150 Days: Treasury Says Debt Has Been Frozen at $18,112,975,000,000

                      The U.S. Treasury building in October 2013 (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

(CNSNews.com) - The portion of the federal debt that is subject to a legal limit set by Congress closed Monday, August 10, at $18,112,975,000,000, according to the latest Daily Treasury Statement, which was published at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday.

That, according to the Treasury's statements, makes 150 straight days the debt subject to the limit has been frozen at $18,112,975,000,000.

$18,112,975,000,000 is about $25 million below the current legal debt limit of $18,113,000,080,959.35.

On July 30, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew sent a letter to the leaders of Congress informing them that he was extending a “debt issuance suspension period” through October 30.

In practice, that means that unless Congress enacts new legislation to increase the limit on the federal debt before then, the Treasury will continue for at least the next eleven weeks to issue Daily Treasury Statements that show the federal debt subject to the limit beginning and ending each day frozen just below that limit.

The Daily Treasury Statement for March 13 was the first to show the debt subject to the limit closing the day at $18,112,975,000,000. Every Daily Treasury Statement since then has reported the same thing: the debt closing the day at $18,112,975,000,000.

Every Daily Treasury Statement since Monday, March 16, has also reported the debt beginning and ending each day at $18,112,975,000,000.

Table III-C of the Daily Treasury Statement for Aug. 10, 2015--shown here in a screen capture--says that the federal debt subject to a legal limit set by Congress began the month of August at 18,112,975,000,000 and that it began the day of Aug. 10 at 18,112,975,000,000 and that it closed the day of Aug. 10 at 18,112,975,000,000.

Table III-C on the Daily Treasury Statement for August 10 says the debt began the month of August at $18,112,975,000,000, began the day of August 10 at $18,112,975,000,000, and closed the day of August 10 at $18,112,975,000,000.

On March 13, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew sent an initial letter to House Speaker John Boehner and other congressional leaders informing them that he was planning to declare a “debt issuance suspension period.”

“Beginning on Monday, March 16, the outstanding debt of the United States will be at the statutory limit,” Lew said in that letter. “In anticipation of reaching that date, Treasury has suspended until further notice the issue of State and Local Government Series securities, which count against the debt limit.”

On July 29, Lew sent another letter to the leaders of Congress informing them: “I expect to extend the debt issuance suspension period through October 30.”

Lew explained that he believed the Treasury would be able to continue using “extraordinary measures” to keep the debt from exceeding the limit through at least the end of October.

“The effective duration of the extraordinary measures is subject to considerable uncertainty due to a variety of factors, including the unpredictability of September tax receipts and the normal challenges of forecasting the payments and receipts of the U.S. government months into the future,” Lew told the congressional leaders.

“Given this unavoidable uncertainty, Treasury is not able to provide a specific estimate of how long the extraordinary measures will last,” Lew said. “Nonetheless, we believe that the measures will not be exhausted before late October, and it is likely that they will last for at least a brief additional period of time.”

The next day, July 30, Lew did in fact send a notice to the congressional leaders saying: “I have determined that a ‘debt issuance suspension,’ previously determined to last until July 30, 2015, will continue through October 30, 2015.”

In his March 13 letter, Lew explained some steps the Treasury would take during the debt issuance suspension period.

“Because Congress has not yet acted to raise the debt limit,” Lew said in that letter, “the Treasury Department will have to employ further extraordinary measures to continue to finance the government on a temporary basis. Therefore, beginning on March 16, I plan to declare a ‘debt issuance suspension period’ with respect to investment of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and also suspend the daily reinvestment of Treasury securities held by the Government Securities Investment Fund and the Federal Employees’ Retirement System Thrift Savings Plan.”

Lew informed Boehner that these same actions had been taken “during previous debt limit impasses.”

For example, as CNSNews.com reported, when Secretary Lew declared a debt issuance suspension period in 2013, the Treasury reported the debt subject to the limit was frozen at $16,699,396,000,000 for 150 days, running from mid-May to mid-October of that year.

The Treasury has also posted Frequently Asked Question sheets that explain the actions the Treasury takes during a “debt issuance suspension period” and their statutory basis. The Congressional Research Service has also explained it.

“Under current law, if the Secretary of the Treasury determines that the issuance of obligations of the United States may not be made without exceeding the debt limit, a ‘debt issuance suspension period’ may be determined,” the Congressional Research Service said in a report published on March 27. “This determination gives the Treasury the authority to suspend investments in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Trust Fund, Postal Service Retiree Health Benefit Fund, and the Government Securities Investment Fund (G-Fund) of the Federal Thrift Savings Plan.

“In addition,” said CRS, “this gives Treasury the authority to prematurely redeem securities held by the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Trust Fund and Postal Service Retiree Health Benefit Fund.”

"The total federal debt consists of debt held by the public and intragovernmental debt," the CRS said inanother report published in 2011. "Debt owed to the public represents borrowing from entities other than the federal government, and includes borrowing from state and local governments, the Federal Reserve System, and foreign central banks, as well as private investors in the United States.

