Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On May 11, 2011, I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:
Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner. I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.
GUIDELINE #9: Terminate programs rather than trimming them or phasing them out.
Budget cutters often commit the tactical error of settling for small reductions or lengthy phaseouts of obsolete programs instead of immediately terminating them. They mistakenly believe that securing small program reductions now will allow them to come back and cut the program more next time.
But leaving obsolete programs in place simply creates an opportunity for future Congresses to restore funding. Furthermore, retaining the programs leaves the bureaucracy in place and allows it to enlist interest groups in a counteroffensive against spending reductions. The old line that “those attacking the throne had better kill the king on the first shot” applies to government programs as well.
In the 1980s, President Reagan successfully terminated only 12 of the 94 programs he proposed be eliminated. Congress would often block the terminations by negotiating slight reductions and lengthy phaseouts, waiting a few years for the President’s focus to shift elsewhere and then restoring the programs to their original funding.30 Similarly, Members of the 104th Congress who proposed ending federal subsidies to programs such as AmeriCorps and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting were persuaded to settle for slight spending reductions and a promise to cut more later, and the budgets of those programs have since rebounded to all-time highs.
One must never assume that spending reductions today will be followed up with additional reductions later. Retaining a program means retaining a bureaucracy dedicated to self-preservation, interest groups dedicated to aiding the bureaucracy, and a budget line item to which Congress can easily attach a larger number next year.
Rising spending—not low revenues—is driving the long-term budget deficits. By 2020, spending is projected to be 6.2 percent of GDP above the historical average, while projected 2020 revenues are 0.2 percent of GDP above the historical average. Thus, the entire expanded budget deficit will be caused by rising spending, rather than by falling revenues—even if the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are extended.
Between 2008 and 2020, the cost of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and net interest is projected to rise from 10.2 percent of GDP to 15.6 percent of GDP—making them responsible for nearly the entire rising budget deficit.
In a interview with Chicago’s Don Wade & Roma radio show , Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky claimed that Americans aren’t entitled to all of their own money.
Toward the end of a wide-ranging interview, the hosts played a clip from this week’s Republican Presidential Debate where California teenager Tyler Hinsley asked, “Of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think I deserve to keep?” Co-host Don Wade asked Schakowsky to answer the same question.
After some initial back-and-forth, she replied, “I’ll put it this way, you don’t deserve to keep all of it. It’s not a question of deserving, because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together.”
Despite the hosts’ persistence, Schakowsky declined to answer what percentage of a person’s income they deserved to keep. “I pay at a 35% tax rate, happy to do it,” she explained when the hosts persisted with their question. She again declined to say how much more she would personally be willing to pay.
But Rep. Schakowsky is not alone. Her views are sadly typical of a liberal worldview that sees a person’s earnings as belonging first to the state. In fact, the left is now doubling down on this misguided belief, with the President pushing for more stimulus spending despite the failures of earlier “stimulus.”
But while the left continues to promote the same failed policies—more taxes, more regulation, more big government—conservatives need to trumpet the benefits of low taxes, sensible regulations, and small government. As Heritage’s Dubay explains:
The best way to grow revenues is to promote faster economic growth, which will increase the number of taxpayers and taxable income more rapidly. Tax hikes—whether through higher tax rates or slashing credits, deductions, and exemptions without offsetting reductions elsewhere—will not do the job. Under President Obama’s current policies, spending will continue to grow at a faster rate than can be paid for by tax hikes—even assuming the huge tax increases the President insists upon. To add insult to injury, as history has shown, tax hikes would slow economic growth and make it even harder for unemployed Americans to find a job.
Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion).
On my blog www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, I did not see any of them in the recent debt deal that Congress adopted. Now I am trying another approach. Every week from now on I will send you an email explaining different reasons why we need the Balanced Budget Amendment. It will appear on my blog on “Thirsty Thursday” because the government is always thirsty for more money to spend.
In a private conference call with a handful of university students across the country, GOP Presidential hopeful — and President Obama’s former Ambassador to China — Jon Huntsman argued in support of one of the most far-reaching, controversial elements of the conservative political agenda.
