Romney by a landslide

A deeply troubled and deeply troubling administration that will do anything, no matter how cynical and venal, to protect its hold on power

When it comes to predicting the outcome of presidential races most pundits refuse to go out on a limb in predicting probable outcomes. Let’s face it; it’s a risky business that could leave one’s face covered with egg. However, in the case of the current election I will happily stick my neck out and risk being seen as a blowhard who believes himself up to predicting the future.

n a word, I predict a Romney landslide and here’s why: despite the fact that the famous 47% who to whatever degree depend on the government for their daily bread is expected to look for more of the same, I believe that if this percentage could have their druthers, they’d opt for having a well-paying job that left them self-sufficient, rather than dependent on the government.

I think that at some level most people in America understand that socialization would result in an overall lower standard of living. I also believe that despite all the class envy and hatred that’s been ginned up against the 1% by this administration, there is a basic understanding that private business, not the government, creates wealth. In my experience, most Americans understand that socialism doesn’t so much “spread the wealth” as it imposes equal degrees of misery.

Obama has incurred close to $6 trillion in new debt through deficit spending, the majority of which has gone to “stimulate” the economy. Counting the massive $821 billion stimulus bill and several additional stimulus bills and three Quantitative Easing initiatives (that’s government speak for printing extra money), the net effect has been that the American economy remains in the doldrums with unemployment in real terms approaching 15%. But even that failure might be forgiven if Obama hadn’t taken his role as messiah so seriously and make grandiloquent promises that could never be kept. I recall writing in these pages on November 11, 2008:

Via: Canada Free Press

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U.S DEBT ADDED MONDAY GREATER THAN TOTAL DEBT ACCUMULATED IN COUNTRY'S FIRST 166 YEARS

On the first day of fiscal year 2013, the federal government added more debt than was accumulated between the nation’s founding and sometime in October 1942, about ten months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, a span of about 166 years. 

CNS News noted the $93,245,605,914.16 added to the debt on Monday “equaled about $816 for every American household.” And “since median household earns about $138.36 per day over a 365-day year,” the median household would need to give up all of the money it earns for nearly six days to pay off its share of the debt accumulated on the first day of fiscal year 2013.

According to CNS News, on September 30, 1944, “the total debt of the U.S. government was $91,057,523,886.72,” and by Oct. 31, 1942, it was $97,168,867,541.93.

The $93,245,605,914.16 in debt the country incurred on Monday also was "the second-largest increase on the first day of a fiscal year in the history of the country. The record ($99,500,170,215.20) was set on the first day of fiscal year 2009 when the country was mired in a banking crisis that resulted in massive government bailouts. 

Below is how Monday's debt increase compares with how much the debt increased on the first day of the last eight fiscal years:

FY 2013:$93,245,605,914.16

FY 2012: $46,758,942,639.56

FY 2011: $49,224,554,918.30

FY 2010: $10,690,160,807.67

FY 2009: $99,500,170,215.20

FY 2008: $54,899,028,094.15

FY 2007: $41,410,211,399.05

FY 2006: $37,814,341,549.00

Via: Breitbart

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Debt Jumped $1.2759T in FY 2012; Up $10,855 Per Household in Just 12 Months; Beats 2011

According to the U.S. Treasury, the debt of the U.S. government climbed by a total of $1,275,901,078,828.74 in fiscal 2012, which ended yesterday.

That means the federal government borrowed approximately an additional $10,855 for each household in the United States just over the past twelve months.

The total debt of the United States now equals approximately $136,690 per household.

In fiscal 2011, the debt increased by about $10,454 per household--$401 less than the $10,855 per household increase of 2012.

The $1.2758 trillion that the debt increased in fiscal 2012 was about $47.18 billion more than the $1.2287 trillion that the debt increased in fiscal 2011.

The federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30.

At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2011, the total debt of the U.S. government was $14,790,340,328,557.15, according to the Treasury. At the close of business on Sept. 28, the last business day of fiscal 2012, it was $16,066,241,407,385.89

That meant the debt increased in fiscal 2012 by $1,275,901,078,828.74.

At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2010, the debt had stood at $13,561,623,030,891.79.  Over the course of fiscal 2011, it increased by $1,228,717,297,665.36 before closing at 14,790,340,328,557.15 on Sept. 30, 2011.

The fiscal 2012 increase of $1,275,901,078,828.74 exceeded the fiscal 2011 increase $1,228,717,297,665.36 by $47,183,781,163.38

The Census Bureau estimated that there were 117,538,000 household in the United States in 2010. The $1,275,901,078,828.74 that the debt increased in fiscal 2012 equaled about $10,855 for each one of those 117,538,000 households.

