Free Republic

Standard and Poor downgraded the credit rating of the USA from AAA to AA+. Add in the fact that they downgraded the credit of institutions such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for being too reliant on government (shocker!), are mulling downgrades of Britain and France, and said they might downgrade the USA again in a few months if the situation doesn't improve, and we're looking at financial free-falls worldwide. This of course has prompted a renewed interest in American debt, since the S&P said that was the main factor in this downgrade. In fact this morning John Chambers, Managing...

With a ton of family issues (medical issues with my oldest son), I've not been active as of late, either in posting to the Hear Us Now site or in actual 'activism'. I did not want to ignore today's anniversary though. And though it is not the best posting ever, because of the end of it, I am sharing the link in as many places as I can. It (the end), has been one of my primary messages for at least a decade now. Even more so since the Tea Party/912 and Liberty movement in general came to be. Check...

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...

Did you see President Obama's new 2013 budget? It's filled with $1.5 trillion in tax increases for the rich. It appears that the president and his leftist cabal believe we are all stupid. They believe if you tell enough lies, the lies become fact. They spend all day, every day, trying to convince Americans that taxes on the rich are too low.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u24nH03NccI&feature=player_embedded

Despite the federal government's representations that mask where our money goes, the single largest portion of the federal budget is actually spent on defense, defense-related activities and our obligations to prior members of the military and their families. In total, these activities will exceed $1 trillion in 2012. And, like every other federal expenditure, 45 cents of every defense-related dollar will need to be borrowed. Yet almost no one of consequence in Washington, in either party, has had the courage to say “enough.” A lot of my friends on the right are not going to like this, but I put...

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...

<p>Will A be the new AA+? Perhaps, if the S&P follows through with its latest threat. Bloomberg reports that [Bloomberg material cannot be posted here] . . . .</p>

It's not good when people want to raise taxes. But, ironically, it may turn out to be good that so many different people want to raise taxes in California. It appears increasingly likely that three competing tax initiatives will appear on the November ballot, which could result in voters rejecting them all. We don't often agree with Gov. Jerry Brown, who is pushing one of the three tax increases. But we do agree with the governor that several initiatives on the same ballot could confuse voters and divide the pro-tax vote, resulting in none of them passing. The difference is...

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...

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."

If anyone is tired of the daily European soap opera with surrealistic tragicomic overtones, they can simply shift their gaze to the 8th largest economy in the world: the insolvent state of California, whose controller just told legislators has just over a month worth of cash left. From the Sacramento Bee: "California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today. The announcement is surprising since lawmakers previously believed the state...

ORIGINAL POST, SEE UPDATE BELOW: Earlier we made the argument that the Obama recovery has been much more impressive than the Reagan recovery since A) The conditions Obama inherited were wildly worse and B) Federal government spending under Obama didn't grow as fast as it did under Reagan. But we were just looking at Federal Government spending. Here's a look at annual government spending growth at all levels: federal, state, and local. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/one-more-must-see-chart-on-government-spending-under-obama-and-reagan-2012-1#ixzz1ksovU8j1

Over the last three years, the number of Americans on food stamps has skyrocketed by two-thirds and stands at a record-high 46 million citizens, or one out of every seven people in the United States. Despite the historic rise in food stamp use, however, the Obama Administration believes not enough people are receiving food stamps who should be and is offering $75,000 grants to groups who devise “effective strategies” to “increase program participation” among those who have yet to sign up...

Three years of failure failed to blunt President Obama’s enthusiasm for more of the same policies that have yet to show a positive influence on the nation’s economic health. Despite the fact that both economic logic and historical experience argue that higher taxes discourage the investment that is essential to economic growth and the creation of jobs, President Obama vowed to push for higher levies on investors as part of his “recovery program.” “It’s not fair that some have more than others,” the President said. “All should share equally in the Earth’s bounty. It is the government’s responsibility to ensure...

We see that a poll says 68 percent of likely California voters support Gov. Jerry Brown‘s plan to raise taxes. The survey by the Public Policy Institute of California is understood by some to mean that we should have higher taxes. Let’s look a bit closer at the poll.

