Posts Tagged ‘budget’

GDP vs the national debt, We are tapped out

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

This should scare the hell out of anyone with a brain. In a perfect world our National debt would be around 25% of our GDP. It was not good when President Bush was in office at 37%, now with President Obama in office and the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, it has already jumped up to 83%. Now before people jump up an claim that this was President Bush’s fault, lets look back at who has been in control of congress since 2006, and while we are looking back, lets reminder ourselves that Congress passes laws not the President.

While I give breaks or passes to both Presidents for the debt being higher then 25% due to fighting the war on terror, I can’t do so for President Obama’s new budget. With the projections looking to be about 97% in 2010, and after that its just unthinkable

Armstrong Williams has written a small post giving us some details as well as an insight as to why the Republican party should be the party of NO when it comes to spending….

Regardless of what party you belong to, You owe it to your kids and grand children to write, call and email your elected officials in Washington, telling them no more spending. Would you allow your house hold budget to get this bad?

Republican Ideas Worth Listening To

The national debt at the end of 2007 was 37 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and at the end of June 2009 it is $11.7 trillion, or 83 percent of GDP.

Based on the President Obama’s 2010 budget, it is expected to increase to 97 percent of GDP at the end of 2010. Projections beyond that are particularly scary. The national debt in 2010 will be about $40,000 per American. To put this in perspective, the national debt for a family of four is almost as high as the average home value of $169,000 in 2009. Republicans should happily demur to be the party of “no” when it comes to these unfunded spending increases.

There are many good Republican ideas, but the Democrats do not like these ideas because they tend to favor lower taxes, lower spending, less federal government regulation and control and more individual responsibility.

Instead of saying that the Republicans are the party of “no,” the political discourse would be more productive if politicians and the media recognize that the fundamental difference between the two parties on the economy lies in their different view of the role of government. Democrats generally believe that greater government control of the economy and extensive social welfare programs improve Americans’ well-being. Republicans generally believe that the market and individuals do a better job than the government in improving Americans’ well-being.

Democrats prefer to let Washington politicians and bureaucrats make decisions about people’s lives. Republicans prefer to let people make their own decisions about their lives.

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Put the breaks on! Stop Government spending

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

What I feel we need to do as a Nation;

First is to freeze all spending on everything but the war. Don’t spend another dime on any new programs.

Lets take a good hard look at what we have now. Those programs that need to be fixed lets fix them first. Social Security is one program that we all know needs to be fixed. Lets fix it. Make the hard political choice or as we used to say “man up”. Why should we start another new program when we have on this large that needs to be fixed? Lets fix one problem at a time.

From there we need to fix Medicare and Medicaid, we all know there are major problems with these programs so lets fix them before we start thinking about Nationalized health care.

Our borders are still wide open, lets seal the borders. I am not against legal immigration so please spare me the racist remarks. We spend a ton of money each year on illegal immigrants on both housing and medical care. We need to make sure that a person who is getting treatment at a hospital is here in our country legally. I am not saying do not treat those who come in needing care, but while you are treating them, INS needs to be called so they can pick them up, and deport them. If a person is not a citizen of our country they should not have the same rights as a citizen. I do not want them abused, just deported. It’s very simple thing to do, you know someone is breaking a law make them report it. We need to say enough is enough. Its time we got tough with people breaking our laws. This is part of the reason that our health care is so expensive, people come into out ER’s and know they will be treated. Fine treat them but deport them when they are well enough to travel.

Outlaw the word marriage for our legal contracts that the states sell. Call them what they are “Civil Unions” and be done with the Gay marriage issue. No matter how you feel on the issue the bottom line is 2 consenting adults should have the same rights regardless of their sexual preferences…. We have wasted way to much time on this issue.

Return all power that is not entrusted to the Federal Government by the Constitution to the States. This would save a ton of money from the Federal Budget and Save the states money. Less taxes from the Federal Government and more money would go to the States budget. This way people can see what they are paying for. As it is now I have no clue as to where are tax dollars are going to. Other then all of the bailouts.

Get rid of the Czars! They are not a part of the checks and balances of our Government, in fact if challenged they may even be Unconstitutional. Another words illegal. They are not confirmed by the Senate, and they only answer to the President? something is wrong with that picture….. It’s why we have checks and balances… We should never have allowed the first Czar, since it is a cabinet position in everything but name…

Any new spending bill that We feel we need should be listed on line, the entire bill, with a detailed list of where the money is going and why.. No more blank checks.

Repeal the TARP bailouts we have not spent all of the money so lets stop it. Repeal the Stimulus bill, once again we have not spent all of the money, so lets pull back. The economy has not nor will it be really helped by it. So lets not waste anymore of out tax money.

It does not matter what party you belong to, we should be above party’s Let focus not on a party but on what’s best for America.

