Tag Archives: Socialism

News

Bush spent $622B on Iraq, Obama spends $888B on welfare in 2010 alone

09/23/2009 Wintery Knight 4 Comments

Story from CNS News. (H/T Weasel Zippers via ECM)

Excerpt:

During the entire administration of George W. Bush, the Iraq war cost a total of $622 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.

President Obama’s welfare spending will reach $888 billion in a single fiscal year–2010–more than the Bush administration spent on war in Iraq from the first “shock and awe” attack in 2003 until Bush left office in January.

Obama’s spending proposals call for the largest increases in welfare benefits in U.S. history, according to a report by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. This will lead to a spending total of $10.3 trillion over the next decade on various welfare programs. These include cash payments, food, housing, Medicaid and various social services for low-income Americans and those at 200 percent of the poverty level, or $44,000 for a family of four. Among that total, $7.5 trillion will be federal money and $2.8 trillion will be federally mandated state expenditures.

I personally know a lot of people who voted for Obama because we were spending too much on the war. The government’s job is to fight against the enemies of the United States. The government’s job is not to equalize life outcomes regardless of lifestyle choices. But I guess Obama has to buy votes somehow! How else will he be able to get re-elected unless he takes from the productive minority to pay for the votes of the irresponsible majority?

Don’t forget my previous post on the CBO’s projections about Social Security running cash deficits in starting in 2010.

News

CBO predicts Social Security cash deficits in 2010

09/22/2009 Wintery Knight Leave a comment

Ed Morrissey has the story at Hot Air.

Excerpt:

Four years ago, George W. Bush attempted to reform the entitlement program Social Security, warning that the system was accelerating into collapse and would soon run deficits. Democrats scoffed and claimed the Social Security system was solid and wouldn’t have problems for at least 50 years, as Harry Reid told PBS’ Jim Lehrer in June 2005. Just last year, the CBO — under the direction of Peter Orszag, now budget director in the Obama administration — claimed that the first cash deficits in Social Security would not come until 2019.

Now, however, the CBO has determined that Social Security will run cash deficits next year and in 2011, and by 2016 will be more or less in permanent deficit mode. Hot Air has exclusively obtained the summer 2009 CBO report sent to legislators on Capitol Hill but not yet made public, which shows that outgo will exceed income for the first time since the 1983 fix on an annual basis in 2010…

And it’s actually worse than that.

Check out their update:

Steve at No Runny Eggs, who has been keeping a very close eye on SSA, says that the CBO numbers project some eye-popping payroll-revenue growth numbers to get back to surpluses (briefly) by 2012. According to the numbers, CBO projects a 6.19% growth rate in 2012, and 5.69% in 2013, then dropping to 4.59% in 2014 and declining afterwards. Assuming that they only peak at the 4.59% number for all three years — still a rather optimistic projection — Social Security never actually comes out of its deficits at all…

Click here to see a summary the CBO report.

The numbers are explained in the Hot Air post.

To understand the challenge that entitlement programs pose to a balanced budget, watch this 2-minute video.

News

Understanding the long-term forecast for the federal budget

09/21/2009 Wintery Knight 2 Comments

Watch this 2 minute video from Political Math.

Mandatory spending includes entitlements like social security, medicare and medicaid. It also includes payments on the national debt, which Obama intends to grow from about 12 trillion to about 19 trillion. The problem is that mandatory spending is set to skyrocket out of control in the next 8 years, and there isn’t any money available to pay for it.

Attacking businesses and productive individuals just reduces the amounts collected in income and sales taxes. In other words, taxing the rich just lowers government revenues by destroying economic growth. No one gets out of bed in the morning to earn 50% of what they are worth.