Via: CNS News

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Biden On $16 Trillion Deficit: All Bush’s Fault…

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  ABC OTUS News - Biden Blames Bush Administration for Deficit (ABC News)

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Vice President Joe Biden placed the blame for the ballooning deficit on the Bush administration today, arguing that the previous administration saddled the country with the burden of trillions of dollars in debt.

"Let's get serious here! How did we get this debt? Ladies and gentlemen, they put two wars on a credit card. Not paying a penny, not paying a penny, even though I introduced legislation to pay for that war. They voted against it," Biden said at the Wa-Ke Hatchee Park Recreation Center. "Two, they voted for a new entitlement program without paying one penny for it, and that was clear. Number 3, they added another trillion dollars in the tax cut for the very wealthy, so what's the result? These are the facts, folks, these are the facts.

"The result was by the time the reins got turned back over to Barack [Obama] and me, they had doubled the national debt in eight years, doubled the national debt in eight years," Biden added.

Biden recounted that within the first week of being in office, Larry Summers, a top economic adviser to the president, warned newly inaugurated President Obama of the deficit the country faced.

"We were sitting in the oval office, and Larry Summers, the chief economic adviser, and the economic team came in and said 'Mr. President, looking at this year's budget you are going to have a trilliondollar deficit.' He said, 'I haven't done anything yet,'" Biden said. "I'm serious. They said, 'No, Mr. President, the budget they passed, the budget they passed in October of last year guarantees no matter what you do you're going to have a trillion dollar debt this year in the budget.' A trillion dollar deficit to be precise."

Earlier in the week, the Washington Post fact checked President Obama's claim that the Bush administration's policies accounted for 90 percent of the country's current deficit and rated the assertion as false, since the president also pushed spending increases and tax cuts that added to the deficit.

Biden also claimed the Obama administration has proposed a plan that would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years and has already decreased the deficit by $1 trillion

Via: Yahoo

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Rick Perry Reminds Obama What The National Debt Is...

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From Rick Perry's Twitter

The Magnitude of the Mess We're In

Sometimes a few facts tell important stories. The American economy now is full of facts that tell stories that you really don't want, but need, to hear.

Where are we now?

Did you know that annual spending by the federal government now exceeds the 2007 level by about $1 trillion? With a slow economy, revenues are little changed. The result is an unprecedented string of federal budget deficits, $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010, $1.3 trillion in 2011, and another $1.2 trillion on the way this year. The four-year increase in borrowing amounts to $55,000 per U.S. household.

The amount of debt is one thing. The burden of interest payments is another. The Treasury now has a preponderance of its debt issued in very short-term durations, to take advantage of low short-term interest rates. It must frequently refinance this debt which, when added to the current deficit, means Treasury must raise $4 trillion this year alone. So the debt burden will explode when interest rates go up.

The government has to get the money to finance its spending by taxing or borrowing. While it might be tempting to conclude that we can just tax upper-income people, did you know that the U.S. income tax system is already very progressive? The top 1% pay 37% of all income taxes and 50% pay none.

Did you know that, during the last fiscal year, around three-quarters of the deficit was financed by the Federal Reserve? Foreign governments accounted for most of the rest, as American citizens' and institutions' purchases and sales netted to about zero. The Fed now owns one in six dollars of the national debt, the largest percentage of GDP in history, larger than even at the end of World War II.

The Fed has effectively replaced the entire interbank money market and large segments of other markets with itself. It determines the interest rate by declaring what it will pay on reserve balances at the Fed without regard for the supply and demand of money. By replacing large decentralized markets with centralized control by a few government officials, the Fed is distorting incentives and interfering with price discovery with unintended economic consequences.

Via: Wall Street Journal

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Bureau of Economic Analysis: Debt Is Now Approximately 103 Percent of GDP

(CNSNews.com) - According to the most recent official estimate by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Gross Domestic Product for 2012 will be $15.6061 trillion--or about $440.5 billion less than the $16.0466 in debt that the federal government had accumulated as of the close of business on Monday.

In other words, the debt is now approximately 103 percent of GDP.

The BEA, which is part of the Department of Commerce and which officially calculates GDP, based its current estimate of this year's GDP, published on Aug. 29, on economic data available through the end of the second quarter of this calender year.

If that current estimate is correct, the debt of the United States government eclipsed the value of the Gross Domestic Product of the United States on April 2 of this year.

