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Deficit Soars Unchecked in Obama’s $3.8 Trillion Budget

February 1st, 2010 | 1 Comment | Posted in National Debt

President Obama sent Congress a $3.8 trillion budget Monday for fiscal year 2011, pushing a plan that includes new jobs-creation programs but is projected to add $1.3 trillion in deficit spending on top of the current year’s projected $1.6 trillion deficit.

President Obama sent Congress a $3.8 trillion budget Monday for fiscal year 2011, pushing a plan that includes new jobs-creation programs but is projected to add nearly $1.3 trillion in deficit spending on top of the current year’s projected $1.6 trillion deficit.

According to the plan, the 2011 deficit of $1.267 trillion would fund nearly the entirety of the year’s discretionary spending, which is $1.415 trillion or 37 percent of the government’s total outlays. Mandatory spending on items such as entitlements and interest payments make up the rest.

Read the full article at Fox News

Obama’s Spending Freeze Deception Doesn’t Trick Voters

January 29th, 2010 | 1 Comment | Posted in National Debt

One of the key new initiatives in President Obama’s State of the Union speech is a three-year freeze on discretionary government spending, but voters overwhelmingly believe the freeze will have little or no impact on the federal deficit.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just nine percent (9%) think the freeze will reduce the deficit a lot.

Eighty-one percent (81%) disagree, including 42% who say it will have no impact. Another 39% say the freeze in nearly all areas except defense, national security, veterans affairs and entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will reduce the deficit a little.

Read the full article at Rasmussen Reports

Senate Approves Additional $1.9 Trillion in Debt Spending

January 28th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in National Debt

Senate Democrats needed all the 60 votes at their disposal Thursday to muscle through legislation allowing the government to go $1.9 trillion deeper in debt.

Democratic leaders were able to prevail on the politically volatile 60-39 vote only because Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts has yet to be seated. Republicans had insisted on a 60-vote, super-majority threshold to pass the measure. An earlier test vote succeeded on a 60-40 vote.

The measure would would put the government on track for a national debt of $14.3 trillion – about $45,000 for every American – and it served as a vivid reminder of the United States’ dire fiscal straits.

Read the full article at the Washington Post

Republicans Balk at Obama’s Debt-Cutting Commission

January 23rd, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in National Debt

The Obama administration’s bid to make a bipartisan debt-reduction commission the centerpiece of its budget plans received a serious blow Wednesday when leading Republicans blasted the idea.

Underscoring the problem, the Senate is poised to vote to raise the national debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion, just weeks after a $290 billion increase at the end of 2009. The debt currently stands at $12.322 trillion.

Less than a day after congressional Democrats and the White House reached a tentative deal to use an executive order that would establish a bipartisan commission to tackle the problem, the effort appeared to be on life support.

Read the full article at the Wall Street Journal

Is US Default Inevitable?

January 15th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in National Debt

So said Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein of the financial crisis of 2008. He likened its probability to four hurricanes hitting the East Coast in a single season.

Blankfein was reminded by the chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Committee, Phil Angelides, that hurricanes are “acts of God.” Financial crises are manmade. Yet Blankfein was backed up by Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, who said, “Somehow, we just missed … that home prices don’t go up forever.”

The Wall Street titans thus conceded they did not foresee the housing bubble ever bursting and they did not consider the possibility of a collapse in value of the sub-prime mortgage securities piled up on their books.

Read the Full Article at Patrick Buchanan