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CBO: Obama administration’s budget deficit is $1.17 trillion so far this fiscal year

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Democrats control the House and Senate in 2007
Democrats control the House and Senate in 2007

From CNS News:

The federal deficit topped $1 trillion in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2012, according to the Congressional Budget Office, reaching $1.17 trillion, exceeding CBO’s August projections.

“CBO estimates that the Treasury Department will report a deficit of $1.17 trillion for the first 11 months of fiscal year 2012,” CBO said Monday.

CBO estimated that the government ran a $192 billion deficit during the month of August, up from the $70 billion deficit it ran in July.

In its updated projections, CBO estimated that the government will run a $1.13 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2012, which ends on Sept. 30 of this year. In order to hit that target, the government will actually have to run a surplus during September of $40 billion.

The government ran a $1.3 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2011, a figure the government could once again reach if its September deficit is as large as its August deficit.

I think it’s a safe bet that we’ll hit $1.3 trillion again for fiscal year 2012.

Recall that the last Republic budget, when Republicans still held the House and Senate, was $160 billion. Then Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid came to power, and we are now in debt nearly $8 trillion more since the Democrats took over the budget in January of 2007. They have not submitted a new budget in almost 3 years – we are locked in to the high spending from their last massive budget.

 

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New studies shed light on the expected outcomes of sexual behavior

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This is a guest post by Mathetes entitled “Reasonable expectations of risky sexual behavior”.

One of the enlightening, and sobering, aspects of being an informed Christian is knowing how the world works, and then seeing a world that behaves oppositely. It is like watching an accident as it occurs, knowing how it happened, what objects collided, who was at fault, and yet being unable to stop the carnage.

In our country the social carnage is most often carnal. We see the lives of others being disordered because of stupid sexual choices. And the consequences of these choices can be known by those who are willing to step back and examine the evidence.

Case in point. Risky sexual behavior is present in most places where feminism and the sexual revolution has taken a firm footing. A study in New Zealand highlighted the sexual behavior of students.

The study found that students aged 17 to 24 displayed “low condom use, multiple sexual partners and unintended pregnancies.”

Our intrepid researcher is Rebecca Psutka, and she informs us that: “Sexual health is an integral, but often neglected component of overall wellbeing, but if there is very little information it is difficult to set priorities for improvement and to monitor progress.”

Oh Rebecca, if only you knew. She operates out of a mindset where more information will supposedly change behavior. But this behavior that she decries is not a result of too little information. If there’s one thing the students know, it’s how to know one another.

Of the 2922 students who responded, 69 per cent said they were sexually active. The average age they lost their virginity was 17.

One in five said they had three or more sexual partners in the past year and almost one-third said they had been drinking the last time they had sex.

And what message does the student welfare vice-president, Rory McCourt, have to say to this eminently useless waste of a college education. Not much, besides the normal platitudes that one would expect from a college administrator. Rory’s solution is one that would make every educator proud. He and his ilk have tried their best to make sure that “messages on safe sex and drinking responsibly were circulated around campus.”

So yeah, the adults are particularly clueless about the whole sexual education business. Rory tells us that “There’s literally thousands of stories out there about it. It’s something that we have to tackle.”

So, they have to tackle the problem of unsafe sex by making sure the thousands of stories that are already out there will somehow become more noticeable. What’s that definition of insanity again? Oh, yeah, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

I know what you’re thinking. The solution is easy. Say it with me: more condoms!

Ms Edmond said there had not been a major public campaign on condoms or contraception for many years. ‘We obviously have some sexual education happening in schools, though that’s a bit haphazard and inconsistent. As a country, New Zealand doesn’t have an up-to-date sexual and reproductive health strategy, and that’s something we’d like to see.’

Yeah, that’s the reason. Students don’t know enough about sex and how to stop pregnancies. Sure. Unfortunately there’s that annoying fact that the students do indeed know how to stop unplanned pregnancies:

The study found one in 20 students had, or had contributed to, at least one unintended pregnancy.