As first reported in a broader piece by theHuffington Post, Huntsman argued in favor of a constitutional amendment requiring the federal government to maintain a balanced budget — an innocuous-sounding, but radical plan pushed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and numerous other congressional conservatives.
“We’re going to have to fight for a balanced budget amendment,” Huntsman said. “Every governor in this country has a balanced budget amendment. It keeps everybody honest. It’s the best safeguard imaginable.”
At its core, a balanced-budget amendment would make it unconstitutional for the government to spend more than it collects in revenue — a requirement that, without safeguards, would make stimulus and emergency spending impossible.
Faced with a similar requirement, states responded to the recession with budget cuts that exacerbated the downturn.
But Republicans on the Hill have taken the idea a step further to the right by including a provision that would make it functionally impossible for the government to raise taxes. The goal, then, is to force future Congresses to slash or eliminate federal spending programs — which disproportionately benefit the needy and elderly — to bring them in line with a revenue base that’s likely to shrink over time.
It’s unclear whether Huntsman supports this version of a Balanced Budget Amendment, or a less extreme one. But the nature of the idea is such that it allows conservatives to signal their support for slashing programs without providing the unpopular details. And in the GOP primary, this will likely be a key test for candidates hoping to curry favor with influential conservatives like DeMint.
There is a limited amount of money that the world’s sovereign governments can borrow in any single given year without pressuring interest rates to rise above the point of affordability. This limit is approximately 9% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP). The following graph chart demonstrates this concept.
The world’s GDP has been hovering around $60 trillion for the past three years. The orange line on the chart is 9% of recorded world GDP. The blue line is 10% of world GDP. The teal line is the combined collective deficits of all world governments. The red line is the individual sovereign deficits of the United States. The purple line is emerging and developing economies which includes non-G7 and non-G20 economies. The dark blue indigo line is the European Union. And the olive green line is advanced economies without the U.S. and Europe. This would be the G20 countries’ economies.
Again, the teal line is the combination of the red, purple, indigo and olive individual country economy totals. Prior to 2008, combined world government deficits were well below 9%. In response to the 2008 worldwide economic meltdown, governments made one-time extraordinary expenditures to keep the world’s economy afloat. This included TARP, Stimulus, bank and corporate bailouts, and ongoing structural deficits. This number peaked, as one would expect, in 2009. 2010 was an extension of those extraordinary expenditures. The definition of a Debt Wall is the point at which total world government deficit spending exceeds 9%, and thereby forces interest rates to rise above the point of affordability for sovereign government borrowing. The simple formula to know when one has reached the Debt Wall is:
World Gross Domestic Product x Y(9%) – combined world government deficits = 0 or less
Applying this formula to 2009 world spending illustrates why the United States Federal Reserve implemented QE1. Their purported reason was to keep interest rates down, and that’s exactly what they did. As the Debt Wall Index approached zero, it was necessary to print money rather than borrow it. QE2 was an extension of QE1 and part of the same process. What is alarming now is that the projections of world government deficit spending for 2012 again approaches the ceiling of world liquidity and the Debt Wall. The only difference is that now, deficit spending is not extraordinary, it is structural. This means that it goes on forever unless the economy grows faster than the percent of deficit spending to the overall GDP. Given the fact that total government and world debt is approaching 100% of GDP, the world cannot afford higher interest rates, even for a short period of time.
The projected GDP of the world in 2012 is approximately $60.25 trillion. The amount of cash available to fund government deficit spending on a world basis is approximately $5.4 trillion. As the world’s governments continue to borrow and spend, we are on a collision course with the Debt Wall. The Debt Wall Index is a countdown to this collision. If the economy grows faster than we have projected, the Debt Wall Index will be adjusted to reflect that. On current projections of economic growth and government spending, the Debt Wall will be hit by July 31, 2012.
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
I have faithfully sent spending cut suggestions to Senator Mark Pryor every Monday for almost a year now and at the same time I have posted all of them on www.thedailyhatch.org every monday after they have been sent electronically.
I have suggested cutting out the complete Dept of Education on several occasions.
GUIDELINE #4: Terminate failed, outdated, and irrelevant programs.
