Cincinnatus BLOG *** Political Commentary - Social Commentary

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Obama Spending + Reduced Tax Receipts = A Massive National Debt For Our Children

  The Obama 10 year budget includes trillions in new spending programs at a time when tax revenues are declining at a precipitous rate. The projected deficit in the Obama Budget is $7.0 trillion for the decade 2010 to 2019. That's the good news! The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has concluded that, if the Obama budget were approved, the federal government would actually run even larger deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion a year over the next decade. The cumulative deficit from 2010-19 would be $9.3 trillion, according to the report - $2.3 trillion more than the Obama administration's forecast. The main reason for the difference in budget estimates is a difference in economic growth, with congressional views of long-term growth less optimistic than those of the White House. … Continue reading | 7 Comments

Even Phoenix Will Rise from The Housing Ashes

  On average home prices have fallen 32.2% since they hit their peak in the second quarter of 2006. In super housing bubble markets like Phoenix and Las Vegas home prices have plummeted by 50% from their all time highs. At the risk of being labeled a cock-eyed optimist I will predict  - The end is near! What makes me so optimistic? Traditionally home prices have tracked inflation. In fact, in the last 50 years home prices have appreciated approximately 1% faster than inflation. There is an internal logic to this trend. If housing prices appreciate at a rate that is appreciably faster than income, within a decade we would be unable to purchase our own homes. And that is exactly what has happened. Fueled by political pressure from the left and… Continue reading | 2 Comments

Obamanomics – The Demise Of The Once Mighty Dollar

  Now that Standard and Poor's has cut its outlook on the U.K.'s AAA credit rating, can the U.S. be far behind. We're headed down the same primrose path, according to Bill Gross co-chief investment officer of PIMCO, who predicts that the U.S. "will eventually loose its top rating". How did we get to this sorry state of affairs? Unbridled spending and borrowing  - The U.S. is boosting its debt sales to $3.25 trillion for the fiscal years ending Sept 30th pushing the nation's "marketable debt" to an unprecedented $6.36 trillion. The Federal Reserve's custodial holdings of Treasuries for foreign accounts have already risen to $1.9 trillion. But the past is only prelude to the Obama fiscal future. Further deterioration of the dollar and our credit rating is a virtual certainty as… Continue reading | 1 Comment

The Obama Administration - Tyranny Begins With A Single Benign Act Of Lawlessness

  Start small: dispose of a pesky corporate CEO, who is not compliant and objects to your grand design for the U.S. automobile industry. Who could object to the summary dismissal of the unpopular Mr. Wagoner, after all he was just getting in the way of the grand plan. Never mind that President Obama had no such legal authority. By simple fiat, he fired a sitting corporate CEO, and overrode those with the legal authority to make such decisions, the GM board of directors. Like so many politicians before him, he instinctively knows that in an opportune economic crisis, it is only a small step from being the duly elected "President" to being transformed into a charismatic leader with the power to bend the will of the people to his own. It… Continue reading | 113 Comments

Republicans To The Right - Democrats To The Left

  The Democrat Party is in the hands of the Pelosi-Obama extreme left, the Republican Party is in the hands of the Bush-Limbaugh fanatic religious right and the mindless party faithful gleefully sing along, ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that there will be trillion dollar annual deficits for the next decade if the Pelosi-Obama left prevails, and the response from the right, narrow-minded religious platitudes. Maybe its time for a third party that represents the rational, pragmatic majority of the country. I believe the founders would approve if we called our new party, The Enlightenment Party. First let's look at what we can expect from the left: In 2010 federal outlays will be a breathtaking $3.6 trillion, or 24.1% of… Continue reading | 15 Comments

My Son The Socialist – Confronts Reality

  "A man younger than 30 who's not a liberal has no heart and a man older than 30 who's not a conservative has no brain" - Winston Churchill. Spending his formative years in Paris and then returning to complete college and graduate school at the American University of Paris, my son became deeply steeped in French cradle-to -grave socialism, never failing to extol its virtues. A self proclaimed "caviar socialist", my caviar - his socialism, lamented how hardened we fiscally conservative "old people" had become to the wishes of the "people". The mean spirited American ideal of education, hard work and opportunity for all was just a bromide invented by the American bourgeoisie in a nefarious plot to stifle the true wishes of the "people". "Ah, for those carefree days, when my… Continue reading | 275 Comments

Obama Tax Plan – Brings Us Within A Heartbeat of European Social Democracy

  The top 1% of U.S. taxpayers earns 22% of the income and pay nearly 40% of all income taxes. The bottom 50% pays just 3%. We are told that this is unfair, and the "rich" should pay their "fair share". It would probably not overburden the top earners to pay 43% and eliminate all taxes on the bottom 50%. After all, it would only take a 5.5% increase in the amount the top 1% already pays to eliminate the need to collect from the bottom 50%. Can the rich afford it - yes, but can the poor. Could a house so divided prosper? Given the class-warfare rhetoric from the administration and Congress it appears that this is just the country they wish to create. Use tax credits for the bottom 50%… Continue reading | 4 Comments

Obamanomics - The Power To Tax, Borrow and Spend

"Rather go to bed with out dinner than rise in debt" - Benjamin Franklin. President Obama is attempting not merely to expand the role of the federal government but to put it in such a dominant position that its power can never be rolled back. Obamanomics is the means to that end. Obamanomics represents change with unconscionable trillion dollar annual deficits leading us to the brink of national insolvency. And to what end - to remake the United States into a mirror image of a European social democracy? The prospect of Treasury flooding the world with dollars to support trillion dollar annual deficits for the next decade is alarming, and the world is rightly getting nervous. If China and other foreign creditors lose their appetite for U.S. debt, the result will… Continue reading | 2 Comments