Our fiscal situation has deteriorated rapidly in just the past few years. The federal government ran a 2009 deficit of $1.4 trillion—the highest since World War II—as spending reached nearly 25% of GDP and total revenues fell below 15% of GDP. Shortfalls like these have not been seen in more than 50 years.
Going forward, there is no relief in sight, as spending far outpaces revenues and the federal budget is projected to be in enormous deficit every year. Our national debt is projected to stand at $17.1 trillion 10 years from now, or over $50,000 per American. By 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) analysis of the president’s budget, the budget deficit will still be roughly $1 trillion, even though the economic situation will have improved and revenues will be above historical norms.
[…]
The time to worry about the deficit is not next year, but now. There is no time to waste.
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The Coming Deficit Disaster - WSJ.com
Mr. Holtz-Eakin is former director of the Congressional Budget Office and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. This is adapted from testimony he gave before the Senate Committee on the Budget on Nov. 10.
Condensed from an already condensed reblog; click-through for the whole thing. Bold emphasis is mine.
via sds: bellatoris
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Congress recognizes no limits on its power. It doesn’t care about the Constitution, it doesn’t care about your inalienable rights. […]
We do not have two political parties in this country, America. We have one party; called the Big Government Party. The Republican wing likes deficits, war, and assaults on civil liberties. The Democratic wing likes wealth transfer, taxes, and assaults on commercial liberties. Both parties like power; and neither is interested in your freedoms.
Once antitrust invites the federal courts to second-guess the decisions of private businesses… you set off a chain of political intervention that diverges from consumer interests.
“
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S.M. Oliva, Fumbling the Antitrust Football, an article explaining why US antitrust laws prevent the NFL from holding games on Friday or Saturday, which, being an article about both politics and sports, I doubly do not understand.
[h/t Mark]
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About two-thirds of the 14,506 jobs claimed to be saved under one federal office, the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, actually weren’t saved at all, according to a review of the latest data by The Associated Press. Instead, that figure includes more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren’t saved.
… .
But officials defended the practice of counting raises as saved jobs. “If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job,” HHS spokesman Luis Rosero said.
On August 23, 1989, officials from the newly reformed and soon-to-be-renamed Communist Party of Hungary ceased policing the country’s militarized border with Austria. Some 13,000 East Germans, many of whom had been vacationing at nearby Lake Balaton, fled across the frontier to the free world. It was the largest breach of the Iron Curtain in a generation, and it kicked off a remarkable chain of events that ended 11 weeks later with the righteous citizen dismantling of the Berlin Wall.
Twenty years later, the anniversary of that historic border crossing was noted in exactly four American newspapers, according to the Nexis database, and all four mentions were in reprints of a single syndicated column.
[…]
Get used to it, if you haven’t already. November 1989 was the most liberating month of arguably the most liberating year in human history, yet two decades later the country that led the Cold War coalition against communism seems less interested than ever in commemorating, let alone processing the lessons from, the collapse of its longtime foe. At a time that fairly cries out for historical perspective about the follies of central planning, Americans are ignoring the fundamental conflict of the postwar world[…]
PSA - Listen to Overpaid Celebrities
noisymime:
Brilliant. I am constantly amazed that we, as a society, give one second of interest about what actors and musicians say about anything beyond their chosen field just because they are celebrities.
While this is just as snarky and sarcastic as videos I’ve seen from the opposing side (which I don’t consider an effective mechanism for persuasion), I just liked the part about “overpaid celebrities tell us what to think, so we don’t have to”.
via randyhaddock
I think it’s very destructive for America to suggest that we can’t criticize a president without it being a racial act.
hilker: poortaste:
Ron Paul on CNN 9/14/2009
“[The Fed] is bigger than the Congress, [it] has more power than the Congress. The Fed Chairman probably is more powerful than our president, and yet we refuse to look at it. The time has come for us to look at the Fed” - Ron Paul
THANK YOU
Political name-calling really gets to me.
via mercurypdx
- Mike Keefe
jeffmiller:
The argument seems to be that the opponents of public health care are hypocrites because they use (and presumably believe in) the provision of other public goods. If you drive on public roads, then how dare you oppose public health care … How far does this logic extend? If you drive on public roads, must you support government supermarkets? Government clothing? Government cars? Government computers? Government newspapers? Government stereos? Government rock bands?
We may differ on the proper scope of government power, but we agree on the fact that government power is not infinite. To cede the existence of Government is not to cede the omnipotence of it. It is not unreasonable to think that the Government ought to provide roads, but not health care. Moreover, the use of a Government resource does not imply endorsement of it. I’m against Social Security, but I’ll cash my checks at retirement—not because the system is good, but because my money was taken, and I want at least some of it back. The same is true for roads—I would be happier, perhaps, with purely private roads, but I pay taxes for the public ones we have instead, so I’m going to use them.
The cartoon above represents a search for hypocrisy… this is a lazy way to argue. If you support government health care, make the case for why coercive force should be used to provide it. Don’t just make false accusations about the integrity of your opponents.
via squashed: azspot
emphases mine
via hilker
While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized - the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.
[…]
I share the confidence of those who feel that America is willing to care for its unwanted as well as wanted children, protecting particularly those who cannot protect themselves. I also share the opinions of those who do not accept abortion as a response to our society’s problems.
hilker:
an excellent piece. excellent.
hilker:
i love my farmer’s markets too much to not sign & share this.
Me, too! (well, my farmer’s market; not yours)
