Free Republic

The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) Summary of Operations for fiscal year 2012, released last week, shows an agency that is significantly over-funded. In 2010, the Obama Administration increased the agency’s budget even though it previously operated with a fiscal year-end surplus. Now, the operating report reveals that the agency’s business continues to erode with the decline of unionization in the private sector making its increased appropriation even more unnecessary than it was in 2010. According to the report, issued by Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon, total case intake decreased by three percent; unfair labor practice case intake decreased by...

"You don't have to be a deficit hawk to be disturbed by the growing gap between revenues and expenses," said Sen. Barack Obama during a Nov. 3, 2005, debate on the Senate floor. At the time, Obama had been a senator for less than a year and the federal budget deficit was in fact shrinking, from $248 billion in fiscal 2006 to $160 billion in fiscal 2007. Still, Obama seemed deeply concerned about the deficit, and he appeared to believe it when he said the only way to close the shortfalls was to force Congress to pay for what it...

A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reminds Americans that, contrary to the narrative that huge deficits and debt are merely a recent product of the Great Recession, the problem began over forty years ago. Daniel Thornton, the St. Louis Fed's Vice President and economic adviser, finds what conservatives have been saying all along is true: it's steadily increasing government spending, not a lack of tax revenues, that's causing all of this. [A]fter 1970, both revenues and expenditures increased on average relative to the previous two decades; however, revenue increased marginally while expenditures increased significantly... on...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama thinks the debate over raising the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling isn't the place or the time to be discussing runaway spending. Essentially, that was his message Monday in a full-court press assault on Republicans in Congress for having the temerity to suggest that before we raise the debt ceiling by another $2 trillion, maybe we should begin discussing how to reduce spending, how to shrink our monstrous national debt and how the government must begin living within its means. But with the government debt soaring toward nearly $19 trillion -- and likely to skyrocket to $25...

Republicans, and many Democrats, are upset by the prospect of so-called sequestration cuts to the nation's defense budget. Pentagon chief Leon Panetta is so alarmed that the day before the Senate took up what became the "fiscal cliff" agreement, he called a key Republican lawmaker, Sen. Lindsey Graham, to express deep concern that the cuts might go into effect. As it turned out, Congress put them off for two months. Sequestration would force the government to reduce discretionary spending by about $1.2 trillion over the next decade. Roughly half of that, or $600 billion, would come from defense --...

Thomas Jefferson warned us, "I, however, place economy among the first and most important Republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt... I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple." Nothing we face compares to the challenge our founding fathers faced in winning independence and forming a more perfect union, but reclaiming a "frugal and simple" government will take far more than replaying another version of Washington's "fiscal cliff" charade. Congress first put a limit on federal debt during...

A city that kept in the dark about finances is facing a budget deficit of over $3 million. City manager Rick Daniels finally admitted the red ink this week.

We wrote for the weekend (see our column Sunday morning when it goes up here) that Gov. Jerry Brown is a bad guesser. The ink wasn’t even dry yet – in fact the Sunday paper hasn’t even been printed yet – and we learn that Brown guessed wrong again. Back in January Brown guessed that the state budget would be $9.2 billion in the red. Wrong. Monday Brown revised his estimate. Then he said it would be $15.7 billion in the red. Wrong. Today the independent Legislative Analyst affirmed that Jerry’s wrong again. It will be $17 billion plus some...

The huge tax increases proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown are becoming much less popular as voters learn more about them. At the rate of decline in popularity over just the past two months, there may be no one left in California who will vote for the higher taxes by the time November balloting arrives, save, of course, Mr. Brown and the principal beneficiaries, public employee union members to whom he panders. Meanwhile, an analysis by the state Board of Equalization, which handles state business taxes, has weighed the impact of the governor's higher taxes and found them quite costly. The...

Thanks to an explosion of Keynesian deficit spending around the world, an explosion that has predictably correlated with weak economic output, major ink is being spilled about the economic crack-up unfolding before our eyes. To state the obvious, wasteful, capital destroying governments can only spend what they first extract from the private sector. SNIP The first lie we're regularly told about budget deficits. Supposedly the latter are bad, but looked at through a basic economic prism, would we prefer a balanced budget in the U.S. that coincides with $3 trillion in annual spending, or an annual budget deficit of $500...

