budget has spending caps set based on the Budget Control Act. And his budget will reflect the need for...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley may be more skilled at implementing President Obama’s agenda than the White House itself. The Democratic governor is bringing the same big-spending, high-tax and class-warfare policies to the Free State. It’s going to cost residents a bundle. Tough economic times have forced ordinary Americans to cut back in order to get by. Not so Mr. O’Malley, who spends $35.9 billion in the budget released last month. That’s up from $34.2 billion last year and $32 billion the year before that. As Maryland Business for Responsive Government points out, the general fund budget fattened 11.4 percent last...

-snip- Bernanke told the House Budget Committee that he recognizes that huge budget deficits represent a serious threat to the economy -snip- "I think this policy runs the great risk of fueling asset bubbles, destabilizing prices and eventually eroding the value of the dollar," Ryan told Bernanke. "The prospect of all three is adding to uncertainty and holding our economy back."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ben Bernanke is urging lawmakers to balance their desire to cut deficits with policies that could help boost the weak economy in the short run. Bernanke said Thursday in prepared testimony for the House Budget Committee hearing that he recognizes that huge budget deficits represent a serious threat to the economy. "Even as fiscal policymakers address the urgent issue of fiscal sustainability, they should take care not to unnecessarily impede the current economic recovery," Bernanke says. "Fortunately, the two goals ... are fully compatible."

Newt Gingrich has proposed a very aggressive, comprehensive, supply side, jobs and economic recovery plan. That includes an optional 15% flat tax, reducing the federal corporate tax rate to 12.5%, eliminating the tax on capital gains, abolishing the death tax, and immediate expensing for capital investment. The plan includes as well reforming the Fed to mandate that it follow a price rule to maintain a stable dollar without inflation. It would also slash regulatory costs and barriers, including repeal of Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes-Oxley, and Obamacare, replacing the EPA, and modernizing the FDA. It would especially roll back regulatory barriers to energy...

Blaise Ingoglia, producer of the website “Government Gone Wild!”, was our speaker at the Manatee Tea Party last night. He has produced several short videos to explain the political mess we are in. Click on the link, watch the videos, and forward this message. http://governmentgonewild.org/ Some of the titles of his videos are: Brother, Can You Spare a Trillion? “Land of the Freebies, Home of the Enslaved” Special Interests…Exposed! Welcome To The United “Waste” of America

This will make you laugh and cry at the same time...Please share.

Debt Lies By Obama...True Chart Shown From the Washington Post: on the obvious Lies in the Chart above. "... this chart, originally created by the office of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, is as phony as a three-dollar bill. Our friends at PolitiFact did a pretty thorough takedown of it in May, giving it their worst rating: “pants on fire.” They even caught the Pelosi people in a bad mathematical error, based on the fact that the Democrats calculated the numbers as if Obama took office a year later than he did." The Obama Administration has failed so miserably, that...

Obama delays budget for 2013 By Erik Wasson - 01/23/12 02:08 PM ET President Obama will release his 2013 budget one week late, an administration official said Monday, the third time the administration has missed the legal deadline. Under the law, the budget is to be released on the first Monday in February, but the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will be releasing the 2013 budget on Feb. 13. The Obama administration also delayed the release of the budget last year, waiting until Feb. 14. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the delay is symptomatic of a...

Obama Was Warned By His Economic Team That His Campaign Promises Would Create A Mountain Of Debt Michael Brendan Dougherty Jan. 23, 2012, 8:57 AM Ryan Lizza reports for the New Yorker that on December 15 2008, a few short weeks before his inauguration, president-elect Obama was presented with a 57-page memo on the depth of the economic crisis drafted by Lawrence Summers and other economic advisors. The memo informed the president that if he enacted his campaign promises in the current environment, he would shoot a gigantic hole into the nation's budget. “Since January 2007 the medium-term budget deficit...

After saddling the country with as much new debt as the rest of the world combined in one year flat, one would think that Uncle Sam wouldn’t have the cojones to dish out debt advice to others. But one would be wrong. In an unwitting self-parody worthy of Froma Harrop on The Daily Show, the Federal Trade Commission has created a step-by-step web guide for Americans “Knee-Deep in Debt.” The first step, says the agency, which represents a government that went over 800 days without passing a budget, is: create a budget! Get a “realistic assessment of how much money...