President Ronald Reagan once pointed out that “a government bureau is the closest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on earth.” A large portion of the current federal bureaucracy was created during the 1900s, 1930s, and 1960s in attempts to solve the unique problems of those eras.
Instead of replacing the outdated programs of the past, however, each period of government activism has built new programs on top of them. Ford Motor Company would not waste money today by building outdated Model T’s alongside their current Mustangs and Explorers. However, in 2004, the federal government still refuses to close down old agencies such as the Rural Utilities Service (designed to bring phones to rural America) and the U.S. Geological Survey (created to explore and detail the nation’s geography).
Government must be made light and flexible, adaptable to the new challenges the country will face in the 21st century. Weeding out the failed and outdated bureaucracies of the past will free resources to modernize the government.
Status Quo Bias. Lawmakers often acknowledge that certain programs show no positive effects. Regrettably, they also refuse to terminate even the most irrelevant programs. The most obvious reason for this timidity is an aversion to fighting the special interests that refuse to let their pet programs end without a bloody fight.
A less obvious reason is that eliminating government programs seems reckless and bold to legislators who have never known a federal government without them. Although thousands of programs have come and gone in the nation’s 228-year history, virtually all current programs were created before most lawmakers came to Washington. For legislators who are charged with budgeting and implementing the same familiar programs year after year, a sense of permanency sets in, and termination seems unfathomable.7 No one even remembers when a non-government entity addressed the problems.
The Department of Energy, for example, has existed for just one-tenth of the country’s history, yet closing it down seems ridiculous to those who cannot remember the federal government before 1977 and for whom appropriating and overseeing the department has been an annual ritual for years. Lawmakers need a long-term perspective to assure them the sky does not fall when a program is terminated. For example, the Bureau of Mines and the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration, both closed in 1996, are barely remembered today.8
Instead of just assuming that whoever created the programs decades ago must have been filling some important need that probably exists today, lawmakers should focus on the future by asking themselves the following question: If this program did not exist, would I vote to create it? Because the answer for scores of programs would likely be “no,” Congress should:
Close down failed or outdated agencies, programs, and facilities, including:
The U.S. Geological Survey9 (2004 spending: $841 million, discretionary);10
The Maritime Administration ($633 million, discretionary);
The International Trade Commission ($61 million, discretionary);
The Economic Development Administration ($417 million, discretionary);
The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program ($1,892 million, discretionary);
The Technology Opportunities Program ($12 million, discretionary);
Obsolete military bases;
The Appalachian Regional Commission ($94 million, discretionary);
Obsolete Veterans Affairs facilities;
The Rural Utilities Service (-$1,493 million,11 mandatory); and
Repeal Public Law 480′s non-emergency international food programs ($127 million, discretionary)
Discretionary spending is the portion of the annual budget that Congress actually determines.
Since 2000, discretionary outlays surged 79 percent faster than inflation, to $1,408 billion. The “stimulus” is responsible for $111 billion of 2010 discretionary spending.
Between 1990 and 2000, $80 billion annually in new domestic spending was more than fully offset by a $100 billion cut in annual defense and homeland security spending, leaving (inflation-adjusted) discretionary spending slightly lower.
Since 2000, all types of discretionary spending have grown rapidly.
Overall, since 1990, domestic discretionary spending has risen 104 percent faster than inflation and defense/security discretionary spending has risen 51 percent.
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
In the debate of job creation and how best to pursue it as a policy goal, one point is forgotten: Government doesn’t create jobs. Government only diverts resources from one use to another, which doesn’t create new employment.
Video produced by Caleb Brown and Austin Bragg.
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Keynesian Catastrophe: Big Money, Big Government & Big Lies
Based on a theory known as Keynesianism, politicians are resuscitating the notion that more government spending can stimulate an economy. This mini-documentary produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation examines both theory and evidence and finds that allowing politicians to spend more money is not a recipe for better economic performance.
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Obama’s So-Called Stimulus: Good For Government, Bad For the Economy
President Obama wants Congress to dramatically expand the burden of government spending. This CF&P Foundation mini-documentary explains why such a policy, based on the discredited Keynesian theory of economics, will not be successful. Indeed, the video demonstrates that Obama is proposing – for all intents and purposes – to repeat Bush’s mistakes. Government will be bigger, even though global evidence shows that nations with small governments are more prosperous.