On Friday, March 30, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, the federal debt was $15,582,078,681,188.69. By the close of business on Monday, April 2, it was $15,620,325,998,403.96.

The BEA defines GDP as: "The market value of goods and services produced by labor and property in the United States, regardless of nationality."

Via: CNS News

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Cities pay a price for campaign swings: $100,000 for recent Obama visit

President Obama Continues to leave a Trail of Debt at a time when the Cities Can Least Afford it.

President Obama's motorcade pulls onto Hunts Point Road last month on the way to a private fundraiser at the home of former Costco CEO Jim Sinegal.

Local law-enforcement agencies spent nearly $100,000 in overtime to protect President Obama during a fundraising trip to the Seattle area last month, according to records released by the groups involved in the effort.

The roughly $98,500 tab, which won't be reimbursed, could have been much higher — the largest security force in the presidential motorcade, the Washington State Patrol, adjusted its schedules, shifting troopers from regular duties to avoid what would have been an additional $60,000 in overtime.

The single largest overtime tab came from the Bellevue Police Department, which paid $28,817 extra to some 60 officers involved in securing the Hilton Bellevue Hotel, where the president spent the night.

In all, dozens of employees from nine local agencies were involved in security for the July 24-25 visit, Obama's sixth to the state as president. Although the Secret Service coordinated the protection effort, local agencies also had to spend hours helping to craft a 72-page incident plan, officials said.

The costs are not unique to Obama; all presidential visits require intense security, and President Bush's trips to the state cost about the same, officials said. Security is also required for Republican Mitt Romney, although his status as only a candidate means the costs are lower.

The local expenses are in addition to costs handled by the federal government, including the operation of Air Force One, which is estimated at about $180,000 per hour. The Obama campaign is required to cover part of the federal expenses, but not local ones.

Those local costs for Obama's July visit represented only a small fraction of the budgets of the law-enforcement agencies.

Still, some people wondered why taxpayers must pay for security for a strictly political visit that did not include any public events.

The president attended a $35,800-per-person round-table with business leaders and a $5,000-per-ticket dinner at which he spoke for 13 minutes before reporters were escorted out. He raised about $1.75 million from the events, both at the Hunts Point home of Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal.

Via: The Seattle Times

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CA Sales Tax Revenue Nosedives by 33.5%

We were severely criticized last week by the left and the right for publishing, “Calif. default risk turns Gov. Brown into a capitalist.“ The report highlighted that Gov. Jerry Brown is steamrolling environmentalists and regulators to generate more state tax revenue by expediting approval of pro-business infrastructure.

But our detractors were stunned to learn from State Controller John Chiang that California’s July sales tax revenue was down 33.5 percent from that anticipated by the state budget approved in late June by the Legislature.  Even more ominously, the state’s $9.6 billion cash deficit that was rolled over from the June 30 fiscal year has catapulted to $18 billion last month.

The state has avoided default by temporarily borrowing from state trust funds, but those accounts will soon need their cash back to continue operating.  Today California quickly began trying to sell $10 billion in municipal bonds to fund the record $28 billion they need to keep the lights on.  With tax revenue plummeting and the state already having the second-lowest rated credit in the country, if the independent credit rating agencies downgrade the state to “junk bond,” California will be short up to $18 billion and default.

Brown used his line-item veto authority to strike $128.9 million in spending from the $91.3 billion California general fund before signing the state budget.  Brown’s cuts surprisingly hit Democrat priorities, such as spending for child care and preschool for low-income children, and closing 30 state parks.

But Republican Senator Tom Berryhill warned Brown: “This budget is a slow-motion train wreck, and you’re driving the bus.”  Berryhill criticized Democrats for failing to rein in public pensions and regulatory terrorism, and to and cap state spending. Those all are things Republicans say are needed to rescue state government.

Via: CA Political Review

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U.S. Foreign Debt Hits Record $5.29 Trillion

(CNSNews.com) - The money the U.S. government owes to foreign entities rose to a record $5.2923 trillion in June, according to data released by the U.S. Treasury Wednesday afternoon.

In May, the U.S. Treasury had owed $5.2581 trillion to foreign entities. On net, in June, the U.S. government borrowed an additional $34.2 billion from foreign entities in order to fund U.S. government operations.

The U.S. government’s indebtedness to foreign interests has grown by 72.3 percent during President Barack Obama’s term in office. In January 2009, when Obama was inaugurated, the U.S. government owed $3.0717 trillion to foreign entities, according to the Treasury Department. That has increased by $2.2206 trillion—or 72.3 percent—to the record $5.2923 trillion reported for yesterday.

