Free Republic

New figures by the Congressional Budget Office released on Monday reveal that over the next 10 years the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio will double to 78%. Over the last four decades America's average debt-to-GDP ratio was 39%. At the end of 2007, federal debt was just 35% of GDP. The CBO report says gross federal debt will soar from $17.7 trillion to $27 trillion over the next ten years. CBO warned of the dire consequences the nation's debt will have if gone unchecked. "Such high and rising debt would have serious negative consequences," says the report. "Federal spending on interest payments...

(CNSNews.com) – Testifying in the U.S Senate yesterday, Congressional Budget Office Director Keith Hall warned that the publicly held debt of the U.S. government, when measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, is headed toward a level the United States has seen only once in its history—at the end of World War II.To simply keep the debt at the high historical level where it currently sits—74 percent of GDP–would require either significant increases in federal tax revenue or decreases in non-interest federal spending (or a combination of the two).Historically, U.S. government debt as a percentage of GDP hit its...

(CNSNews.com) - Testifying in the U.S Senate yesterday, Congressional Budget Office Director Keith Hall warned that the publicly held debt of the U.S. government, when measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, is headed toward a level the United States has seen only once in its history—at the end of World War II. To simply keep the debt at the high historical level where it currently sits—74 percent of GDP--would require either significant increases in federal tax revenue or decreases in non-interest federal spending (or a combination of the two). Historically, U.S. government debt as a percentage of GDP...

Testifying in the U.S Senate yesterday, Congressional Budget Office Director Keith Hall warned that the publicly held debt of the U.S. government, when measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, is headed toward a level the United States has seen only once in its history—at the end of World War II. To simply keep the debt at the high historical level where it currently sits—74 percent of GDP--would require either significant increases in federal tax revenue or decreases in non-interest federal spending (or a combination of the two).

On the same day House Speaker John Boehner said he would bring a “clean” debt ceiling bill to the House floor—and join Democrats in voting for a 13-month extension of the debt limit—the head of the Congressional Budget Office declared that the “large and growing federal debt” could eventually increase the risk of a “fiscal crisis.” […] CBO estimates that federal debt held by the public will equal 74 percent of GDP at the end of this year and 79 percent in 2024 (the end of the current 10-year projection period). Such large and growing federal debt could have serious...

The number of Americans who are 16 years or older and who have decided not to participate in the nation’s labor force has pushed past 90,000,000 for the first time, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS counts a person as participating in the labor force if they are 16 years or older and either have a job or have actively sought a job in the last four weeks. A person is not participating in the labor force if they are 16 or older and have not sought a job in the last four...

Today’s economic report has good and bad news, and both are tempered by the effects of government intervention.  The Commerce Department reports that personal income dropped 3.6% in January, the worst such monthly decline in exactly 20 years, but that consumer spending seems unaffected: Personal income decreased $505.5 billion, or 3.6 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $491.4 billion, or 4.0 percent, in January, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $18.2 billion, or 0.2 percent. In December, personal income increased $353.4 billion, or 2.6 percent, DPI increased $325.7 billion, or 2.7 percent, and...

Sixty-one percent of U.S. small business owners said they were “worried about the potential cost of healthcare” and 56 percent said they were “worried about new government regulations,” according to the Wells Fargo/Gallup small business index released on Jan. 31, which also showed that 30 percent of small business owners are not hiring and fear going out of business within a year. “At the bottom of the list, but still at a surprisingly high level, 30% of owners say they are not hiring because they are worried they may no longer be in business in 12 months,” according to Gallup’s...

The United States faces a “material risk” of losing its AAA status if there is a repeat of the wrangling seen in 2011 over raising the country’s self-imposed debt ceiling, credit ratings firm Fitch said on Tuesday. The United States scraped up against its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling on Dec. 31 and is now employing special measures to meet its financial obligations. The Treasury Department said those steps could be exhausted by mid-February. Despite December’s deal by U.S. politicians to avoid the “fiscal cliff” of spending cuts and tax hikes, Fitch’s head of sovereign ratings, David Riley, said pressure on...