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Big Government Is Not Stimulus: Why Keynes Was Wrong (The Condensed Version)
The CF&P Foundation has released a condensed version of our successful mini-documentary explaining why so-called stimulus schemes do not work. Based on a theory known as Keynesianism, politicians are resuscitating the notion that more government spending can stimulate an economy. This mini-documentary produced by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation examines both theory and evidence and finds that allowing politicians to spend more money is not a recipe for better economic performance.
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Eight Reasons Why Big Government Hurts Economic Growth
This Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation video analyzes how excessive government spending undermines economic performance. While acknowledging that a very modest level of government spending on things such as “public goods” can facilitate growth, the video outlines eight different ways that that big government hinders prosperity. This video focuses on theory and will be augmented by a second video looking at the empirical evidence favoring smaller government.
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Keynesian Economics Is Wrong: Economic Growth Causes Consumer Spending, Not the Other Way
Politicians and journalists who fixate on consumer spending are putting the cart before the horse. Consumer spending generally is a consequence of growth, not the cause of growth. This Center for Freedom and Prosperity video helps explain how to achieve more prosperity by looking at the differences between gross domestic product and gross domestic income. www.freedomandprosperity.org
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Deficits, Debts and Unfunded Liabilities: The Consequences of Excessive Government Spending
Huge budget deficits and record levels of national debt are getting a lot of attention, but this video explains that unfunded liabilities for entitlement programs are Americas real red-ink challenge. More important, this CF&P mini-documentary reveals that deficits and debt are symptoms of the real problem of an excessive burden of government spending. www.freedomandprosperity.org
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Now that I have been critical of the Democrat President, I wanted to show that I am not concerned about taking up for Republicans but looking at the facts. President Clinton did increase government spending at a slower rate than many other presidents. Here are two videos that praise both Reagan and Clinton for both accomplished this feat.
Spending Restraint, Part I: Lessons from Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both reduced the relative burden of government, largely because they were able to restrain the growth of domestic spending. The mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity uses data from the Historical Tables of the Budget to show how Reagan and Clinton succeeded and compares their record to the fiscal profligacy of the Bush-Obama years.
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Spending Restraint, Part II: Lessons from Canada, Ireland, Slovakia, and New Zealand
Nations can make remarkable fiscal progress if policy makers simply limit the growth of government spending. This video, which is Part II of a series, uses examples from recent history in Canada, Ireland, Slovakia, and New Zealand to demonstrate how it is possible to achieve rapid improvements in fiscal policy by restraining the burden of government spending. Part I of the series examined how Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were successful in controlling government outlays — particularly the burden of domestic spending programs. www.freedomandprosperity.org
Lawmakers are considering extending temporary payroll tax cuts. But the policy is based on faulty Keynesian theories and misplaced confidence in the government’s ability to micromanage short-run growth.
In textbook Keynesian terms, federal deficits stimulate growth by goosing “aggregate demand,” or consumer spending. Since the recession began, we’ve had a lot of goosing — deficits were $459 billion in 2008, $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010, and $1.3 trillion in 2011. Despite that huge supposed stimulus, unemployment remains remarkably high and the recovery has been the slowest since World War II.
Policymakers should ignore the Keynesians and their faulty models, and instead focus on reforms to aid long-run growth…
Yet supporters of extending payroll tax cuts think that adding another $265 billion to the deficit next year will somehow spur growth. That “stimulus” would be on top of the $1 trillion in deficit spending that is already expected in 2012. Far from helping the economy, all this deficit spending is destabilizing financial markets, scaring businesses away from investing, and imposing crushing debt burdens on young people.
For three years, policymakers have tried to manipulate short-run economic growth, and they have failed. They have put too much trust in macroeconomists, who are frankly lousy at modeling the complex workings of the short-run economy. In early 2008, the Congressional Budget Office projected that economic growth would strengthen in subsequent years, and thus completely missed the deep recession that had already begun. And then there was the infamously bad projection by Obama’s macroeconomists that unemployment would peak at 8 percent and then fall steadily if the 2009 stimulus plan was passed.