If you really believe that going in debt more then we already are as a Nation is good or needed, then you need a reality check

These are just a few things that I feel we need to act on today, not next week!

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What you can say about the economy

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

Maybe your one of the lucky ones who have seen no changes in your life or the lives of your family and friends yet, however try to prepare yourself for it to happen. Sadly the Obama and Bush bailouts/stimulus plans have failed. At what point to we say enough is enough of throwing more printed money after more bad money? Is it time to cut our losses and move on? If it was up to me, I would say yes. Lets let businesses run their course, if they fail they fail….. We can’t as a Country keep digging deeper into debt expecting things to improve. Any credit consoler will tell you that robbing Peter to pay Paul is never a good idea, however it seems that is the course our Government is on.

As gas prices start to go back up for the summer, prices at the grocery store are starting to creep up, and when you go into a department store items are not moving off the shelf the way they used to. In Fact once they are sold, there is no guarantee that the item will be replaced.

When we look at the auto industry and the announced dealer closings coming soon to a dealer near you :( We also have to think of the number of jobs that are going to be lost, not just from the one dealer but from the part suppliers to the advertisers that its going to affect….

What we really need to be doing is looking at the big picture, which IMO is we can allow the company’s that are strong to keep going and those that are weak to fail or change the way they operate. If we don’t, we are not only prolonging the currant rate of affairs but making it worse. Its time to say no more to tax payer funded companies. If they can not make it on there own, its time to say good bye to them. Americans have always been resourceful, if you look at what happened during WW2, you will see that in a few short years we changed the shape of our country. Look at the number of production plants we had before the start of WW2 and the number at the end of WW2… We need to stop thinking that things are going to go back the way they where… There not! While change is never easy for everyone to deal with, it is something that We as a country need to do…. It may not be what President Obama had in mind, when he was running for President, however if he does not stop his course of action that he is on, we will have the type of change that few will enjoy. To be fair President Bush did start us on a downward cycle but it was President Clinton who started the ball rolling……

James Howard Kunstler has a very good post on the Economy below is just part of it

There are plenty of things you can state about the economy past and future with some confidence right now: * Cheap energy is over and our wishes for alt.energy are currently inconsistent with reality, meaning we have to live differently. * We have to downscale and re-localize our major economic activities: food production, commerce and manufacturing, banking, schooling, etc. * We can’t hope to have a stable money system unless we allow a workout of unpayable debt to proceed. * Even if we can do this, universal easy credit is a thing of the past. From now on, we have to save for the things we want and run our businesses and households on accounts receivable. * Major demographic shifts are inevitable as it becomes necessary to let go of suburbia and reactivate our derelict towns and smaller cities (and allow our giant metroplexes to contract). * We have to face the truth that our major social contracts cannot be met, namely the continuation of social security as we know it and probably all pension arrangements. We’ll probably have to change household arrangements to make up for these losses. * Health care will have to go through a revolution more comprehensive than just changing how we pay for it. Like everything else, it will have to downscale, re-localize, and become more rigorous.

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Obama Budget Cuts Visualization

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

Funny how the majority of my High School friends tend to think a like. One of my friends posted this on FaceBook today, after watching it, I wanted to share it with everyone. This puts the budget cut into perspective. I really should say lack of budget cuts

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The Devil In The Details

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Sorry can’t even think straight after reading this one ……. . Unreal is all I can say, alright that and more poor kids who are going to have to pay for this……….

“Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.” Ayn Rand

Nancy Morgan via Flopping Aces

Defying history, reality and common sense, Obama’s $3.5 trillion budget resolution passed Congress earlier this month, signaling a dramatic shift in the priorities and scope of the federal government.

Not that most Americans are aware of this. The media has kept them pacified with extensive coverage of the ‘wasteful and duplicative’ $17 billion in cuts contained in the proposal. Cuts that represent one half of one percent of the proposed budget. Cuts that aren’t really cuts at all, merely a shifting of our tax dollars from a conservative program to a liberal one.

The Washington Examiner reports that Republican strategists are having a problem. “The scale of what President Barack Obama proposes to do to the American economy is so enormous, so far-reaching and so potentially disastrous that the opposition party is having a hard time describing it.” Well, I’m not a Republican strategist, I’m just one of the people in flyover country that has to pay for this fiasco and I have no trouble describing it:

Our budget deficit in 2009 will top $1.8 trillion dollars. That’s a 400% increase over last years’ deficit. Translation: For every dollar the government spends, .48 will be borrowed. Budget office figures released Monday would add $89 billion to the 2009 red ink — increasing it to more than four times last year’s all-time high.

One doesn’t have to be an economist or a degenerate gambler to know that a house built on sand eventually collapses. We’re already seeing it. The United States posted its first April deficit in 26 years, a record $20.91 billion shortfall. But not to worry, Obama is going to cut $17 billion. Whew.