Well, thank goodness we're taking the issue seriously. It's difficult to conceive of a sillier proposal than the trillion-dollar platinum coin, but it's not as if some people aren't working hard at it. National Journal reports that a new suggestion involves government scrip --- IOUs, in other words: The $1 trillion platinum coin seems too wacky; the 14th amendment too risky. But could IOU's be the solution to an impasse on raising the nation's borrowing limit?Yes, and President Obama should publicly adopt the idea, Edward Kleinbard, a University of Southern California law professor and former chief of staff to CongressÂ’s...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday that she would raise the debt limit unilaterally “in a second” if she were president of the United States. Pelosi and other Democrats have suggested that the president could bypass Congress and unilaterally raise the debt ceiling by invoking the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which states, “The validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned.” … The next battle in Congress will be raising the debt ceiling, after the deal to avert the fiscal cliff failed to address the borrowing limit. President Obama said he “will not...

Financial markets are gradually regaining confidence in the eurozone, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said Sunday. "This can be seen in the market reaction," Schäuble said in an interview with German public television ARD. "We're not yet in the clear, but we have seen in recent weeks and during recent bond sales that the markets are slowly regaining confidence." … Asked about an article in German news magazine Der Spiegel, which said Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti had argued for a doubling in size of the eurozone's European Stability Mechanism (ESM), Schäuble said leaders would look closely at the mechanism...

The U.S. economy will grow faster in 2012—if it isn't knocked off track by upheavals in Europe, according to an Associated Press survey of leading economists. Unemployment will barely fall from the current 8.6 percent rate, though, by the time President Barack Obama runs for re-election in November, the economists say. The three dozen private, corporate and academic economists expect the economy to grow 2.4 percent next year. In 2011, it likely grew less than 2 percent. … Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital, says the U.S. economy remains vulnerable to an outside shock. A big threat is...

I remember the celebration among real taxpayers after the November 2010 elections. Happy days are here again and the Republican led House of Representatives will save the country. Really? One of the first consequences was a “deal” with the devil where the Bush tax cuts would be continued in exchange for extending unemployment benefits for 99 weeks through December 2011. The news from March 9th told us that 35% of the total wages and salaries comes from government payouts. From CNBC.com: Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of...

The steep fiscal crisis that many states face includes staggering retirement costs for their workers, estimated at some $3 trillion in unfunded future promises. The size of those liabilities has already shaken up some municipal bond investors, and the inadequate, sometimes misleading way that states account for these steep costs has attracted the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission. But lurking beneath those obligations is another huge set of liabilities from municipal governments, that is, from cities and counties whose politicians have also made astonishing promises to workers that they will have trouble keeping. Unlike states, which can't declare...

America has woken up to the fact that much of our fiscal crisis at the state and federal levels has been caused by the rich salary, benefit, and pension packages of government workers. Chris Christie, Republican Governor of New Jersey, has become a YouTube sensation by clearly articulating the problem. So does this USA Today article: "The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years and doubled since President Obama took office, a USA TODAY analysis finds. The fast-growing pay of federal employees has captured the attention of fiscally conservative...

The “great recession” may be over, but its impact on state governments is still unfurling – and could threaten America’s fragile economic recovery. That message emerged in two assessments of the economy Wednesday. The Pew Center on the States released a report concluding that nine states have joined California in a condition of “fiscal peril.” Their budget troubles could cause a round of job cuts and tax hikes in states from Florida to Illinois and Oregon. In a separate news briefing Wednesday, Iris Lav, a fiscal policy expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, warned that state budget...

Monday’s agreement between Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, and state legislators seemed to promise a temporary resolution to an ongoing budget crisis. But before legislators had even had a chance to vote on it, Californians were indulging in that peculiar mix of sanctimony and surrealism which marks almost all political discourse in the state. “What about the children?” ran the headline over the letters section of the San Francisco Chronicle, as if the important divide in the state’s politics were between those who “care” and those who do not. Caring has nothing to do with it. California’s problems are...

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- In just a few weeks time, California hits the wall. And Americans should take a good, long look at the fiscal and social wreck of the Golden Land, because California is at a place to which all of America is heading. In May, when five fund-raising proposals were put on the ballot, Gov. Schwarzenegger pleaded with the overtaxed Californians not to make their state "the poster child for dysfunction." As The Economist writes, "On May 18th, they did exactly that." Arnold went to the White House for U.S. loan guarantees for new state bonds. But with...

In a Capitol where groundbreaking achievements have been trumped by money woes in recent years, state officials are now hoping to broaden their ambitions to more than paying the state's bills, without breaking the bank. At their disposal is an unusual new resource: time. That may be the only upside of the fiscal crisis. After lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger came together on a spending plan in February -- instead of at the end of a hot Sacramento summer -- they now see in the eight months ahead the potential to solidify the state's fragile water supply, to improve foster...