Some of the same Keynesian macroeconomists who got it wrong on the recession and stimulus are now claiming that a temporary payroll tax break would boost growth. But as Stanford University economist John Taylor has argued, the supposed benefits of government stimulus have been “built in” or predetermined by the underlying assumptions of the Keynesian models.
Policymakers should ignore the Keynesians and their faulty models, and instead focus on reforms to aid long-run growth, which economists know a lot more about. Cutting the corporate tax rate, for example, is an overdue reform with bipartisan support that would enhance America’s long-run productivity and competitiveness.
If Congress is intent on cutting payroll taxes, it should do so within the context of long-run fiscal reforms. One idea is to allow workers to steer a portion of their payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts, as Chile and other nations have done. That reform would feel like a tax cut to workers because they would retain ownership of the funds, and it would begin solving the long-term budget crisis that looms over the economy.
Dan Mitchell discusses the effectiveness of the stimulus Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Nov 3, 2009 11-2-09 When I think of all our hard earned money that has been wasted on stimulus programs it makes me sad. It has never worked and will not in the future too. Take a look at a few thoughts from […]
Government Spending Doesn’t Create Jobs Uploaded by catoinstitutevideo on Sep 7, 2011 Share this on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/qnjkn9 Tweet it: http://tiny.cc/o9v9t In the debate of job creation and how best to pursue it as a policy goal, one point is forgotten: Government doesn’t create jobs. Government only diverts resources from one use to another, which doesn’t […]
In his recent article Ernie Dumas sticks to his guns that we should balance the budget without being forced to with a “Balanced Budget Amendment,” but I wonder how well that has worked so far? I have made this a key issue for this blog in the past as you can tell below: Dear Senator […]
(Picture from Arkansas Times Blog) When I think about all the anger and hate coming from the Occupy Wall Street crowd, I wonder if they have read this story below? Solyndra: Crooked Politics or Just Bad Economics? Posted by David Boaz Amy Harder has a good take on the Solyndra issue in National Journal Daily […]
Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (Part 13 Thirsty Thursday, Open letter to Senator Pryor) Office of the Majority Whip | Balanced Budget Amendment Video In 1995, Congress nearly passed a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget. The Balanced Budget Amendment would have forced the federal government to live within its […]
Andrew Demillo pointed this out and also Jason Tolbert noted: PRYOR OPPOSES THE OBAMA JOBS BILL THAT HE VOTED TO ADVANCE Sen. Mark Pryor has been traveling around the state touting a six-part jobs plan that he says “includes a number of bipartisan initiatives, is aimed at creating jobs by setting the table for growth, encouraging new […]
Is a lack of money the problem for our public schools? Everything You Need to Know About Public School Spending in Less Than 2½ Minutes Posted by Adam Schaeffer Neal McCluskey gutted the President’s new “Save the Teachers” American Jobs Act sales pitch a good while back, as did Andrew Coulson here. Thankfully, it seems […]
Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme but Blake who is a blogger said I was off base. Ark Times reader says Social Security is not Ponzi Scheme Social Security Disaster Walter E. Williams Columnist, Townhall.com Politicians who are principled enough to point out the fraud of Social Security, referring to it as a lie and […]
We got to do something soon about Social Security. The Case for Social Security Personal Accounts Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell There are two crises facing Social Security. First the program has a gigantic unfunded liability, largely caused by demographics. Second, the program is a very bad deal for younger workers, making them pay record […]
Senator Obama’s Social Security Tax Plan Uploaded by afq2007 on Jul 23, 2008 In addition to several other tax increases, Senator Barack Obama wants to increase the Social Security payroll tax burden by imposing the tax on income above $250,000. This would be a sharp departure from current law, which only requires that the tax […]
Saving Social Security with Personal Retirement Accounts Uploaded by afq2007 on Jan 10, 2011 There are two crises facing Social Security. First the program has a gigantic unfunded liability, largely thanks to demographics. Second, the program is a very bad deal for younger workers, making them pay record amounts of tax in exchange for comparatively meager benefits. This […]
“Saving the American Dream: The Heritage Plan to Fix the Debt, Cut Spending, and Restore Prosperity,” Heritage Foundation, May 10, 2011 by Stuart Butler, Ph.D. , Alison Acosta Fraser and William Beach is one of the finest papers I have ever read. Over the next few days I will post portions of this paper, but […]
Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme? I just started a series on this subject. In this article below you will see where the name “Ponzi scheme” came from and if it should be applied to the Social Security System. Ponzi! Ponzi! Ponzi! 9/14/2011 | Email John Stossel | Columnist’s Archive Ponzi! Ponzi! Ponzi! There, I […]
Uploaded by LibertyPen on Jan 8, 2009 Professor Williams explains what’s ahead for Social Security Dan Mitchell on Social Security I have said that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and sometimes you will hear someone in the public say the same thing. Yes, It Is a Ponzi Scheme by Michael D. Tanner Michael Tanner […]
Late-night comedian Conan O’Brien’s blog has a new post parodying Washington’s excessive spending. “Team Coco has found out why our government is so broke,” the blog explains, “They’ve been spending all our hard earned tax dollars on some pretty ridiculous programs.” The post contains a list of humorous fake programs and encourages readers submit their own.
