Monday, February 14, 2011

"A Trillion here, A Trillion There"

President Obama has issued his budget for next year.  He plans to spend $3.73 trillion dollars.  Tax revenues are projected to come in at $2 trillion, leaving about a $1.75 trillion dollar deficit for the coming year.  This is on top of the orgasmic liberal spending spree of close to a trillion dollars spent on the "stimulous program in 2009.   (It is ironic that the bank bailout that caused all the consternation by our citizens has resulted in banks paying back all their debt with a small profit coming back to the U.S. government, while the feds have been unable to show how the stimulous program did any good at all)   In addition to the three years of massive annual deficits that have brought our current account deficit to $15 trillion dollars, we must also contend with an additional $8 trillion dollars committed to Obama care as well as, per the Congressional Budget Office, $78 trillion dollars in "unfunded liabilities" for Social Security and Medicare.  These unfunded liabilities are what really scare me.  Up until 20 years or so ago, all Social Security and Medicare payments we made to the government went to a separate account, where interest on these funds were to fund future Social Security/Medicare.  However, the government decided to rob this fund by sweeping all SS/Medicare funds into the General Fund, the fund which is used for any government expenditure Congress and the President deem necessary.

 In his State of The Union message he stated that America simply must get a hold of the massive budget deficits.  His budget is certainly not doing that so it looks like we'll need to borrow another trillion dollars from China next year.  The CBO says we'll be paying 43 percent of all tax revenue just to pay interest on the government's massive debt.

I noted that the President's announcement of his budget was accompanied by selective statistics to make it appear that the government is cutting costs whereever possible.  I'll leave it up to you whether you think he's sincere.

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