"We Don't Have a Spending Problem!" Says Obama

It would appear that my self-declared mission to save common sense has failed—and failed miserably.  I typically expect asinine, self-serving, and cynical decisions out of congress and the president, but it would seem that this is in line with what the statist ideologues and low-information voters in this country want too. 

Nobody is taking our nation’s fiscal situation seriously.  President Obama repeatedly decried during his presidential campaign the need for a “balanced approach” as far as spending cuts and raising revenue in order to put our financial house back in order.  After having won reelection, evidently that balanced approach as recommended by his own Bowles-Simpson committee of $3 in spending cuts to every $1 in revenue increases is now null and void.  Obama has redefined a “balanced approach” to mean tax increases only, so it seems.

Newly re-elected Speaker of the House John Boehner stated in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal that in his meeting with Obama it was apparent that Obama was utterly unwilling to cut a single dollar of federal spending.  Indeed, Boehner reports Obama as telling him, “We don’t have a spending problem.”  Wow!  So either Obama was being disingenuous during the campaign when he acknowledged that there was a spending problem, hence the need for a balanced approach, or he flat out doesn’t care about the impending fiscal collapse that will indeed come if we continue such reckless spending.  Frankly, I suspect both are true.  Already our national debt of over $16 trillion exceeds our entire gross domestic product.  It is unsustainable.

Speaker Boehner continued that President Obama asserts and maintains that the federal deficit is not due to governmental overspending but rather by a “health-care problem.”   “They blame all of the fiscal woes on our health-care system.” Boehner told Obama, “Clearly we have a health-care problem, which is about to get worse with Obamacare. But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem.” Obama eventually replied, “I’m getting tired of hearing you say that.”

Obama may be tired of hearing Boehner talk about a spending problem, particularly when Obama has been re-elected on the basis of ignoring government spending. Nonetheless, America does have a spending problem, which Obama is steadfastly ignoring. “He’s so ideological himself,” Boehner explained, “and he’s unwilling to take on the left of his own party.” That’s why Obama refused to raise the retirement age for Medicare after agreeing to it. “He admitted in meetings that he couldn’t sell things to his own members,” said Boehner. “But he didn’t even want to try … We could never get him to step up.”

So we ended up raising taxes in the recent fiscal cliff deal.  Never mind that tax receipts rose(after tax-rate cuts) from $1.9 billion in 2003 to $2.3 billion in 2008, the year the recession started.  And did congress use that increase in revenue to close the gap in our budget’s deficit spending?  Nope.  In fact the deficit more than doubled.

Obama knows the ramifications of tax increases during tough economic times.  Indeed, in a MSNBC interview with Chuck Todd in August 2009, Obama said that "normally you don't raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven't."  Todd had asked Obama a question from Elkhart, Indiana resident Scott Ferguson who wanted Obama to explain why raising taxes in a recession could be good for the economy. Obama answered that it could not be good for the economy, saying it was just good economics not to raise taxes in a recession.  “First of all, he’s [Ferguson] right. Normally, you don’t raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven’t and why we’ve instead cut taxes. So I guess what I’d say to Scott is – his economics are right. You don’t raise taxes in a recession. We haven’t raised taxes in a recession,” Obama said.  And while we are not technically in a recession by definition right now, we are veering towards it, and the recent deal to raise taxes will likely steer us right back into that ditch.

President Obama further told Speaker Boehner that Obamacare would essentially fix the health care problems, so government spending was no longer going to be an issue.  Truly this man is delusional.

So what we have is an economy that is ultimately headed for financial collapse.  The president knows this and during his reelection campaign states that a balanced approach of spending cuts and revenue increases must be employed to deal with the situation quickly.  He further realizes based on his past statements that raising taxes during a recession is not the way to go about doing this.  After being reelected, Obama now states there is no spending problem and ultimately raises taxes.  And the people and sycophantic statist media continue to think he is a wonderful leader with our best interests truly at heart.  Yep, common sense is dead.