Washington will spend $2.6 million training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job.
Because of overstaffing, the U.S. Postal Service selects 1,125 employees per day to sit in empty rooms. They are not allowed to work, read, play cards, watch television, or do anything. This costs $50 million annually.
Stimulus dollars have been spent on mascot costumes, electric golf carts, and a university study examining how much alcohol college freshmen women require before agreeing to casual sex.
Washington will spend $615,175 on an archive honoring the Grateful Dead.
The Securities and Exchange Commission spent $3.9 million rearranging desks and offices at its Washington, D.C., headquarters.
Congress recently gave Alaska Airlines $500,000 to paint a Chinook salmon on a Boeing 737.
Washington spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties.
The Federal Communications Commission spent $350,000 to sponsor NASCAR driver David Gilliland.
Washington has spent $3 billion re-sanding beaches—even as this new sand washes back into the ocean.
Taxpayers are funding paintings of high-ranking government officials at a cost of up to $50,000 apiece.
The Conservation Reserve program pays farmers $2 billion annually not to farm their land.
And the list goes on and on. When it comes to government spending, the truth is often stranger than fiction.
I read this letter below from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette on August 13, 2011:
Time to stop insanity
The president has told us for 2 1/2 years that he is focusing “like a laser” on jobs. Well, looks like it’s time to replace this “Jobs Guy” with someone who has actually had some experience running something. We have given him a chance. Yes, he reads a pretty mean TelePrompTer, but his cockamamie Keynesian economic theory that only works in the ivory towers of academia has proved itself wrong again. We have lost a net 2.5 million jobs since his inauguration, and the few jobs the Obama administration has created have cost the American taxpayer about $250,000 each, according to the Congressional Budget Office. And how about his explodingthe national debt? To all the happy parents who have just welcomed their new baby into our world, here is the bad news: Your baby’s share of the national debt is $46,156.05 as of August 2 and is still climbing. Both Republican and Democratic politicians are responsible for our national debt, which now tops $14.3 trillion.
In the recent debate regarding raising the debt ceiling, the only grownups in the room were the Tea Party congressmen who tried to force a vote on a constitutional amendment to require the federal government to balance its budget like every state and city in the land is required to do. In the 2012 election, I suspect the Tea Party of Republicans, independents and Democrats will finally demand that politicians stop this insanity. God help us if they don’t.
RALPH C. PATTERSON Bella Vista
Mark Pryor has supported about every bill that President Obama has pushed. The stimulus was probably the biggest budget busting bill so far. Did that help get our economy going? Not according to Kathy Fettke:
President Obama is urging Congress to raise the $14.3T debt ceiling or else, he warns, the U.S. would be forced to default. Perhaps our representatives need a little lesson on good debt vs. bad debt.
Good debt gives the borrower the potential to create more money. Bad debt gives the borrower something he can’t afford but wants anyway.
In real estate, for example, good debt might be a loan used to purchase an investment property. The borrower acquires an asset that creates income. That income is used to pay off the debt. The borrower then owns an asset free & clear that continues to produce income, long after the original debt is gone.