"Intragovernmental debt," said CRS, "consists in debt owed by one part of the federal government to another, which are mostly held in trust funds."

The net effect of the Treasury’s actions is that although the publicly held debt of the government continues to fluctuate--as the Treasury redeems maturing debt held by the public and issues new debt held by the public—the overall debt subject to the limit set by Congress closes each business day at $18,112,975,000,000.

Back on March 13, the debt held by the public was $13,083,880,000,000 and the intragovernmental debt was $5,068,578,000,000 according to the Daily Treasury Statement. By the close of business on August 10, also according to the Daily Treasury Statement, the debt held by the public had increased by $37,043,000,000 to $13,120,923,000,000, and the intragovernmental debt had decreased by $38,260,000,000 to $5,030,318,000,000.

But on every business day from March 13 through August 10 the Treasury reported that the federal debt subject to the legal limit set by Congress closed the day at $18,112,975,000,000.

Via: CNS News

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More paying ObamaCare fines as subsidies go to people who don’t exist

The IRS fined more than 7.5 million Americans who didn’t have health insurance in 2014, even as Obamacare subsidies flowed to people who didn’t even exist.

The Treasury Department reported last week the number of Americans who faced fines because of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate was significantly higher than the Obama administration expected. For 2014, the IRS projected that roughly 6 million would face fines, but the final total was 1.5 million higher.

It was the first year in which buying health insurance was made mandatory under the ACA, with penalties of $95 or 1 percent of total income – whichever was higher – for people who did not comply.

The average penalty collected for the 2014 tax year was about $200, the IRS reported.

“Although we have not yet completed our post-filing analysis, we are committed to conducting additional outreach to taxpayers, including letters to these specific taxpayers who did not have to report or make a payment. These letters will inform them about available exemptions and note that they may benefit from amending their return,” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

Penalties will increase to $395 or 2 percent of income per person in 2015; that will jump to $695 or 2.5 percent of income in 2016.

Those penalties are supposed to force Americans to purchase health insurance — or to at least make it financially wise for them to do so.

Click here for more from Watchdog.org. 

Via: Fox News

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IRS using absurd excuse to avoid turning over newly discovered Lois Lerner emails

The IRS is using a laughable excuse to stonewall the disclosure of 6,400 emails from Lois Lerner that were “forensically recovered.”  Remember these names: Geoffrey J. Klimas and Stephanie Sasarak. They are lawyers working for the Department of Justice who are representing the IRS, and they have just insulted the intelligence of the Washington, DC District Court and the American people by telling the Court that, as Patrick Howley writes in the Daily Caller:

…the IRS received new Lerner emails from the Treasury Department’s inspector general (TIGTA) but can’t fork over the emails to Judicial Watch, a nonprofit group suing to get the emails. Why? Because the IRS is busy making sure that none of the emails are duplicates  – you know, so as not to waste anyone’s time.
However, the inspector general already made sure that none of the emails were duplicates, so the IRS’ latest excuse falls flat.

Klimas and Sasarak admit in their court filing:

“Prior to providing the Service with the approximately 6,400 forensically-recovered emails, TIGTA identified and removed emails which appear to be duplicates of those which the Service has already produced to the Congressional Committees or were duplicates of other recovered emails.”

So there is absolutely no reason to delay disclosure of the emails. But the lawyers make up an insulting excuse – that they have to check for duplication with Lerner emails they don’t yet have:

 “The Service expects to begin processing and reviewing the recovered emails immediately following its review and production of Lerner communications which were not forensically recovered. At this time, the Service is unable to estimate when it will finish processing and reviewing the forensically-recovered emails.”

There must be some seriously incriminating material in these emails if DoJ attorneys are willing to beclown themselves by offering nonsense arguments to prevent their disclosure.  Lois Lerner took the Fifth Amendment for a reason. Most federal judges do not enjoy being mocked this way. But, it is possible to use nonsense arguments and filings to delay, and the goal clearly is to get past the 2016 election and hope that the public memory fades.

It might work.

Via: American Thinker

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Record Number of Americans Renounced Their U.S. Citizenship in 2015

(CNSNews.com)— Between January and March of 2015, a record 1,336 Americans renounced their U.S. citizenship, according to a quarterly report by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that was published in The Federal Register.

The list includes long-term permanent residents who are considered American citizens under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA), the IRS noted. The previous record was 1,130 in the second quarter of 2013, according to Treasury Department data.

A record total of 3,415 Americans renounced their citizenship last year, according to the “Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who Have Chosen To Expatriate.”

In a survey conducted by the University of Kent between December 2014 and January 2015, 1,546 U.S. citizens and former citizens were asked why they no longer wanted to be Americans. Survey participants stated that high taxes were the primary reason for renouncing their citizenship. But the survey also found that contrary to popular belief, income was not a key factor in their decision.