California's combination of business, sales, income and other taxes ranks it close to the bottom of the 50 states for being business-friendly, according to an index put out by a conservative Washington think tank. California placed 48th, ahead of only New York at 49th place and New Jersey at 50th, said a report released Wednesday by the Tax Foundation. According to the foundation, the top 10 states with business-friendly taxes were Wyoming, South Dakota, Nevada, Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Washington, Montana, Texas and Utah, the report said.

President Barack Obama's State of the Union message Tuesday predictably sounded like a campaign kickoff. In this election year he used the bully pulpit to advance political strategy, rather than give an even-handed accounting of where he has brought the nation. We suspect voters preferred a more candid assessment such as, to paraphrase Jimmy Carter, "Are you better off than you were three years ago?" But stumping politicians know better than to ask questions that have embarrassing answers.

We expected a political speech tonight from the president and he delivered. It can now be said, the campaign is underway. House Speaker John Boehner has complained that the president ceased governing about a month ago and doesn’t know how to negotiate, so all that’s left for him is to campaign. As we recall, he knows how to do that. You get to keep this much of your money Lest you take our word for it, . . .

One thousand days is long enough to get a lot done. An elephant needs only about two-thirds of that time for a full-term pregnancy. In the past 1,000 days, the Egyptians figured out how to overthrow their government. The Libyans figured out how to overthrow their dictator. Theoretically, man could travel to Mars and back in that time. However, the U.S. Senate has failed to figure out how to propose and pass a budget for this country as required by law in that time. It is only fitting that President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address on...

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...

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...

E.R. Companion, of Eagan, writing to the editor in Sunday's Pioneer Press, wondered why our elected officials would commit to spending billions of dollars for a so-called high-speed rail line from the Twin Cities to Chicago. (Well, because they're nuts.) Companion was referring to a story that appeared Jan. 12 featuring the idea that the Minnesota Department of Transportation has begun studying environmental impacts along the 400-mile route, which would take passengers to Chicago, through Milwaukee, in an advertised five hours and 30 minutes. Companion wondered what was high-speed about that, and I could not agree more with his sentiment....

. . . Higher taxes, one might conclude, are either inadequate or unnecessary. We should stand back from the furor over tax revenue uncertainties, and consider what we know to be true. Taxation is the power to destroy, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall famously said almost 200 years ago. As such, it should be used as little as possible. . .

There’s been a lot of talk, maybe too much talk, about the struggle between the GOP “Establishment” and “Outsiders,” sometimes – but sometimes not – meaning the Tea Party, however defined. There are many fault lines, wheels within wheels, that divide different groups on the Right, but it’s time to clarify the core issue that has people of perfectly conservative temperament and ideology scratching their heads at their own constituents. After all, we’re conservatives: establishments are a good idea, a necessary intersection of tradition and meritocracy, giving undue weight to neither and co-opting dangerous ideas about revolution and radical change....

Despite endless talk of spending cuts and fiscal restraint in Washington over the past year, lawmakers continued to act as though the government doesn't spend nearly enough. They introduced 874 bills in the House and Senate that would have boosted annual federal spending by more than $1 trillion if they'd all been signed into law, according to an analysis done for IBD by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. In contrast, lawmakers offered up just 215 bills to cut spending last year that would have reduced federal outlays by about half a trillion had they all been signed into law.

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,...

This morning President Barack Obama stood before the cameras in an election-year attempt to claim he wants to shrink the size of the federal government and lower spending. According to the administration, his new proposal to merge six trade and commerce agencies would save $3 billion over the next 10 years and eliminate 1,000 to 2,000 jobs. Great headline unless you consider that since taking office, Mr. Obama has increased the federal workforce (excluding Census and Postal workers) by 7%; adding more than 144,000 to the federal payroll. The national debt is now over $15.2 trillion and has grown at...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley proposed Tuesday that the state spend $372 million on new school construction next fiscal year, unveiling a key initiative in his push to increase capital spending during the 2012 General Assembly. The proposed funds would be the second-most allotted by the state and would be well above the state-recommended minimum of $250 million for annual school construction. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, will recommend the spending as part of his proposed budget, which he will introduce this month. The assembly is expected to amend and pass a budget during its 90-day regular session, which begins Wednesday. “These...

