• The deficit for this year is now projected to be $475 billion, easily eclipsing the previous record, set in 2004. That's almost half a trillion dollars. And that number does not include $185 billion raided from Social Security payments. The real deficit, therefore, is more than $600 billion.
• Despite this reality, the appropriations committee just released its proposal to increase spending next year by another 7.7 percent. Revenue is currently flat because of the weak economy.
• That increase will push the deficit for 2009 to maybe $700 billion. Even a President Obama might find it hard to raise taxes enough to collect that much more money.
• The current budget had thousands of unnecessary and often corrupt earmarks, totaling $18.3 billion. The next budget appears it will have even more.
• Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all are actually bankrupt and have autopilot annual increases that at current rates will consume 100 percent of your taxes by 2040, leaving no room for a military, parks, courts or anything else without more taxes.
• All of this is an insidious wealth transfer from our kids to us. It increases our debt, further hurts the value of the weak dollar (which accounts for much of the increase in the price of gas) and will put upward pressure on interest rates.
• Every week (without exception recently), Congress votes to spend even more money, creating new programs, new agencies and new entitlements that are not even included in all the numbers listed above. After spending $261 billion on "supplemental emergency spending" in June, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., now has a proposal to spend billions more on a "second supplemental."
All of this happens because Republican spenders won't criticize Democrat spending if Democrats won't criticize Republicans' spending. If I want to spend a dollar, and you want to spend a dollar, we compromise by spending both. Politicians win. Special interests win. Taxpayers lose.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/spen … ew-deficit So what do we do about it? I agree with his analysis but differ on the solutions.
My solution is that when we are all starving we track these bastards down and eat them and their offspring.
• Despite this reality, the appropriations committee just released its proposal to increase spending next year by another 7.7 percent. Revenue is currently flat because of the weak economy.
• That increase will push the deficit for 2009 to maybe $700 billion. Even a President Obama might find it hard to raise taxes enough to collect that much more money.
• The current budget had thousands of unnecessary and often corrupt earmarks, totaling $18.3 billion. The next budget appears it will have even more.
• Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all are actually bankrupt and have autopilot annual increases that at current rates will consume 100 percent of your taxes by 2040, leaving no room for a military, parks, courts or anything else without more taxes.
• All of this is an insidious wealth transfer from our kids to us. It increases our debt, further hurts the value of the weak dollar (which accounts for much of the increase in the price of gas) and will put upward pressure on interest rates.
• Every week (without exception recently), Congress votes to spend even more money, creating new programs, new agencies and new entitlements that are not even included in all the numbers listed above. After spending $261 billion on "supplemental emergency spending" in June, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., now has a proposal to spend billions more on a "second supplemental."
All of this happens because Republican spenders won't criticize Democrat spending if Democrats won't criticize Republicans' spending. If I want to spend a dollar, and you want to spend a dollar, we compromise by spending both. Politicians win. Special interests win. Taxpayers lose.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/spen … ew-deficit So what do we do about it? I agree with his analysis but differ on the solutions.
My solution is that when we are all starving we track these bastards down and eat them and their offspring.
Last edited by ATG (2008-07-02 21:27:35)