Barney Frank Laments Having to Enact Tough Spending Cuts in Coming GOP-Controlled House

When the 112th Congress convenes this coming January and the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, evidently Representative Barney Frank D-MA is worried that he won't have any fun because instead of trying to find ways to spend the American taxpayers' money, the GOP is going to be looking for ways to cut such spending.

Indeed, Barney Frank, who is the current House Financial Services Chairman, has said that serving on the Appropriations Committee in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will be a “great pain in the ass."  He continues, “Fascinating fact, apparently for the first time in anybody’s memory, members of Congress have declined seats on the Appropriations Committee,” Frank said Nov. 18 during a CATO Institute panel on defense spending.

“The Appropriations Committee, which has been a great plum, is now going to be a great pain in the ass because you’re going to be expected to come up with cuts in things that are very popular, et cetera," said Frank.

Don't you feel badly for one of the chief person's responsible for the gross mismanagement and the ensuing collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, thus providing the catalyst for the decimation of America's housing market and the economy on whole?  He laments that it won't be fun being on the appropriations committee anymore because instead of reckless abandon spending, congress will now have to make some serious and sometimes difficult choices in spending cuts.

Congressman Frank, you are an embarrassment to the House of Representatives and the American people.  It does not speak well of your constituents that they foolishly decided to return one of the architects of our nation's economic decline to his seat in congress. 

Judging by this recent statement of yours, evidently you still do not get the message either.  Evidently the people of your district in Massachusetts have insulated you from the consequences of your actions directly, but the nation as a whole has taken notice and intends to fix what you and other tax and spend progressives of both parties have broken.

On the Precipice of Bankruptcy

I realize that for generations now, we Americans have not really paid attention as our elected officials have gone and spent literally trillions of dollars of our taxpayer money on everything from pork-barrel projects, to pay-backs for special interest groups, to even occasionally legitimate government business needs.

With that being said, it is good to see that millions of Americans are now waking up to the fact that if we don’t do something to rein in spending RIGHT NOW, we may very well doom our country to complete fiscal insolvency. Bankruptcy!

It is bad enough when a family is forced to go into bankruptcy for whatever reason. It will be exceptionally painful for the United States and the entire world if we allow our nation to also continue down this path ultimately leading to this destination. The world will not easily recover from its greatest producer and consumer going into bankruptcy.

We the people must insist that the government refrain from all but the most absolutely necessary Constitutionally-authorized spending for the indefinite future. It will likely take generations to fix the hole we have dug; however, this is only logical considering that it has taken a like amount of generations to have placed us in this desperate spot we currently find ourselves.

We MUST stop growing government and allow private enterprise to grow again and thus to return to the robust engine of our economy. Government does far more to siphon money from productive means and services and often times ends up exacerbating the problems it is presumably trying to fix. I give you the Department of Education and the Department of Energy as two prime examples of government largess that has taken vitally important issues, concocted federalized solutions with untold billions of tax payer dollars, and then ended up with poor educational results and an even greater dependency upon foreign sources of energy respectively.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the growth in state and local government employees since 1946 has increased from 3.3 million then to 19.8 million today. This is a 492 percent increase as the country’s population increased by only 115 percent. Since 1999 the number of state and local government employees has increased by 13 percent, compared to a 9 percent increase in the population.

The United States had 2.3 state and local government employees per 100 citizens in 1946 and has 6.5 state and local government employees per 100 citizens now. In 1947, 78 percent of the national income went to the private sector, 16 percent to the federal sector, and 6 percent to the state and local government sector. Now 54 percent of the economy is private, 28 percent goes to the feds, and 18 percent goes to state and local governments. The trend lines are ominous and absolutely unsustainable. We cannot continue to grow government jobs as our primary source of employment for Americans.

I heard Congressman Jeb Hensarling of Texas’ 5th district say this morning on the news that as of today it would take a 60% increase in taxes to just balance the current Obama budget so that expenditures equal income. This does NOTHING to pay off the $74 TRILLION in debt we currently hold as a nation right now. This simply means that we are paying for what we are buying with this 60% tax increase. How in the world do we fix this problem?

First, we do NOT continue to spend money we do not have. Second, we make painful and drastic cuts across the board in all government departments and agencies, say anywhere from 10 to 20% cuts. Further, we eliminate those departments that are not necessary and are actually counter-productive to their intended goals, like the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. These are issues that are typically better handled on the state and local level anyway, particularly when it comes to education.