Historical evidence of the economic harm caused by raising taxes in a recession is ignored as the Obama administration continues its frantic grab of ever larger portions of the dollars produced by the hardworking men and women of America.

President Obama’s “Budget Blueprint” proposes to raise the tax rate on dividends and capital gains from 15 percent to 20 percent. Heritage Foundation says: “This works out to $27 billion of lost value for current and future retirees unnecessarily redistributed to Congress. That works out to $434 of lost retirement savings for each family.”

In case we the people object, Obama has also proposed nearly doubling funds to enforce U.S. tax laws next year, with an aim of more than quadrupling funding for tax compliance to $2.1 billion within five years. Tax compliance means IRS. You know, the agency that wields absolute power over each and every one of us. (Correction: over everyone who is not an elected official or heading up a government agency)

After successfully demonizing the oil companies, Obama offers a gift to all the underachievers and professional victims by socking it to the ‘rich’ – whose definition is constantly changing, kinda like the Constitution. Obama proposes to end $26 billion in oil and gas industry tax breaks, calling them ”unjustifiable loopholes” in the tax system that other companies do not get. Hey, I’m all for ‘equality’, aren’t you?

Next up: The Obama administration will propose $60 billion in new tax increases over 10 years on wealthy estates, businesses and others to pay for an expensive overhaul of the health-care system. After all, the rich are only rich because they exploited the poor. And the poor, (again, as defined by the left) have a right to health care, just as they now have the right to housing, education, absolute equality and the right not to be offended. Its called social justice. And its a wonderful thing, allowing our elites moral cover as they pick our pockets bare.

Meanwhile, the government revised estimates for the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security on Tuesday, moving up the date when trust funds for the entitlement programs will run out of money. It looks like Medicare will be insolvent in eight years, meaning, it will be the problem of the next administration. Most likely, a Republican administration, unless, of course, the GOP continues to emulate the left and ends up emulating themselves out of existence.

I know economics is a dreary subject. I also know Obama is counting on economic ignorance, lofty rhetoric and a Democrat majority to pass this budget monstrosity. Having the media in his pocket doesn’t hurt. Even with the media focusing on the $17 billion in cuts instead of the bigger picture, most Americans aren’t aware of what these ‘wasteful spending and unnecessary programs’ Obama is claiming as budget cuts include:

* Nixing aid to states to pay for jailing illegal immigrants

* Nixing abstinence only sex-education

* Cutting in half a benefits program for the families of slain police and safety officers

* Eliminating new funding for advanced-generation equipment to detect nuclear weapons and radiological materials at U.S. borders and ports and around New York City.

* Canceling plans to extend the border fence along the U.S.-Mexico border beyond the 670 miles already completed or planned.

* Cutting the budget of OLMS, the federal agency that investigates financial crimes that occur when union officials steal from their union.

Each and every cut signifies the loss of a hard won battle fought by the 62 million people who didn’t vote for Obama. The 62 million people that now have absolutely no effective representation or say in the new and improved path our country is on. A path that has already led us to socialism.

But hey, just because socialism has failed every time its been tried doesn’t mean it will fail under Obama. And (when) if it does, Obama will just redefine failure, leaving conservatives, once again, to mop up the mess. And leaving the American people, once again, paying the very real price for yet another failed utopian vision that our elected officials could have avoided by merely studying history instead of indulging their own political fortunes at the expense of their country.

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Howard Dean on Budget cuts and Government regulation

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

Am I one of the few people paying attention?? Dean says we need more government regulation and less capitalism. The only reason the economy is slowly starting to turn around is that we have reached near bottom or the bottom. Strong arming company’s is not what the Federal Government is supposed to do.

When Dean brings up the carbon tax, once asked about it again he reply’s that it’s to complicated to get into right now.


Once Again Flopping Aces :)

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War budget and Free Country

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Obama’s $130 Billion War Budget Based on ‘Best Estimates’

Now President Obama will have to face the same challenges President Bush did. This time instead of being from the other side of the isle lets see how loud the Democrats complain as well as how tough the “standards for progress” are.

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s proposed defense budget includes $130 billion for the nation’s two wars, a figure that may not be enough.

And his Democratic allies in Congress are threatening to set conditions that must be met before that money is handed out.

Obama sent to Congress on Thursday details of his proposed $664 billion Pentagon spending plan for the budget year starting in October. It includes $534 billion for base defense programs and $130 billion for overseas operations, including the wars he’s ramping down in Iraq and ramping up in Afghanistan.

The budget aims to cover what the Defense Department needs “to fight the wars we are in today and the scenarios we are most likely to face in the years ahead, while at the same time providing a hedge against other risks and contingencies,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a statement released in Washington as he traveled in Afghanistan.