Despite bipartisan promises to cut spending after the 2010 elections, Washington politicians are still voting to make the government even bigger and more expensive than ever. Don’t believe me? Even though the federal government is nearly $15 trillion in debt, it’s spending at record-high levels. Federal spending has gone up 5 percent in the first nine months of this year alone. Just last week, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate passed three new spending bills to increase 2012 funding above 2011 funding levels. The bills will increase spending for the Department of Agriculture by $6.4 billion; for the Departments of...

In his nightly note, BTIG's Dan Greenhaus digs into the "Buffett Tax" and some math on the deficit. First he notes that over the next 10 years, deficits are estimated at around $6 trillion. Then he looks at what socking it to the rich actually gets us. Conclusions. It doesn't get us THAT far towards balancing the budget, but it's not nothing. The below table breaks down actual tax return data from the IRS from 2009, showing how many returns were filed at each income level, what their taxable income was, what tax they paid and what percentage of the...

In a 45 to 52 vote on Thursday night, the Senate failed to advance a resolution that would have disapproved of a pending $500 billion increase in the nation's debt ceiling. Under the debt-ceiling agreement reached in early August, the Obama administration was authorized to immediately raise the debt ceiling by $400 billion. Another $500 billion increase was authorized this month, although that could have been blocked if both the House and Senate approved resolutions expressing disapproval. Earlier in the day Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) threatened to hold the Senate open for up to ten hours on Friday...

Santa Cruz, Calif.- The Santa Cruz County Office of Education and Migrant Head Start program says they are still accepting more kids in their free childcare program. It's not your typical babysitter, the childcare providers are certified teachers who offer a learning environment. Meals and diapers are provided. To qualify families must have moved within the last 24 months and over 50% of their income must come from agriculture work. If you're interested contact Sonia Cervantes, Migrant Head Start Specialist at (831) 466-5852.

Media reports today are that a target of $2.4 trillion in deficit reductions is being negotiated to match an increase in the debt ceiling of $2.4 trillion to get the government funded into early 2013. The 18 months of borrowing from August 2011 through February 2013 works out to an annual rate of $1.6 trillion. That means the current deal allows for more deficit spending than FY 2011 ($1.5 trillion) and much more than the White House proposed earlier this year for FY 2012 ($1.1 trillion).The proposed deficit reductions are spread out over the next ten years and appears to...

The budget deficit for the month of May came in at $57.6 billion, way better than last year's $135.9 billion for the same period. It also came in better than expected for this year, about $1.4 billion less than expectations, which were for a $59 billion deficit. The improvement comes down to an increase in tax revenue, year-over-year, and the absence of bailout spending from last year.

Imagine you’re irresponsible. Now imagine you’re the people in charge of California’s government budget. But I repeat myself. Imagine you have run up your credit card and borrowed beyond what’s reasonable. Imagine now that you have too little money because you have a spending problem. Then imagine you get a windfall bundle of cash. What would you do? Pay some outstanding bills? Pay down your credit card? Nah. You’d spend it. . .

Lori Montgomery, a normally sensible budget reporter at the Washington Post, has written a confused and unbalanced article that seemingly blames the Bush tax cuts for the current budget woes and thus leads readers to the wrong solutions for the impending debt meltdown. The key indictment: The biggest culprit, by far, has been an erosion of tax revenue triggered largely by two recessions and multiple rounds of tax cuts. Together, the economy and the tax bills enacted under former president George W. Bush, and to a lesser extent by President Obama, wiped out $6.3 trillion in anticipated revenue. That’s nearly...

Some conservatives are getting nervous about the polls on Medicare.  Apparently about 80 percent of Americans are opposed to cuts in Medicare.  Mona Charen, for one, is steeling herself for the inevitable Mediscare campaign from the Democrats. The Democrats have always known how to scare the pants off grannie at any suggestion of cuts to Medicare and Social Security.  For years and years, Republicans didn't know how to respond to their Mediscare.  But now things are different.  These days the American people are good and scared about debts and deficits.  So it's now possible to scare the pants off...

WASHINGTON — A new budget estimate released Wednesday shows that the spending bill negotiated between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would produce less than 1 percent of the $38 billion in claimed savings by the end of this budget year. The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would pare just $352 million from the deficit through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending.