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Budget Policy: If you're one of those who doubted the White House's pledges of fiscal restraint, the new budget confirms your worst fears. Over the next 10 years, it boosts spending, taxes and debt by record amounts.
The administration hopes to convince Americans of its fiscal rectitude by appointing a new deficit commission that won't even meet until later this year. They'd have been better served creating a spending commission.
The proposed budget over the next decade would rack up $45.8 trillion in new spending, $9.1 trillion in deficits and more than $2 trillion in higher taxes on Americans. It will double the national debt held by the public to over $18 trillion, while raising taxes on 3.2 million small businesses and upper-income taxpayers — the very people the administration is counting on to pull us out of recession.
Based on recent estimates, the expected deficits are growing, not shrinking. Last year's proposed budget contained just $7.1 trillion in red ink over 10 years. This year, that's ballooned to $9.1 trillion. Higher spending is responsible for 90% of the increase. Total spending over the decade is expected to swell 54%.
During the decade, spending will average about 24% of GDP — compared with the 20% of GDP that has prevailed since shortly after World War II. This represents a permanent 20% increase in the real size of government — which explains why the number of federal employees has reached 2.15 million, the most ever.
If spending isn't brought under control soon, the U.S. will suffer the fate of all fiscally irresponsible nations — slower economic growth, lower standards of living, shorter lives.
Yet even as the spending crisis intensifies, Democrats are in a major state of denial. "We've got to spend our way out of this recession," declared House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C. And for those who don't think bureaucrats have a sense of humor, the Office of Management and Budget dubbed its 2011 plan "A New Era of Responsibility."
Even the proposed freeze on nondefense discretionary spending is a sham. It raises spending, then "freezes" it at a higher level than before. And it addresses only $447 billion of a total budget next year of $3.8 trillion. It is fast-growing entitlement spending, which now accounts for 40% of all outlays, that has to be dealt with.
In short, this is the most irresponsible budget in American history. Two years of bailouts and "stimulus" have failed us miserably. The new budget tries the same tax-and-spend strategies, despite the loss of 8 million jobs and an ongoing financial crisis.
Health Care: A Canadian premier, Danny Williams, said Tuesday he was headed for the U.S. for heart surgery. That's a bit ironic, given that Democrats hail Canada-care as a model for the U.S. and call our system "broken." The provincial governor of Newfoundland and Labrador didn't seem to ...
Leaders: The champion of Polish freedom tells America it's no longer that shining city on a hill. As it slouches toward socialism, he warns, those yearning to breathe free in the world can no longer look to the U.S. for help. They were the giants of their age. Together, President Ronald ...
John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, in an hourlong television documentary titled "Global Warming: The Other Side," presents evidence that our National Climatic Data Center has been manipulating weather data in the same way as the now-disgraced and under-investigation University of East ...
Should we worry about a common chemical almost all of us carry in our bodies that activists claim causes a list of diseases longer than you'll find in a major medical center? Having for decades labeled the plastic ingredient bisphenol A (BPA) safe, the Food and Drug Administration has just ...
When I heard Scott Brown, the newly elected senator from Massachusetts, describe himself as a "Scott Brown Republican," I groaned. It sounded as if he were coming to Washington to be part of the problem, not part of the solution. We don't need another knight in shining armor, don't want another ...
Posted By: Osamas Pajamas(665) on 2/3/2010 | 12:49 AM ET
Throw OhBummer's budget into a dumpster. Blow it up.
Posted By: 321blastoff(10) on 2/2/2010 | 11:09 PM ET
The "Party of No" needs to say NO to this monstrous budget and fast! This is the reason businesses and individuals weren't out spending their money. They were right, they have to save it to pay their new taxes. And to increase taxes on married couples making over $250,000 is a marriage penalty of injurous proportions. I can bet you they will either not get married (if they're single)or quit their jobs (if they're married) rather than accept this inequality. Where's the birth certificate?
Posted By: jpdwn(5) on 2/2/2010 | 8:48 PM ET
If the "Bush" 2009 deficit includes the TARP and the "Stimulus" and the 2010 "Obama" budget spending includes the offsets from the return of the TARP funds, shouldn't we see a large REDUCTION in the deficit from year to year? And therefore, if the Obama Administration SPENDS the returned TARP funds, it would have the appearance of spending offsets that would, in fact lower the actual spending deficit from what that spending deficit would be without the TARP repayments? A political bonanza!
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