The $130 billion for overseas missions included $65 billion for Afghanistan and $61 billion for Iraq — the first time spending for the seven-year-old Afghan campaign has surpassed the one in Iraq.

“This request is where you’re going to first see the swing of not only dollars or resources but … capability from the Iraqi theater into the Afghanistan theater,” Navy Vice Adm. Steve Stanley, director of force structure for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference.

A Pentagon summary of the budget request said the war spending proposal “is intended to fund all currently known requirements for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the entire fiscal year.”

via Fox News

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An Average Day in a Free Country

This is funny in a way, just one mans daily dealing with Government

I am fairly vocal amongst my friends (and a few strangers) regarding my bias towards limited government. The typical response I get is something along the lines of, “Are you crazy, America is the freest country in the world!” I think the secondhand dealers in information (public school teachers and the sensationalist media amongst others) have done a great job of indoctrinating the general population into believing that we are truly free. They really don’t notice the subtle effects of a new law here and a new regulation there. It’s kind of like the curse of income tax withholding where by stealing our hard-earned money a little bit at a time (each paycheck) we don’t notice that we are being robbed. I feel that our freedom is being stolen a little bit at a time. To help drive home the point, I’ll use an average day in my life as an example.

My alarm goes off each morning somewhere between 6 and 7 am. I am not a big fan of the buzzer so I typically set my alarm to “radio” mode. I haven’t paid up for satellite radio, so I still wake up to “Free FM.” Well, I am awake for a whole 10 seconds and here is my first interaction with Big Brother. The beast known as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a complete stranglehold on what we hear over the radio waves. As is the case with the majority of government regulation, we supposedly need the FCC to “protect” the people. In this particular case, we are being protected from offensive material on the airwaves. Of course, “offensive” is defined by whoever happens to be calling the shots at the FCC at the time.

Read his full day

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Reconciliation What is it?

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Reconciliation, originally designed in the 1974 Budget Act as a means for helping the government save money and keep federal budgets closer to balance, allows for certain legislation to pass both houses of Congress on an expedited basis — and perhaps most importantly, to pass the Senate with a bare majority.


Fast Forward to 2009 we now have The Democrats in Congress and President Obama trying to use this or rather they are going to use this to cram socialized medicine down out throats. But wait it gets much worse, how are they going to pay for this? Cap-n-Trade. Something that you may have heard about. I will sum that up in just a few words as possible. Anything that use’s energy, your car, house, boat, etc……you will see that billed doubled at the least some say tripled. Hold on that’s not the end of it, any consumable’s you buy, will also have a price increase after all the store that you buy these things from is also going to have an increase in energy cost, as well as the trucking company’s that deliver these goods. Let’s not forget about dining out, once again same deal, Restaurant will have to pass the new energy cost to you.

“We’ve seen mission creep with reconciliation under both Republicans and Democrats — there’s no question about that,” said Ryan. “But this takes mission creep to a whole new level. Now they’re talking about the possible nationalization of 17 percent of our economy in health care, 8 percent of the economy in energy, and the largest tax increase in history — all through a process which will have between 35 and 105 total hours of debate between the House and the Senate . . . That’s an enormous power grab.”

David Freddoso from NRO blog has a great post about this, that has a lot more information then I do.

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Why would Obama sign an Imperfect bill?

Friday, March 13th, 2009

hopeprogress

 

This is driving me nuts, how can anyone justify signing a bill that spends $410 billion?  I am shocked that he is calling it last years business, after all they waited for him to get into office to present this bill. Not to mention the simple fact that the fiscal year ends in September. So it’s still this years business.

I can not stress to you enough about the cap-an-trade portion of the new budget bill, there is still plenty of time to write, call and email your elected officials. If they pass this it will be the biggest tax increase  in our lifetime. It will have drastic affects on everyone. The cost of energy will skyrocket. Thing your energy bill is high now? Think again once the energy companies start passing along to you the cost for the cap-an-trade. Not to mention the fact that it has not worked in Europe, so why are we going to try it here?

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The Names have changed, but the Face remains the same. $3.6 trillion?

Friday, February 27th, 2009

Having not seen this proposal, only read what the media has printed or placed on their web sites, I am still in shock.
$3.6 trillion for next year alone? Who’s money is this? What will it to do to the dollar? Just how far are people willing to go into the hole for a pipe dream? I know reality sucks, but this is only going to make facing reality that much worse.

There is talk about closing Corporate loop holes, great idea, however with the tax code being so large how on earth are they going to close them all? When will the madness stop?

The only reason G.W. got away with spending like a drunken sailor was because for his first 6 years in office, he had a rubber stamp Congress and we were fighting a 2 front war. Now President Obama has the exact same thing, yet he wants to spend more? Sorry it does not look like change to me. Looks like more of the same. When are “We the People” going to wake up and say enough is enough? Will we leave anything for our kids other than a huge debt to pay?

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