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The International Monetary Fund sounded the alarm on the Biden administration’s rampant spending as “out of line with what is needed for long-term fiscal stability.” The latest forecast from the IMF — a Washington-based group tasked with fighting financial crises worldwide — warned that the ballooning national debt and the fiscal deficit threatened to exacerbate sky-high levels of inflation while posing a long-term risk to the global economy. The IMF noted in its forecast that the US federal budget deficit grew from $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2022 to $1.7 trillion last year. ... The debt held by the public, which...

The federal deficit is projected to roughly double this year from last ... The 2023 deficit appears to be headed for at least a doubling ... The federal fiscal year, which ends after this month, has already run up a $2.2 trillion deficit thus far ... The revelations come as the 2024 budget appropriations are set to be hashed out in Congress, setting up a difficult message for House and Senate Democrats' plans to continue to increase spending for progressive initiatives. ... The U.S. government has spent $6.7 trillion and taken in just $4.5 trillion, a 16% increase in spending...

The White House on Wednesday announced the latest in a series of aid packages for Ukraine that includes up to $300 million worth of air defense systems, ammunition and other defense equipment. The security assistance package represents the 39th drawdown of equipment from the Department of Defense inventories, the Pentagon said. The package includes Patriot air defense batteries, Stinger anti-aircraft systems, tank ammunition and a list of other equipment, according to the Pentagon. In total, the U.S. has committed more than $38.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including more than $37.6 billion...

At some point in the near future—whether a few days or a few weeks—the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will release a complete score of the spending spree legislation Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and House leaders introduced on Nov. 3. The document will represent the first complete CBO analysis of any of the multi-trillion-dollar spending bills that Democrats have spent the fall writing, then re-writing. Two budgetary analyses suggest CBO could find the most recent version of the legislation increases the deficit. A Penn-Wharton analysis of the White House’s policy framework concluded it would spend $1.87 trillion over ten years while...

By this year’s standards, the process that led to Obamacare seems like a veritable exercise in transparency and open government.How quickly Democrats forget. A dozen years ago, President Barack Obama faced strong and justified criticism for backtracking on his promise, made numerous times during the 2008 presidential campaign, to televise health-care negotiations on C-SPAN:By this year’s standards, however, the process that led to Obamacare—the law that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said we had to pass in order to find out what’s in it—seems like a veritable exercise in transparency and open government. It’s gotten so bad that press reports...

In just two weeks, Americans will flock to the polls to cast their votes in the mid-term elections where all 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 U.S. Senate seats are up for grabs. The people we elect on Nov. 6 will make policy decisions that will shape the future of our country for years to come.  As a federal employee, it’s your chance to make your voice heard and hold politicians accountable. Besides Social Security, health care, voting rights, and other important issues, your entire livelihood is on the line. It’s not about...

IMPORTANT: This information should not be downloaded using government equipment, read during duty time or sent to others using government equipment, because it suggests action to be taken in support of or against legislation. Do not use your government email address or government phone in contacting your Member of Congress.Each week, AFGE browses the World Wide Web for stories that matter to AFGE members. Here are the five stories you shouldn’t miss this week:Trump Demands 5 Percent Spending Cuts from Every Cabinet Agency President Trump on Wednesday ordered Cabinet secretaries to develop a plan to cut 5 percent of their agencies’ budgets,...

WASHINGTON - Federal spending is exploding under Barack Obama, shattering every record for budget deficits, public debt and annual expenditures. So much so that a term like "Big Government" fails to adequately define the fiscal wreckage that has occurred under his presidency. Like the endlessly anemic economy his jobless policies have spawned, you don't hear much, if anything, about wasteful, ineffective federal spending on the nightly news. Nor from Obama and his party -- ever. Yet the evidence of skyrocketing spending is there for all to see, growing grotesquely higher with each passing year, leaving behind mountains of economy-crushing...

Let's expose presidential prevarication. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama warned that Social Security checks will be delayed if Congress fails to increase the government's borrowing authority by raising the debt ceiling. However, there's an issue with this warning. According to the 2012 Social Security trustees report, assets in Social Security's trust funds totaled $2.7 trillion, and Social Security expenditures totaled $773 billion. Therefore, regardless of what Congress does about the debt limit, Social Security recipients are guaranteed their checks. Just take the money from the $2.7 trillion assets held in trust. Which is the lie, Social Security checks must...