“Of those who have renounced or relinquished US citizenship (142 of the total respondents), nearly half (43%) have annual pre-tax household incomes of under $100,000 (USD). There is, similarly, very little difference in renunciation intention between those with lower incomes and those with higher incomes: of US citizen respondents with annual household incomes under $100,000 (USD), 28% are actively thinking of renouncing; of US citizen respondents with incomes above $250,000 (USD), 33% are actively thinking of doing so.”

In 2014, the government raised the fee for those wishing to formally relinquish their U.S. citizenship from $450 to $2,350. But nearly a third of those surveyed say they are still thinking about doing it anyway.

“Of the US citizen respondents, 31% have actively thought about renouncing US citizenship and 3% are in the process of doing so,” the survey noted.

The record number of American natives who have renounced their U.S. citizenship is in sharp contrast to the much larger rise in immigrants coming to America. An estimated 41.3 million immigrants, both legal and illegal, currently live in the United States and their numbers grew by 1.4 million people between 2010 and 2013, according to the Census Bureau. The largest number - 11.6 million – are from Mexico.

According to the American Community Survey conducted by the Census Bureau in 2013, 54.9% of the foreign-born population are not citizens of the United States, and only 15.6% speak English exclusively.

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) explained that during the next decade, immigrants will make up the largest share of the U.S. population ever recorded in American history:“The [Census] Bureau projected the future size of the immigrant (foreign-born) population and found that by 2023 immigrants will account for more than one in seven U.S. residents (51 million).

Via: CNS News

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White House attempt to control news reporting confirmed

Copies of Obama administration e-mails obtained by Judicial Watch have confirmed attempts by the White House to control the media in the United States by manipulating interviews with networks.

Despite public statements that Fox News, which often has reported criticisms of President Obama, was granted the same access as other networks, the e-mails Judicial Watch obtained “provide evidence that FNC was specifically singled out for exclusion.”

According to one Oct. 22, 2009, e-mail exchange between Dag Vega, director of broadcast media on the White House staff, to Jenni LeCompte, then-assistant secretary for public affairs in the Treasury Department, Vega informs LeCompte that “…we’d prefer if you skip Fox please.”

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, explained that the controversy arose when the administration was making “executive pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg available for interviews with selected administration favorites.

Obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed on Oct. 28, 2009, the e-mails reveal an entrenched anti-Fox bias, the organization said.

Via: Western Journalism

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Treasury Outlays to VA Department Up 92.2% in One Decade

(CNSNews.com) -- In inflation-adjusted dollars, Treasury Department outlays to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have increased 92.2% in the last 10 years, according to the Financial Management Service’s latest monthly Treasury statement, climbing from $73.3 billion to $140.9 billion since 2003.

As of the end of fiscal year 2013 (on Sept. 30,2013), outlays to the VA were $140,909,860,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars and included things such as medical services, medical support and compliance, medical facilities, housing accounts, compensation and pensions, and  insurance funds, to name a few.

As of September 2009, nine months after President Obama took office, outlays to the VA were $105,520,280,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars. This means that since September 2009, Treasury outlays have increased 33.5%.

Via: CNS News

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In 3 Days of Shutdown, Gov't Has Spent $3B on HUD--Same as Without Shutdown

In the first three days of what is being called a government "shutdown" or "partial shutdown," the federal government spent approximately $3 billion on the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to the Daily Treasury Statement released at 4:00 p.m. Friday.

The Treasury said it had spent $2.965 billion on Housing and Urban Development programs from Tuesday, Oct. 1 through Thursday, Oct. 3. Data will not be available on how much money the government spent on HUD programs on Friday until the Treasury releases its next daily statement at 4:00 p.m. on Monday.

In the first three days of October of last year, when the government was not in a "shutdown" or "partial shutdown," the Treasury spent almost the exact same amount of money--$2.966 billion--on HUD programs as it did in the first three days of this year when it was in a "shutdown" or "partial shutdown."

Via: CNS News

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Treasury Warns of Disaster if Congress Allows Default

THESE ARE SCARE TACTICS THAT JUST WON'T WORK!!

The Treasury Department warned of catastrophe that could plunge the nation into the worst recession since the Great Depression if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling.

“A default would be unprecedented and has the potential to be catastrophic: credit markets could freeze, the value of the dollar could plummet, and U.S. interest rates could skyrocket, potentially resulting in a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse,” the Treasury said in a press release.

“In the event of a default, the U.S. economy could be plunged into a recession worse than any seen since the Great Depression,” the department said.

Even brinkmanship without a default could cause interest rates to rise and the loss of trillions of dollars in household wealth.

“Postponing a debt ceiling increase to the very last minute is exactly what our economy does not need — a self-inflicted wound harming families and businesses,” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew warned in a statement.

The Treasury also warned that the government shutdown would exacerbate the economic hit from a default.

President Barack Obama, however, has repeatedly said that he will not negotiate a deal to raise the debt ceiling, insisting that Republicans not hold the debt hostage to other demands.

Via: Roll Call

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