While politicians may debate whether or not America is the most "generous" (with other generations' money of course) socialist welfare state in the history of mankind, the undoctored numbers make the affirmative case quite clear and without any chance for confusion. The single most disturbing statistic: in 2011 nearly half of the population lived in a household that receives some form of government benefit, which in turn accounted for 65% of total federal spending, or $2.5 trillion, and amount to 15% of GDP. And yet some people out there still think these people, long since indoctrinated to do little but...

GRIDLOCK in Congress implies that there won’t be any collective decision to spend more as a nation to get out of our slump. Increases in deficit spending seem unlikely, and so does the balanced-budget stimulus I’ve been advocating in this column. For now, we must pin our hopes for a robust recovery on the willingness of millions of consumers to spend substantially more. But what really drives consumer spending? Economists are reasonably good at divining how consumers tend to react to changes in government policy, but in the absence of such policy, and when the economy is in the doldrums,...

When back in August, Europe declared a short selling ban of any financials (here we are willing to channel Romney, and make a $10,000 bet with anyone that said ban will never be lifted), and which as we predicted has had no favorable impact on bank stocks which have since tumbled, we suggested that the next step will also be the final one: the passage of laws prohibiting sales of any kind. As usual we were partially joking. And as so often happens, we are about to be proven right again. As the FT reports in its headline article today,...

How the U.S. National Debt Could Drain Your Savings January 9, 2012 By David Zeiler, Associate Editor, Money Morning Now that Congress has allowed the U.S. national debt to grow bigger than the American economy, it won't be long until the American public suffers the consequences by losing most of its savings to inflation.Figures for last year show the national debt officially exceeded 100% of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). According to government figures, the national debt stood at $15.23 trillion at the close of 2011, compared to a GDP of $15.18 trillion. "The 100% mark means that your...

When Nobel laureate Paul Krugman began a recent New York Times column by showing concern about “disastrously high unemployment,” we could sympathize with his assertion that too much attention is focused on “the allegedly urgent issue of reducing the budget deficit.” After all, there are many other factors that prevent us from employing our resources in the most productive uses. We are overregulated, overtaxed, overinflated, and the government spends wastefully and too much. If we were to prioritize any of those policies, such as cutting tax rates, then we could justify tolerating high deficits a little longer. The brighter prospects...

Only in Washington could nearly $700 billion fester as Congress scrambles for cash. Earth to the congressional leadership: There is precisely $687 billion in federal coffers, officially “unobligated” and, thus, available. Nonetheless, Democrats and Republicans are clobbering each other over how to finance a $185 billion one-year extension of the payroll-tax holiday to help Americans survive today’s economic hardship. Predictably, Democrats hope to use this occasion to slap a ten-year, 1.9 percent surtax on those who earn at least $1 million. This would amplify their new battle cry: “Class war!” Surprisingly, Republicans have proposed to raise Medicare premiums for prosperous...

The last time the US did this, we at least had the illusion of a “peace dividend� and unrivaled supremacy as the world’s only superpower. Now we’re fighting a tough war in Afghanistan, and China’s expanding its military might, if not its belligerence yet. According to Reuters, Barack Obama will unveil plans to downsize ground troops by “tens of thousands� while investing more in air and naval power: The Obama administration will unveil a “more realistic� vision for the military on Thursday, with plans to cut tens of thousands of ground troops and invest more in air and sea power...

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...

BOOM: Markets Are Off To A Dynamite Start In 2012 Joe Weisenthal Jan. 2, 2012, 5:56 PM Image: wikimedia commons US markets start the year tomorrow, but Europe wasn't bothered by the fact that New Year's Day fell on a Sunday, thus depriving the people of a proper day off. So the trading began today. The big gainer? Germany's DAX index, which gained over 3%. A strong German manufacturing number helped out. Also, manufacturing data out of India and China also helped. On the debt side of things, the Italian 10-year moved below 7% again, which is nice. Short-term rates...