Bad debt serves a need for instant gratification by borrowing income from the future.
An example of bad debt is getting a loan to purchase a new car. The car is worth less the moment it’s driven off the lot. From day 1, the borrower owes more than the car is worth, and the “asset” doesn’t create monthly income. It becomes a liability, unless it is used as a rental, trucking or any other profitable business use.
Is Obama asking for more good debt or more bad debt?
Politicians are expert wordsmiths who can spin facts into a slick campaigns designed for getting what they want. That’s why President Obama and the money magicians at the Federal Reserve are preaching that more debt would help the economy.
Has their plan worked so far? Let’s take a look:
During the past 5 years, the federal government has borrowed 4.5 trillion dollars to stimulate the economy. That’s a 40% increase in government debt!
Did the stimulus work?
Political spin doctors say it did, claiming that US GDP climbed 1.9% in Q1 of 2011. But how much did that increase cost us?
We spent $4.5 Trillion over 5 years to create $690 Billion in GDP growth. Doing the math, that means the US will receive 14 cents for every dollar of debt incurred to stimulate the economy.
With losses like this, the “stimulus” plan is really a bad debt deal – one in which borrowing results in more liabilities, not assets. And now our leaders are trying to talk us into more of it.
Just say “NO!” to raising the debt ceiling! It’s not just bad debt, it’s ugly debt.
The cure for bad debt is pretty simple and boring: cut spending and increase income. If you can’t do either, you default.
Borrowing just to keep up with interest payments and avoid default is reckless and only exacerbates the problem. It does not fix it.
Politicians must agree to cut spending. And they must avoid increasing income through taxation. As much as the general population would love to rob the rich, that method doesn’t work. Business owners who get punished for making money will stop producing and hiring.
Instead of taxing productive businesses to extended ugly government debt, offer businesses good debt so they can continue to grow.
Members of our society with solid business plans should be the ones borrowing – not the government.
Kathy Fettke is CEO of www.RealWealthNetwork.com, an educational resource for new and experienced real estate investors.
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
On May 11, 2011, I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:
Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner. I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.
GUIDELINE #8: Convert several remaining programs into vouchers.
Government programs should not be bloated bureaucracies that shepherd recipients into one-size-fits-all programs. Voucher programs, which allow individuals to purchase goods and services on the open market rather than receiving them from the government, have two distinct advantages:
Choice. Instead of forcing program recipients to take what a bureaucracy provides, vouchers allow them to shop around and find the goods and services that fit their needs.
Efficiency. Providing health insurance or housing vouchers is much less costly to government than the construction and maintenance of government-owned hospitals or housing. Competition among private firms for vouchers would bring about lower prices than government monopolies.
Some policymakers believe that low-income individuals cannot be trusted to make intelligent economic decisions with their vouchers, condescendingly implying that government employees know best how to run the lives of poor families. Those worrying that private markets could not accommodate the influx of voucher-wielding families fail to recognize that vouchers create markets by strengthening demand and thereby inducing new supply.
Food stamps provide the model for a successful voucher program.29 Instead of building a bureaucracy to grow and distribute government food to low-income families, the program simply provides families with vouchers to purchase food themselves. Housing vouchers that subsidize private rent costs have proven better for low-income families than dilapidated, dangerous public housing. Most child-care programs subsidize the private facilities that parents choose instead of forcing them into government-run facilities. Federal student loan programs exist as a type of education vouchers.
Vouchers can provide choice without bureaucracy in many other areas. Medicare and Medicaid could be made more like the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), in which federal employees choose between competing private health plans with the federal government subsidizing the premium. More public housing programs can be replaced with rent vouchers.
Despite increased borrowing, record-low interest rates have kept net interest costs down.
Under the President’s budget, the combination of rising interest rates and a doubling of the national debt would nearly quadruple inflation-adjusted net interest costs over the next decade.
By 2020, net interest costs would account for a record 16.1 percent of the federal budget and 4.1 percent of GDP. Net interests costs would be nearly three-quarters the size of the entire $1,041 billion deficit.
WLS 890 – Don Wade & Roma’s interview with Jan Schakowsky
The Daily Hatch 