The struggling U.S. city of Detroit is on track to run out of money in May instead of April after spending changes made by city officials, Michigan Treasurer Andy Dillon said on Tuesday. Dillon addressed media following a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with a team that is looking at Detroit's financial picture and trying to assess whether the city needs an emergency manager to take over operations. It was the first time the 10-member team met since it was appointed last month. He said Detroit's most urgent issue is figuring out how to arrest escalating retiree health care costs, and clean up...

Have a column on Iowa coming soon, but first, a quick but absurd note from the world of high finance. It seems Jim O'Neill, the head of Goldman's Asset Management department, is predicting that the United States stock market may go up "15 to 20 percent." O'Neill apparently believes Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve will resort to another round of money-printing, and finally green-light the long-awaited "Qe3," or third round of "Quantitative Easing." The QE programs involve the Fed printing hundreds of billions of dollars and pumping them into the marketplace, where they ostensibly stimulate the economy (although recent...

Nearly all negative spending by super PACs in the presidential campaign over the past week has gone toward opposing Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who trailed badly in polls leading up to today’s New Hampshire primary, according to a WSJ analysis of expenditures reported to the Federal Election Commission. In total, anti-Gingrich super PAC Restore Our Future disclosed $89,962 in expenditures opposing Mr. Gingrich’s candidacy since the Jan. 3 caucuses in Iowa, where he came in fourth. That’s 96% of all negative spending in the past week by super PACs, the newest and most controversial form of political action...

Greek disabled groups are angry at a government decision to expand a list of state-recognized disability categories to include pedophiles, exhibitionists and kleptomaniacs. But the Labor Ministry on Monday said categories added to the expanded list — that also includes pyromaniacs, compulsive gamblers, fetishists and sadomasochists — were included for purposes of medical assessment and used as a gauge for allocating financial assistance.

A woman who expected her Civic Hybrid to be her dream car wants Honda to pay for not delivering the 50 mpg it promised. But rather than joining other owners in a class-action lawsuit, Heather Peters is going solo against the automaker in small-claims court, an unusual move that could offer a bigger payout. And if successful, it could open the door to a flood of similar lawsuits. A trial was set for Tuesday in Torrance, where American Honda has its West Coast headquarters. Peters, a former lawyer, says that as her vehicle's battery deteriorated, it got only 30 mpg....

Comparatively speaking, the United States does not starve its education system of revenue. The U.S. is one of the leaders in spending on Education, and yet it's schools are rated "average" by international bodies.  The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics.Worse, out of 34 OECD countries, only 8 have a lower high school graduation rate. The United States' education outcomes most resemble...

Politicians are like New Year's revelers whose resolutions to get fit are as habitual as their unhealthy lifestyles. The most undisciplined merrymaker continually ups the weight-loss ante —10 pounds last year, 20 pounds this year — just as undisciplined politicians alleging fiscal prudence have upped their borrowing limit 4,967 percent since 1962, 67 percent since 2009. If you thought politicians were pummeled into fiscal restraint after last summer's debt-ceiling debacle, which led to America's credit downgrade by S&P, Think Again. In fact, 2011 ended with debt reaching the new limit of $15.22 trillion compelling Treasury to request another $1.2 trillion...

KAILUA, HAWAII - President Barack Obama and his family and friends left Oahu on January 2, 2012, after a 17-day, notably low key vacation. While the Obamas were in the islands, they visited the grave of Stanley Dunham, President Obama's grandfather, at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific and an exhibit at the East West Center that featured work of Stanley Ann Dunham, the president's deceased mother. The family also stopped at the President's favorite Kailua shave ice store, Island Snow, and the President played golf with his friends at Mid Pacific Country Club in Kailua and at Ko'olau...