Of those pregnancies, 74 per cent of women and 72 per cent of men reported that it was aborted, while a further 19 per cent of men did not know the outcome.

What about that mysterious 19 per cent? Well, unless the girl moved away, or she was placed in an underground dungeon, and the guy never saw her again, we can guess the outcome … adoption, right?

So actually, the students know all about birth control, and how to get rid of a pregnancy.

Now, given that this might be classified as bad behavior, perhaps the students realize what’s happening and will try to end these coital escapades. Not likely.

“No-one has sex unless they’re drunk,” said Stella Blake-Kelly, 21.

“The university can ply them with as many brochures about sexual health as they want – drinking the way that young people do, a lot of your common sense just goes out the window,” Ms Blake-Kelly said.

Harry Evans, 20, agreed. “I know very few people who haven’t had a dumb, alcohol-fuelled sexual experience.”

Molly McCarthy, 21, said students were more likely to have unprotected sex when they were “wasted”.

“When else do you think it’s appropriate to go home with someone you’ve just met?”

First-year students living in halls of residence were particularly likely to take risks, she said.

“You’re in such close confines. You’ve gone out drinking together, you come home together – all the ingredients are there.”

And there we are. The students know what’s going. We see what’s going. Our educators are dim-witted enablers. And the behavior goes on.

Seeing that these casual encounters are taking place, what effect are they likely to have on adult relationships? Or put another way, what’s going to happen to all these students as they search and try to maintain adult relationships?

A US study “found those who waited to have sex were happier in the long-run.”

“Women particularly benefited from not leaping into bed at the first opportunity. Marriage also seemed to make them happier than co-habiting.”

The researchers note that:

“Courtship is a time for exploration and decision-making about the relationship, when partners assess compatibility, make commitments and build on emotional and physical intimacy.”

“The rapid entry into sexual relationships may, however, cut short this process, setting the stage for “sliding” rather than “deciding” to enter co-habiting unions.”

“Around a third of the men and women said they’d had sex within the first month of dating, while about 28 per cent waited at least six months, the Journal of Marriage and Family reported.”

“Analysis of the data clearly showed the women who had waited to have sex to be happier. And those who waited at least six months scored more highly in every category measured than those who got intimate within the first month. Even their sex lives were better.”

“The link was weaker for men. However, those who waited to get physically involved had fewer rows.

The researchers said couples may benefit from taking things slowly.

‘A strong sexual desire may thwart the development of other key ingredients of a healthy relationship such as commitment, mutual understanding or shared values,’ the report said. ‘Good sex is sometimes confused with love; some couples overlook problematic aspects of their relationship that ultimately matter more in the long run.’”

So we see the end result of the risky student behavior. The students are setting themselves up for long term relationship pain and failure. And this goes along with what we know about biological bonding – the more sexual partners you have, the more difficult it is for you (especially the woman) to bond with your mate. In practical terms, studies have shown that the more sexual partners you have the more likely you are to divorce.

So our bright students are doing the exact things that will set themselves up for future relationship failures.

I work with my church’s youth group quite often, and I’ve always dreamed of giving a Sunday school lesson titled: “Your worst life now and forever: how to fail at life”. Joel Osteen might not preach it, since it wouldn’t sell well, but it would make for a good talk.

First step: sleep with random people, when you’re young, while you are drunk, so that your conscience and biology will be dulled and you’ll be more likely to have casual encounters as you get older.

Further steps would include: don’t use birth control, abort your pregnancies (to ensure an increased risk of breast cancer and moral guilt and anguish), have children out of wedlock, and divorce your mate.

It’s a perfect plan – for disaster. And it’s one that students have already mastered.

