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. …
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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…
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"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…
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The road to insolvency is paved with
red ink. How can the United States become
insolvent? Easy, just add the Obamanomics deficits, as laid out in the President's ten-year plan, to the existing $11 trillion
national debt and it will not be long before the US is unable to meet its financial obligations. Presently, debt held by the Social Security Trust Fund and other governmental agencies is $4.4 trillion, plus the remainder of the debt (owed to citizens or "foreign" owners) is $6.6 trillion. Approximately 50% of US debt is owed to
foreigners, up from 31% in 2000, and this debt will undoubtedly continue to climb. If China and other foreign creditors lose their appetite for US debt, the result will be catastrophic for the dollar…
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During the Bush years, the national outlays rose from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to $3.0 trillion in 2008, and the country went from enjoying a surplus of $128 million in 2001 to suffering a deficit of $459 million in 2008. We called Bush irresponsible. Perhaps the fiscal 2009 deficit of $1.75 billion should be viewed as an anomaly since it's the direct result of the $700 billion Bush TARP plan and the $800 billion Obama Stimulus Plan, both implemented to ameliorate the effects of the financial crisis and recession. But how do we justify an average deficit of
$700 billion annually from 2010 to 20019, which according to the
Obama budget, will be boom times? GDP will be likely rise to an eye-popping $23 trillion in 2019…
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In an ironic twist of fate, it may be the fiscally responsible communist Chinese who save capitalist America from its budgetary excesses. They may well have to teach the wayward youngster a lesson in fiscal responsibility by refusing to fund continuing trillion-dollar deficits. Tough love from the Chinese may be the only prescription that rescues America from impending financial doom. The new administration is behaving like a kid in a candy store and it will take a bitter pill from the Chinese to bring them to their senses.
Federal outlays will soar in fiscal 2009 to $4 trillion, or 27.4% of our
$14 trillion GDP, up from $3 trillion or 21% of GDP in 2008, and 20% in 2007. If we take the administration's rosy recovery scenario at face…
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After reading that one percent of the households in New York City, roughly
40,000 people, pay 50% of the income taxes in this city of more than 8 million inhabitants, it made be begin to wonder where we were headed as a nation. This astonishing figure brings home the practical consequences of relying on taxes from a small group of high-earners to fund city, state and national budgets. In the case of New York City, the Mayor can only hope that this small group does not become weary of their burden and move to Connecticut or West Palm Beach. If even only a small percentage does, the financial impact on New York in a recession would be devastating. If that problem isn't enough New York City and State will…
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Ideology to the left of us, ideology to the right of us -- boldly they rode into the jaws of the unknown, into the mouth of financial hell -- rode the five hundred and thirty five. Theirs is not to reason why; theirs is but vote and whine...
For the political class who see the current recession as harbinger of depression, embracing an incomprehensible stimulus plan provides the irrational exuberance of hope. Better to have relied on reason than a potpourri of repackaged old and tired ideas.
To argue with either side is a waste of time, as each will abandon reason at the first challenge. As John Locke succinctly put it: "Every sect, as far as reason will help them, gladly use it; when it fails them, they cry out it…
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As the world's
most inventive country we have the unique opportunity to patent our way out of the current recession and thrive in the 21st century global economy. What should we export to create high paying permanent jobs and redress our balance of payments? Ideas. It's what we do better than any other country. One country, the United States, accounts for more than one-third of
international patent applications. It's time to leverage what we do best, innovate, and create the jobs we need for today, tomorrow, and decades to come.
In hard economic times we should be looking ever more closely at our export markets and ask ourselves the basic question: What innovative products can we sell to the nearly 500 million inhabitants of the European Union, the…
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