It was Peggy Noonan who suggested that, especially during difficult economic times, voters look for a father figure, which Barack Obama decidedly is not. (He’s the “bright, lost older brother,� she wrote.) Noonan thought Romney just might be the GOP candidate who most evokes the father figures in 1950s and 1960s sitcoms that, in her words, “terrorized and comforted a generation of children from non-functioning families.�If Romney managed to convey that impression even before his sons started to stump for him, then their presence on the campaign trail can only enhance the image of Romney as a wise, stable head-of-the-household...

The Obama administration delayed asking Congress to raise the U.S. debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion after congressional leaders objected to the time frame. The White House said the delay won't affect the nation's creditworthiness, The Washington Post reported.Under the request the administration originally planned to submit Friday, Congress would have had 15 days to disapprove the request or else the debt ceiling automatically would have been raised from $15.2 trillion to $16.4 trillion.Congressional leaders, however, objected to the timeline, saying it would have been difficult for lawmakers to vote on the measure. The House doesn't return until Jan. 17 and...

HONOLULU -- President Obama will hold off on asking Congress to raise the debt limit on Friday as the Treasury Department had originally intended, White House principal deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said. Listening to requests from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to have more time so that both houses can vote on a measure of disapproval. As part of the $1.2 trillion deal reached in August, both houses voted on a similar incremental increase in September. It passed in the House but fell in the Senate, and would need a two-thirds majority...

Many Americans are no doubt making resolutions to eliminate their bad habits in the New Year. The federal government would be well advised to do the same. President Obama and members of Congress could start by reviewing the jaw-dropping report put out by Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) outlining 100 examples — totaling more than $6.5 billion — of wasteful federal spending over the past year alone. What follows is a collection of some of the more outrageous examples.� $120 million paid out in retirement and disability payments to deceased federal workers. According to the Inspector General of the...

Where I live outside of Lansing, there are new bike paths sporting shiny asphalt, but the roads are crumbling. Motorists might be surprised to learn that of the 18.4 cents per gallon of federal gas tax they pay at the pump, only about 11 cents goes to maintain highways and bridges. According to federal law, about 10 percent of federal highway funds must be used for projects such as highway beautification and transportation museums. According to a new National Center for Policy Analysis report, “Paying for Pet Projects at the Pump,” the Federal Highway Administration also allocates gas tax revenues...

I was thinking about writing a novel about what might happen if a man who hates America and wants to bring it down is somehow elected president. What would he do? I sketched out a few plot elements, and you can decide whether this will fly. First, the Trojan Horse president would initiate unprecedented spending, driving the debt up by more than $4 trillion just in the first three years. Much of the money would go into the pockets of political supporters and people who donate heavily to his campaigns. He would ram through an unreadable law allowing the federal...

As we enter 2012, the presidential candidates would do well to wrap their minds and messages around these seven mathematical facts: 1. Every day, the U.S. government takes in $6 billion and spends $10 billion. This means that every day the federal government spends $4 billion more dollars than it has. 2. The real unemployment rate is a jaw-dropping 11 percent. 3. Every fifth man you pass on your way to work is now out of work. 4. College graduates are now 34% less likely to find a job under Obama than they were under President George W. Bush. 5....

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...

# Median net worth of member of Congress rose from $280,000 to $725,000 between 1984 and 2009 # Over same 25 years the wealth of the average U.S. family slipped from $20,500 from $20,600 The wealth gap between those governing the U.S. and the people they represent has dramatically widened, research shows. Against a backdrop of a vast budget deficit and fears of the fragility of the economy, analysis by the Washington Post shows that the median net worth of a member of Congress has nearly tripled over 25 years while the income of an average U.S. family has actually...

Democrat wants grants for women's restrooms in fire stationsBy Pete Kasperowicz - 12/26/11 10:50 AM ET Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) has proposed legislation that would let fire stations around the country apply for grants of up to $100,000 to build women's restrooms, showers and changing facilities. The Fairness in Restrooms Existing in Stations (FIRE Stations) Act, H.R. 3753, says these grants would help promote gender equity in fire houses. The findings of the legislation says most were built with a "single-gender workforce" in mind, that 50 percent of all fire departments do not have any women employees, and that women...

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...