Entities in the People’s Republic of China remain the largest holders of U.S. government debt. Entities in Japan, however, are on track to eclipse the Chinese as the top holders of U.S. government debt.

In June, the Chinese held $1.1643 trillion in U.S. government debt, up slightly from the $1.1640 trillion in U.S. government debt the Chinese held in May. However, Chinese ownership of U.S. government debt hit an historical peaked of $1.3149 trillion in July 2011 and has been on a generally downward trend since then.

Via: CNSNews

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The Childishness of the American Left

The American left is the most self-indulgent, arrogant, and spoiled group of people on the face of the earth.  They live in a nation facing national bankruptcy and societal upheaval -- a country presently subsisting on the residue of past economic achievements.  Yet the only things that matter to them are their lifestyles and imposing their self-determined superiority on rest of the American people.

The true indebtedness of the United States now exceeds $222 trillion.  Appearing on National Public Radio in August of 2011 Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff of Boston University said:

If you add up all the promises that have been made for spending obligations, and subtract all the taxes we expect to collect, the difference is $211 Trillion.  This is the fiscal gap.  That is our true indebtedness.

Since that interview, the indebtedness has increased by another $11 trillion.  Yet these estimates do not include the full impact of ObamaCare, which could add another $17+ trillion.  On the other side of the ledger: the annual Gross Domestic Product (the value of all economic activity in the U.S.) is $15.6 trillion.  The indebtedness to GDP ratio is a staggering 14.2 to 1 and guaranteed to further accelerate if Barack Obama is re-elected.

The United States is not facing bankruptcy, it is bankrupt.  The primary factor that has kept the nation afloat over the past four years is that the dollar, albeit temporarily, remains the world's reserve currency, thus allowing the Federal Reserve to print enormous sums of money to cover the Obama budget deficits and flood the global market with near worthless cash.  Today itrequires $100.00 to purchase the same goods $10.00 purchased in 1950.

Via: American Thinker

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Debt Up $6.35T Since Ryan Predicted--in 2008-U.S. Was Headed Toward Bankruptcy

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts in Norfolk, Va., on Aug. 11, 2012, where Romney announced Ryan as his running mate. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Paul Ryan, whom Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has picked as his running mate, told CNSNews.com four years ago, in August 2008, that the U.S. was heading toward bankruptcy on the fiscal path it was then following and that it would be “mindboggling” to make the problem worse by adding the sort of health-care plan that then-Sen. Barack Obama was advocating in his presidential campaign.

CNSNews.com asked Ryan: “If our country, if the federal government of the United States, stays on the fiscal path it is currently following, is the government going to go bankrupt down the road?"

“Yes. We know that for a fact,” said Ryan. “All the actuaries, all the objective score-keepers of the federal government are predicting this. So, this much we know. What we know is our government is growing at an unsustainable pace and it will overwhelm our economy’s ability to pay the bills.”

Since CNSNews.com first published Ryan making this prediction on Aug. 4, 2008, the debt of the federal government has grown by $6.35 trillion--rising 66 percent, from $9,565,042,361,845.53 then to $15,915,814,457,919.46 now.

Via: CNSNews:

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'1,200 Days and $5 Trillion in New Debt Since Senate Dems Passed a Budget'

Tomorrow will mark a milestone: It will be 1,200 days since Senate Democrats passed a budget, during which time Congress amassed $4.8 trillion in new debt.

Later today, the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee will release this chart, detailing these startling numbers:

Congress has spent $11.2 trillion since passing its last budget on April 29, 2009, according to the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee. The new debt since that date is $4.8 trillion.

"Since the last budget resolution was passed 1,200 days ago, the government has borrowed 42 cents of every dollar spent," the chart notes. The chart is  based on Treasury Department figures.

In a joint statement, Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions and House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan mark the milestone.

“Tomorrow marks another disappointing record for the United States Senate: Senate Majority Leader Reid and his Democrat conference will have gone an unprecedented 1,200 days without adopting a budget plan as required by law," write Sessions and Ryan. "Not only have they failed to adopt a budget, but with America under threat of financial calamity, they have refused to even present a plan for public scrutiny. Last year, Majority Leader Reid said it would be ‘foolish’ to do a budget and the legally required Budget Committee mark-up was cancelled. No plan from his conference has seen the light of day. He refuses to disclose who he plans to tax and how he plans to spend taxpayers’ money."

Via: The Weekly Standard

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