As a senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama said that he detested budget deficits. In 2006, when the aggregate national debt was almost $8 trillion less than today, he blasted George W. Bush's chronic borrowing and refused to vote for upping the debt ceiling: "Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.'" In 2008, Obama further blasted Bush's continued Keynesian borrowing: "The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of...

WASHINGTON - The latest sign President Obama fears he's headed for defeat came this week when he said he'd seek a "grand bargain" with Republicans to reduce a $16 trillion debt. Over the course of his campaign, Obama has ignored the monstrous debt he's piled up over the past four years in an orgy of unprecedented annual spending increases and budget deficits. Now, with little more than a week left before Election Day, and the presidential race in a dead heat, he suddenly wants a compromise with Republican leaders in Congress to curb spending and borrowing. Well, he's four years...

Last week, I summarized how President Barack Obama has not lived up to his campaign promises to lower the national deficit and debt and get our nation's fiscal house in order. So now I'm calling on him to heed the economic advice of our nation's first eight presidents. Before I highlight some of the Founding Fathers' wisdom on federal debt and spending, let me remind readers how Crossroads GPS recently summarized Obama's relation to national debt: "January 20, 2009: The National Debt Was $10,626,877,048,913.08 (Obama Takes Office). (Treasury Department, accessed 5/23/12) "May 22, 2012: The National Debt Was $15,721,218,607,447.09 (Most...

As Congress’ debt-reduction “super-committee” meets in Washington it should focus not only on ways to curb spending or increase revenues, but on a question that is central to America’s economic well-being: How high can the debt get before it harms growth? When nations accumulate a certain level of debt, growth suffers. For the United States, that moment is now. Currently, total federal debt stands at $14.7 trillion, or around 98% of gross domestic product, a level not seen since the end of World War II. Debt financed by private investors, as opposed to that held by government, is about $10...

Remember when one month ago the US, to much pomp and circumstance, not to mention one downgrade, announced a grand bargain raising the debt ceiling from $14.294 trillion to something much higher, with a stop gap intermediate ceiling of $14.694 trillion, or $400 billion more. Well, as of today, or less than a month since the expansion, total US debt is at $14.697 trillion. Yep - the total debt is again over the ceiling, which means the US debt increased by $400 billion in one month. Score one for fiscal prudence. And while the total debt subject to the limit...

Sen. John Cornyn warned President Obama on Sunday to not even consider interpreting the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment to bypass Congress and raise the debt limit without its approval.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned on Tuesday that policymakers would face tough choices trimming military budgets, weighing cuts in pay and benefits against delays in updating aging ships and jets. The outgoing defense secretary, who leaves office at the end of June, did not say where he thought the Pentagon should try to cut as it seeks to meet President Barack Obama's goal of cutting $400 billion in spending over the next 12 years.

We have now gotten to the point — as I noted yesterday — where if national defense, interstate highways, national parks, homeland security, and all other discretionary programs somehow became absolutely free, we’d still have a budget deficit. The White House Office of Management and Budget projects that in the current fiscal year (2011), mandatory spending alone will exceed all federal receipts. So even if we didn’t spend a single cent on discretionary programs, we still wouldn’t be able to balance our budget this year — let alone pay off any of the $14 trillion in debt that we have...

It was Otto von Bismarck who explained that “politics is the art of the possible.” We can thank him for that much, but he didn’t tell the whole story. I’ll give you the rest of it. Politics is the art of the possible fictions you can get away with. Politics is mostly dissembling, and the dissembling is mostly about dodging personal responsibility for the messes governments make. It works out that way because making messes is most of what governments do. So when we ponder how the U.S. government will go about defaulting on its debts, a good way to...

Ever notice how liberals like to spend money...particularly other people's money? If you've ever found yourself engaged in debate with a liberal in an attempt to convince him that government spending is out of control you know it's often an exercise in frustration. This is especially true when your liberal invokes his holier-than-thou conviction that the supposed good he is intent on imposing upon the world - both domestically and internationally - must trump any financial considerations you may introduce into the debate. Well, fret no more. Here's a surefire formula to stop any liberal dead in his tracks: a...

WASHINGTON – The federal deficit has topped $1 trillion with three months still to go in the budget year, showing the lasting impact of the recession on the government's finances. In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Tuesday that through the first nine months of this budget year, the deficit totals $1 trillion. That's down 7.6 percent from the $1.09 trillion deficit run up during the same period a year ago. Worries about the size of the deficit have created political problems for the Obama administration. Congressional Republicans and moderate Democrats have blocked more spending on job creation...