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Obama is skipping over half of his daily intelligence briefings (PDBs)

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From the liberal Washington Post:

President Obama is touting his foreign policy experience on the campaign trail, but startling new statistics suggest that national security has not necessarily been the personal priority the president makes it out to be. It turns out that more than half the time, the commander in chief does not attend his daily intelligence meeting.

The Government Accountability Institute, a new conservative investigative research organization, examined President Obama’s schedule from the day he took office until mid-June 2012, to see how often he attended his Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) — the meeting at which he is briefed on the most critical intelligence threats to the country. During his first 1,225 days in office, Obama attended his PDB just 536 times — or 43.8 percent of the time. During 2011 and the first half of 2012, his attendance became even less frequent — falling to just over 38 percent. By contrast, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush almost never missed his daily intelligence meeting.

I asked National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor about the findings, and whether there were any instances where the president attended the intelligence meeting that were not on his public schedule. Vietor did not dispute the numbers, but said the fact that the president, during a time of war, does not attend his daily intelligence meeting on a daily basis is “not particularly interesting or useful.”

Please see my previous post on Obama’s top 10 foreign policy failures.

Let’s review the most important one:

Failure #1: No Results In Slowing Or Stopping Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program

Today, Iran is on the cusp of nuclear weapons capability. Such a capability in the hands of the world’s top terrorist sponsoring state poses the greatest threat facing the United States and our friends and allies, and it risks sparking a nuclear arms race across the Middle East.

Despite promising to “do everything in his power” to stop Iran, four years of President Obama’s irresolute policies have failed to slow the progress of Iran’s program. In fact, that progress has sped up:

  • Fastest Rate Of Enrichment Ever. In 2009, Iran’s enrichment rate of low-enriched uranium was 56 kilograms per month.  That jumped to 116 kilograms per month from November 2011 to February 2012. The enrichment rate now stands at 158 kilograms per month, the fastest rate ever.[1]
  • More Spinning Centrifuges. The total number of spinning centrifuges has gone from 3,936 to 10,477 during Obama’s term. The growth rate of spinning centrifuges went from 112 centrifuges per month before Obama came into office to 152 centrifuges per month during his term.[2]
  • Fordow Underground Enrichment Facility Nearing Completion. The fortified underground facility is 70 percent complete. The number of centrifuges installed has gone from 1,064 in May to 2,140 today. The facility’s limit is 3,000 centrifuges.[3]

The Iranian program has gotten to this point because President Obama has squandered all credibility with the ayatollahs:

  • A Failed Engagement Policy. President Obama offered the ayatollahs “no preconditions” talks, which were rebuffed. The latest round of multilateral talks has produced no results.
  • Refrained From Supporting The Green Movement. When asked during a press conference, President Obama shamefully refused to voice support for Iranian dissidents in 2009 as they were being killed in the streets, saying he did not want to “meddle” in Iran’s affairs.
  • A Weak Sanctions Policy. President Obama opposed and sought to water down crippling sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank until he was forced into them by Congress and our European partners.[4] He then undermined those sanctions by issuing waivers to 20 of the top importers of Iranian oil, including China.[5]
  • Abandoned Missile Defense. He abandoned a European missile defense system meant to protect against Iranian missiles.
  • Undermined The Credibility Of The Military Option. His administration has given the Iranians no reason to believe it is serious about a military option. The administration has repeatedly talked down the effectiveness and advisability of the military option, and seems to have devoted more energy toward preventing an Israeli strike on Iran than toward preventing an Iranian nuclear weapons capability. Obama officials leaked that the administration has focused its efforts on explaining to Israel “the dangers of an Israeli attack” on Iran and has attempted to “make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel.”[6] And the President himself, after boldly stating to AIPAC that the United States “has Israel’s back,” changed his tune two days later by saying his statement was “not a military doctrine.”

In the face of such irresolution, the ayatollahs are pressing forward toward nuclear weapons capability without fear of repercussion because they do not believe we are serious.

And now we know why. He’s played golf over a 100 times. He’s in over his head.