Free Republic

Gov. Larry Hogan never met a highway project he didn’t like. He’s a 1950s type of politician – solve all the state’s transportation gridlock and congestion by paving the countryside with lanes of new concrete.He’s got a $9 billion plan that is a lollapalooza: Let construction giants build and pay for toll lanes on the Capital Beltway and the busy I-270 corridor from the beltway to Frederick – 70 miles of exclusive Lexus lanes – and let those companies reap the toll rewards so they can recoup a staggering $7.6 billion investment (the actual cost is likely to be substantially...

Authored by John Mauldin via MauldinEconomics.com,The projected total US debt will be $30 trillion within 10 years, using the CBO’s own numbers. But the CBO also makes the rosy assumptions that there will be no recessions and that GDP will grow at a 4% nominal rate.Now, that’s possible; I'm inclined to haircut it a bit.If you asked me to bet the “over/under” on the debt in 2027, I would bet the over at $35 trillion.After the next recession the deficit will be $30 trillion within 4–5 years and then grow from there at a rate of anywhere from $1.5...

John O'Connor of the AP has just broken the news that the unpaid bills of the Great State of Illinois have reached the awe-inspiring sum of $16.5 billion. Illinois is chasing a moving target as it tries to dig out of the nation's worst budget crisis, and a review obtained by The Associated Press shows $7.5 billion worth of unpaid bills – as much as half the total – hadn't been sent to the official who writes the checks by the end of June. Although many of those IOUs have since been paid, a similar amount in unprocessed bills has replaced...

Authored by Tom Sanzillo via ValueWalk.com,President Trump, who knows a thing or two about bankruptcy, says Puerto Rico’s public debt should be wiped out. We agree.The commonwealth owes bondholders somewhere on the order of $70 billion, with most of that debt tied to general-obligation bonds, revenue bonds and bonds issued by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA).Ahead of the wide devastation wrought by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, we were of the view that the commonwealth could manage perhaps 20 to 30 percent of its general-obligation and revenue-bond debt and that PREPA could pay off perhaps 30 percent of...

In an interview with Fox News, President Donald Trump said that Puerto Rico's debt will have to wiped out. "They owe a lot of money to your friends on Wall Street and we're going to have to wipe that out. You're going to say goodbye to that, I don't know if it's Goldman Sachs but whoever it is you can wave goodbye to that," Trump said on Tuesday in an interview with Fox News, according to a Reuters report. Trump visited the island on Tuesday, two weeks after Maria destroyed Puerto Rico's entire infrastructure system, leaving nearly 3.5 million residents...

The suspected gunman behind the Las Vegas massacre made several large gambling transactions in recent weeks, according to law enforcement officials. The transactions in Las Vegas by Stephen Paddock were in the tens of thousands, the officials said. It was not immediately clear if those transactions were losses or wins. Paddock's brothers were stunned to learn Monday that their sibling was the suspected perpetrator of the largest mass shooting in modern American history. Eric Paddock of Orlando, Florida, said he had "no idea" why his 64-year-old brother committed the shooting. “Mars just fell into the earth,” he told NBC News....

The nation’s approach to managing public infrastructure is often inefficient. Best practices, such as life-cycle asset management and preventive maintenance, are rarely a priority. We can, however, unlock billions of dollars of infrastructure funding capacity now trapped in existing assets by improving how we build, operate and finance infrastructure. While experts discuss the size and urgency of our infrastructure needs, the debates focus on how to pay for new infrastructure. The Trump administration has identified public-private partnerships (P3) as a primary strategy. A majority of states and D.C. have statutes allowing P3s. Other countries have also adopted P3s as a...

Trump acknowledged on Twitter late Monday Puerto Rico was 'in deep trouble'. He also wrote that the US unincorporated territory has 'billions of dollars owed to Wall Street and the banks'. Hurricanes Maria & Irma killed 13 people with Maria almost completely destroying telecommunication networks. 'Texas & Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble,' Trump tweeted. 'It's old electrical grid, which was in terrible shape, was devastated. Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly,...

States with liberal one-party control have average liability of $22,214 per taxpayer vs. $1,814 in red states! The nation’s Democratic-controlled states have unfunded debt that is 12 times greater than the burden on taxpayers in states under total Republican control, according to a study released Tuesday. The nonprofit group Truth in Accounting published “Financial State of the States,” which analyzes the public finances of all 50 states. The group found that state governments have accumulated $1.5 trillion in long-term debt nationwide, mostly due to unfunded employee pension and retiree health benefits. In general, the fiscal picture is far worse in...