Well, it is time to raise the debt ceiling again. Right now we are about to hit the current limit of $15.194 trillion and the Obama administration is going to ask that it be raised by another 1.2 trillion dollars. Unfortunately, Congress has already promised not to stand in the way, and so soon the debt limit will be raised to a staggering $16.394 trillion. Considering how much debt we have already placed on the backs of future generations, what is another 1.2 trillion dollars? After all, if we are going to sell our children and our grandchildren into...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House plans to ask Congress for an increase in the debt limit before the end of the week, according to a senior Treasury Department official. The debt limit is projected to fall within $100 billion of the current cap by December 30. President Barack Obama is expected to ask for additional borrowing authority to increase the limit by $1.2 trillion. Under the new budget, Congress can only vote to block the debt-ceiling extension with a disapproval resolution. Lawmakers have 15 days within receiving the request to vote down the debt limit increase. The debt limit...

Should government intervene to improve the economy, and if so, by what means? Three years ago, a Rasmussen poll showed that almost two-thirds of respondents worried that the government would try to do too much in response to the unfolding economic collapse. Now a bare majority worries that government hasn’t done enough — but that’s not a signal that voters want another round of neo-Keynesian intervention. They would prefer that government start reducing its size and its tax haul: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 42% of Likely U.S. Voters worry more that the federal government will...

<p>There are moments when our political system, whose essential job is to mediate conflicts in broadly acceptable and desirable ways, is simply not up to the task. It fails. This may be one of those moments. What we learned in 2011 is that the frustrating and confusing budget debate may never reach a workable conclusion. It may continue indefinitely until it's abruptly ended by a severe economic or financial crisis that wrenches control from elected leaders.</p>

10 Things Medicare Won't Tell YouThe government's massive entitlement program is full of costly glitches By CATEY HILL DECEMBER 20, 2011, 6:05 P.M. ET 1. "We fork over millions for unproven procedures." 2. "Think Social Security is broke? Just look at Medicare." 3. "We pay for dead people." 4. "Don't expect a five-star plan." 5. "We're not popular with many doctors." 6. "We get ripped off a lot." 7. "We don't cover a lot of the care seniors need most." 8. "Paws off that cash, grandpa: Your settlement is ours." 9. "Complain all you want ..." 10. "Want Your Way?...

With precisely one year left for the world and all of its inhabitants, at least according to the Mayans, not to mention on the day of the Winter Solstice, it is only fitting that US debt, net of all settlements for all already completed bond auctions, is now at precisely $15,182,756,264,288.80. Why is this relevant? Because the latest annualized US GDP, according to the BEA, was $15,180,900,000.00. Which means that, as of today, total US debt to GDP is 100.012%. Congratulations America: you are now in the triple digit "debt to GDP" club! (naturally, this is using purely "on the...

Fitch, when it lowered its outlook to negative, had said it was giving the U.S. government until 2013 to come up with a "credible plan" to tackle its ballooning budget deficit or risk a downgrade from the AAA status. "A key task of an incoming Congress and administration in 2013 is to formulate a credible plan to reduce the budget deficit and stabilize the federal debt burden. Without such a strategy, the sovereign rating will likely be lowered by the end of 2013," Fitch reiterated. Rival ratings agency Standard & Poor's cut its credit rating on the United States to...

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) announced that the U.S. Department of Education has awarded a major Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant to the Washington State Department of Early Learning. This award will allow Washington state to continue investing in high-quality early learning to make sure more children across the state enter school ready and able to learn. The state applied for $60 million, and while award amounts from the $500 million pool have not yet been released, it is expected that the state’s award will be in that range. Washington state was among...

California's public schools received a rare bit of good news Tuesday when Gov. Jerry Brown largely exempted them from automatic reductions in state aid, citing improvements in the economy. However, Brown's declaration that the economy is getting better and he doesn't have to squeeze all automatic spending cut "triggers" also lessened the air of crisis and therefore complicated Brown's efforts to persuade voters to raise taxes next year. "The economy of California is recovering," Brown said as he announced that about half of the $4 billion in questionable new revenue is materializing, adding, "We're getting wealthier by the day but...

A strong majority of Californians support Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to raise the sales tax and income taxes on high earners to help close the state's budget deficit, according to a new Public Policy Institute of California poll. The poll - an early measurement of a proposal that has far to go until voters can weigh in next November - found that 65 percent of all adults surveyed support his plan, which would increase the sales tax by a half cent and raise taxes on high income earners, starting with individuals who make more than $250,000 per year. The poll...