The bottom line is that if we don’t stop this spending now, our children for generations on down the line will suffer for our reluctance to address the problem. Adding socialized health care, cap & spend energy policies, and bailouts & nationalization of private industry will only get us to the edge of that cliff sooner.

The Earmark Stimulus Bill and Job Creation

Recent unemployment numbers were out this last week and were reported at 9.7% unemployment, which is down from the 10.1% previously listed. Now before everyone goes and gets all excited and thinks that Lord Obama's porkulous bill is finally working and creating jobs, let me tell you what most economists that are NOT Keynsians and in league with the Obama administration know. It's called the truth.

It isn't that the porkulous bill that was full of earmarks actually created jobs, as was the presumptive intention behind it, but rather for tens of thousands of unemployed their benefits to collect unemployment assistance finally ran out and they are no longer eligible for them.

SO, while these folks are still unemployed, the Department of Labor no longer has to count them as such. Of course, if we continue down this socialist path, the entire nation will be without jobs and with expired unemployment benefits, thereby giving the illusion for the Obama-centric revisionist historians that the anointed one returned everyone to work with 100% full employment.

The majority of the jobs that have been created by government spending and the largess of the tax payers' money will dry up as soon as the federal funding of them ends too. THE government typically does NOT create jobs. The best thing the government can do is to get out of the way by removing bureaucratic red tape and lowering corporate taxes in order to foster a climate where companies want to and can afford to invest in growing their companies, especially by adding jobs. It is the PRIVATE SECTOR that is the engine of our economy; NOT the federal government, no matter how many trillions of tax payer dollars the government throws at the problem.

Let me give you a few facts regarding the asinine stimulus bill. These figures are as reported by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. (For fiscal year 4Q09 ending Sept. 30th)

• The total amount of contracts and grants awarded was 56,399.




• The total amount of stimulus money awarded was $157,028,362,536.



• Average dollar amount awarded per GOP district was $232,047,857.



• Average dollar amount awarded per Democrat district was $439,200,100.



• Total number of jobs claimed as "saved or created" is 638,826.54 or $245,807.51 per job.
  


• Unemployment in January 2009 at 7.6 percent.



• Unemployment in December 2009 at 10 percent.

Never mind the fact that Obama pressed for this porkulous spending spree bill immediately so that more people wouldn't suffer, so he claimed. He told us that the bill's passage was paramount if we were to hold unemployment below 8%. Well, buckle up people because the worst is NOT over yet unless we can put Republicans, Independents, and even Democrats into congress that have OUR interest in mind first and decide to stop spending money we do not have. (I refer you to the counter at the top of this blog showing what our current national debt is.)

You and I could not run our household budget like this and survive. We couldn't run a private business like this and survive. The fact is you cannot run anything like this and survive. I don't care if you are the anointed teleprompter demi-god that Obama thinks he is. Sooner or later our creditors WILL come to collect (i.e. China) and then what are we going to do? Give them a really nice speech? Perhaps an iPod with Lord Obama's speeches on it?

The spending MUST stop on everything with an across the board cut for all departments of at least 10%, with the military being the only exception until we are no longer at war. That is something that most every household in the country has not had to do during this recession. Why can't our government do this also?

And for that matter, lets save money by cutting out whole departments that are not necessary or can be better handled at the state level. Cut the Department of Energy, which came into being in the Carter administration in order to make our country energy independent from foreign nations. Since that problem has only gotten worse, I see no need to continue funding this failed department.

Kill the Department of Education and let the states and better yet, the local communities administer the education of their children. And finally, get rid of funding for the ridiculous things that should never have been funded by tax payer dollars to begin with... things like the National Endowment for the Arts.

When We the People hold the politicians' feet to the fire, they will do the right thing, if not for the sake of honor, then for their own preservation of power. Regardless this must be done now before we finally go over that cliff where we are teetering on the edge currently. Finally though, there is some hope as people wake up and see this. True change we can believe in is coming. It starts in November of this year.