I recently had the opportunity to read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin, a prodigious tome dealing with the circumstances surrounding the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. I was taken aback by some of its provocative assertions. America joined World War I largely to help a few bankers profit off the war (despite a long-standing Monroe doctrine that prohibited our involvement in European affairs) The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was supported by international financial interests in order to destabilize Russia and steal the wealth of the Russian people; and So-called "foreign aid" is merely a...

With our national debt passing the $20 trillion threshold this week, let’s look at some figures that will help us wrap our mind around this unfathomable amount of money. To make 20 trillion one dollar bills, it would require commandeering every cotton field in the United States for 19 years (the dollar is actually 75 percent cotton) and 30 years for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to stamp out the notes. The price tag for printing this vast quantity of bills would cost taxpayers another $2 trillion. Our mountain of 20 trillion George Washingtons would weigh in at a...

As the staggering national student loan debt tally sits at an all-time high of $1.33 trillion, according to the Department of Education, many Millennials say they would go to extreme lengths to wipe their slate clean. According to a new survey from Credible, a personal finance website, 50% of all respondents (ages 18-34) said they would give up their right to vote during the next two presidential elections in order to never have to make another loan payment again.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday said Congress will not have to vote to raise the nation's borrowing limit until some time in 2018 thanks to the Treasury Department's flexibility in handling the debt ceiling once it is reinstated in December. "We will not be revisiting the debt ceiling until next year," said McConnell, R-Ky. The move undercuts Democrats who hoped to trade their votes this year for a debt ceiling increase in return for a vote to secure passage of so-called Dreamer legislation that would protect illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children. The debt...

For the first time in its history, the US federal government has more than $20 trillion in outstanding debt. The milestone was technically hit Friday, with the Treasury Department settling its accounts at the end of the day with $20,162,176,797,904 of debt outstanding.

Americans are starting to pile up more credit card debt than ever before. According to a new study released Monday, U.S. consumers added $33 billion in credit card debt during the second quarter of 2017, making it the second-highest point of debt since the end of 2008.

In his surprise deal with the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling last week, President Trump went one step further: He proposed getting rid of the debt ceiling entirely. It's not a bad idea, but only if you control future spending. "The president encouraged congressional leaders to find a more permanent solution to the debt ceiling so the vote is not so frequently politicized," said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Her comments came as the Senate voted 80 to 17 to approve the deal that would raise the debt ceiling and keep the government running until Dec. 8,...

The latest Never Trump meme is that Donald Trump has defected to the Democrats, a notion that might charitably be labeled “wishful thinking” if it actually involved any thinking. But the “wishful” part is in full effect as this tattered remnant of worshippers at the altar of Establishment Conservatism seeks to revive their failed cult and reassume their position as the priesthood of all things on the right. You remember Establishment Conservatism, right? It is to conservatism as Unitarians are to Christianity – “Well, I sort of believe in something, but mostly I just want whatever I do validated.” Establishment...

With Florida taking a horrific pounding from Irma so soon after Harvey’s flooding farther west, it’s now plain that President Trump was right to take that deal with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi last week. By agreeing to kick the can on the debt-limit and spending battles three months down the road, Trump avoided having Washington locked in another inside-baseball battle when so many Americans are suffering. Maybe the president could’ve been nicer to GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan while taking the Dem offer. But the grim truth is that the Republicans’ elaborate strategizing has failed...

Keep these numbers in mind: 316 to 90 and 80 to 17. They were the lopsided votes in the House and Senate in support of the deal President Trump made with Democratic leaders on storm aid, the debt limit and government funding. Remarkably, all the no voters were Republicans. The numbers shout that we are witnessing a potential turning point in the Trump presidency, one that could further shake up Washington and rattle the calcified political parties. Frustrated by the failure of GOP majorities in both chambers to pass his agenda, Trump followed through on threats to work with Democrats....

A number of people have argued over the past few days that Hurricane Harvey will NOT boost the US housing market. As if any such argument would or should be required. Hurricane Irma will not provide any such boost either. News about the ‘resurrection’ of New Orleans post-Katrina has pretty much dried up, but we know scores of people there never returned, in most cases because they couldn’t afford to. And Katrina took place 12 years ago, well before the financial crisis. How do you think this will play out today? Houston is a rich city, but that doesn’t mean...