When a Democrat says he is serious about our debt problem, what he means is that he's pleased as punch to have another way to sell you on a tax increase. Democrats, being smarter than Republicans, use math and logic to make the case: if you raise tax rates, you get more revenue; if you get more revenue, you decrease the deficit; decrease deficits and you get debt under control. It all sounds so simple and unassailable: debt is the disease and taxes are the cure. Colin Powell calls it algebra. However, the hidden assumption behind all those syllogisms is...

Kicking The Can Down The Road Will Officially Stop Working In 2013Sunday, December 4, 2011Bruce Krastering Luis Echeverria became president of Mexico in 1970. These were troubled times for the country. By the end of his term in 1976 every economic variable was running off the rails. Huge inflation, current account, trade and big budget deficits. To keep the economy alive numerous steps were taken to kick the can down the road through the next election. The most dangerous efforts that Mexico took were in its debt profile. The public and private sector was borrowing in dollars. The worst part...

Common Sense vs. Nonsense: Bankrupting the Future –By: Larry Walker, Jr. –Facts: The 2% payroll tax cut not only boosted workers’ take-home pay by $120 billion in 2011, but it also widened the government’s budget deficit, and left the social security trust fund in the red.Since Social Security and Medicare taxes are collected in order to realize future benefits, why would the federal government choose to refund a portion of those collections today? Are its entitlement programs in such good shape that the government can afford to distribute benefits prematurely? I don’t think so. For that would infer that...

The Soviet Union had a habit of editing and airbrushing history books as a result of Stalin’s purges. One of the most popular jokes among Soviet citizens was: “The future is known. It’s the past that keeps changing.” Editing the past is one of the favorite past-times of all ideologues, and because Democrats are in charge of academia and the press, the good things that happened in the past are always done by The Left and all the bad things by the Right. My latest example, brought about by the current concern about government debt and deficits is the myth...

A federal judge has apparently granted at least a temporary reprieve to 372,000 elderly and disabled Californians who faced a 20 percent cut in their in-home care on Jan. 1. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken of Oakland issued a temporary restraining order Thursday that prohibits the state from taking any immediate steps to carry out the reductions — in particular, from mailing out notices to all recipients, starting next week. Wilken said a lawsuit by disability-rights groups and other advocates raised “serious questions” about whether the cuts would violate federal health and disability laws by forcing recipients into nursing homes....

The 2012 political year is right around the corner and the recent failure by the so-called "Super Committee" to reach agreement on $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction will re-cast the environment on Capitol Hill and shape the 2012 campaign. With divided control of Congress, and a 60-vote threshold in the U.S. Senate, major Congressional action before the 2012 election is now extremely unlikely. Congress always seems to need a deadline to make the members focus on the country's business, and December promises to be a busy month. It's likely that members of Congress will do the following: - Pass yet...

Tired of watching endless partisan fights in Congress, a few people are taking simple action on the national debt: They mail the government a check. Atanacio Garcia isn't waiting for Washington to reduce the national debt. The 84-year-old retired postal worker from San Antonio, a man of simple means and a simple credo, donates $50 a month from his pension, plus whatever he makes from collecting aluminum cans in his neighborhood, to reduce Uncle Sam's IOU. "I'm a believer in our country," said Garcia, an Army veteran who has promised that he will contribute "until the debt is paid off...

The super committee is dead. Long live the substandard committees.Just because the “big deal� didn’t happen as a result of the recent, marginally extra-constitutional shenanigans, that doesn’t mean that Congress doesn’t still have to come up with a plan. And the “go big� theme is far from dead among the chattering class. In fact, New York Times economist Paul Krugman has once again demonstrated the benefits of a classical education and come up with yet another path to prosperity. In this version, he seems to have abandoned the idea of going back to Clinton era tax rates for the wealthy....

The reason any country needs to keep its deficits in check is that interest rates can rise if lenders question your ability to repay -- sometimes quickly and sharply, stifling the economy. But that's not happening in the slightest today. While total debt and annual deficits are at all-time highs, interest rates are at all-time lows, and demand at weekly bond auctions has never been higher. The day after America lost its AAA credit rating this summer was one of the best days for Treasuries in history. The bond market is sending an unmistakable message to Washington: Keep the deficits...