Tag Archives: Spending

News

Michele Bachmann questions Ben Bernancke

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Awesome:

Partial transcript:

BACHMANN: So the Fed wouldn’t need to be buying all these treasuries then. We could find other buyers of our debt. Is that true?

BERNANKE: Yes.

BACHMANN: So then why are we doing it?

BERNANKE: To keep rates a little bit lower, to help support housing, automobiles, and other parts of the economy that need support.

BACHMANN: But if there are other buyers, why the FED?

BERNANKE: To get rates a little bit lower.

BACHMANN: So if my 18-year-old daughter was spending 40 percent more than what my husband and I were giving her, and she didn’t just do it this month but she did it the next month and the next month and the next month — and finally my husband and I said, ‘We’re just not going to bail you out anymore, we’re not going to continue to finance that overspending that you’re doing,’ and she said to me, ‘Mother, we need to align our solution with the problem,’ — in other words, you need to keep giving me that money because it’s really not a problem yet — I would say, I think you have a problem today.

And the reason why I would say that is because the analogy with the federal government, in January of 2007, our debt was 8.67 trillion. That debt today is closer to 16.5 trillion with the intra-government debt, according to your calculation.

Do you think that’s a problem, that in six years, we’ve gone from 8.67 trillion to 16.5 trillion?

BERNANKE: Certainly I think it’s a problem, and I think it’s important we have measures to bring down it down over time.

BACHMANN: But you said we need to align the solution with the problem. It seems to me we have a big problem. and I’ll tell you why. When I was home this last week and talking to a lot of women, they were telling me, ‘I don’t get this — gasoline at Christmastime was $2.99 a gallon, now it’s $4 a gallon.’ They say, ‘I can’t keep up with the price increases at the grocery store. And we just got our health insurance premium and its going to be $300-a-month more than what it was.’

And so all I want to say Mr. Chairman is that what I’m hearing from people is that they are having to deal with the inflationary pressure.

Inflation is nothing but a hidden tax on people who save their money so that they can be independent in their old age. It’s nice to see Michele looking out for savers like me.

News

GAO report finds that Obama’s massive spending is not sustainable

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The Government Accountability Office is a federal government agency that audits the finances of the federal government. They report to Obama and they are part of his administration. So what do they think about his plans to fix the economy?

Take a look at this article from Breitbart.

Excerpt:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO)—the personal auditor of President Obama and the federal government—released its assessment of the federal government on January 17, 2013. The report’s findings illuminate just how dire America’s spending problem is and, therefore, how little the current cuts debated by Congress do to fix it.

The findings of the paper include these excerpts (emphasis added):

  • “The projections in this Report indicate that current policy is not sustainable… Preventing the debt-to-GDP ratio from rising over the next 75 years is estimated to require some combination of spending reductions and revenue increases that amount to 2.7 percent of GDP over the period.”
  • “It is estimated that running primary surpluses that average 1.0 percent of GDP over the next 75 years would result in the 2087 debt-to-GDP ratio equaling its level in fiscal year 2012, which compares with primary deficits that average 1.7 percent of GDP under current policies.”
  • “It is noteworthy that preventing the debt-to-GDP ratio from rising over the next 75 years requires that primary surpluses be substantially positive on average. This is true because projected GDP growth is on average smaller than the projected government borrowing rate over the next 75 years.”
  • “If the primary surplus was precisely zero in every year, then debt would grow at the rate of interest in every year, which would be faster than GDP growth.”
  • “The differences between the primary surplus boost starting in 2023 and 2033 (3.2 and 4.1 percent of GDP, respectively) and the primary surplus boost starting in 2012 (2.7 percent of GDP) is a measure of the additional burden policy delay would impose on future generations. Future generations are harmed by a policy delay of this sort, because the higher the primary surplus is during their lifetimes the greater the difference is between the taxes they pay and the programmatic spending from which they benefit.”

[…]This is the reality: when President Obama’s personal auditor says the federal government has a spending problem, it indeed has a spending problem—and one that is growing rapidly.

Something to think about during the debate on sequestration. We can’t stay on the course that we’re on. Things will not be OK.

News

Did Obama really cut the deficit the deficit by 2.5 trillion?

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Democrats control the House and Senate in 2007
Democrats controlled the House and Senate in 2007. The last budget deficit with Republicans in control was $161 billion.

CNS News takes a look at the raw numbers.

Obama’s claim:

President Barack Obama claimed today that since he has been president both parties have worked together to cut the federal deficit by $2.5 trillion—despite the fact that the national debt has increased $5.9 trillion during Obama’s presidency, which is more than it increased under all presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton combined.

“Over the last few years both parties have worked together to reduce our deficits by more than $2.5 trillion,” Obama said in a speech at the White House in which he called on Congress to avoid modest automatic cuts in anticipated spending that are set to begin on March 1.

The facts:

When Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, the federal government’s debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08. As of the close of business on Feb. 14, 2013, the federal government’s debt was $16,540,800,290,147.46. Thus, since Obama has been president, the federal debt has increased $5,913,923,241,234.38. That is more than all the debt accumulated by all the presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton.

[…]Federal spending and federal deficits have both increased sharply under President Obama. In fiscal 2008, the last full fiscal year before Obama took office, the federal government spent $2.9716 trillion. In fiscal 2012, the federal government spent $3.538 trillion.

In fiscal 2008, the federal deficit was $454.8 billion. In fiscal 2012, it was $1.2967 trillion. By this measure, President Obama did not reduce federal deficits by $2.5 trillion. He increased the annual deficit by $841.9 billion.

Not sure what Obama is talking about with this $2.5 trillion number, because both deficits and debt are WAY UP under his leadership. Why is he lying? And why do his supporters believe his lies?