Free Republic

Senate Republicans who shared laughs with President Obama over dinner at the Jefferson Hotel in March are grumbling there has since been little follow-through from him on deficit talks. They say the White House has not set up a process for negotiating controversial reforms to Social Security, healthcare programs and the tax code, and that absence of basic organization has stalled negotiations. "We've made no progress. None," said a GOP senator who had dinner with President Obama earlier this year. "There's no process in place. Right now we just have 20 Republican senators meeting and talking to themselves." . ....

After years of trillion-dollar annual deficits, federal red ink is lessening – and pace of the decline now looks much quicker than forecasters thought it would be. That’s good news for American taxpayers worried about a pileup of debt – and the risk that would pose for their pocketbooks in the future. The debt problem isn’t solved, but this is progress. Here are the new numbers: The federal budget deficit will shrink this year to $642 billion, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office now estimates. Just three months ago, the CBO was forecasting a deficit of $845 billion for the 2013...

Since the recession ended four years ago, the federal budget deficit has topped $1 trillion every year. But now the government's annual deficit is shrinking far faster than anyone in Washington expected, and perhaps even faster than many economists think is advisable for the health of the economy. That is the thrust of a new report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, estimating that the deficit for this fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, will fall to about $642 billion, or 4 percent of the nation's annual economic output, about $200 billion lower than the agency estimated...

Since 2008, Detroit’s spending exceeded its budget by about $100 million annually. Detroit also borrowed $80 million last March to avoid running out of money. Clearly, Detroit has a deficit spending problem … much like the US Government. Here is the city’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr’s, Orr Report. city-of-detroit-final-financial-operational-plan-45-day-plan5 Orr’s solution? Cut back on pay and restructure the debt (a coy way of say default). “Without a significant restructuring of its debt, the city will be unable to break the cycle of damaging cutbacks in essential municipal services and investments,” according to Orr’s report. He also cited the need for...

The annual deficit has fallen 32% over the first seven months of this fiscal year compared with same period last year, according to Congressional Budget Office figures released Tuesday. A major reason: A big jump in tax revenue. Tax collections rose by $220 billion -- or 16% -- between the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1 through April 30. Individual and payroll taxes accounted for $184 billion of that increase. The tax haul rose sharply primarily because wages and salaries were higher, the payroll tax cut of the past two years expired on Jan. 1 and the fiscal...

Even after a hard-fought deficit-cutting deal in 2011 and a tax-increase measure in January, Washington still has a considerable way to go to wrestle intractable budget deficits under control. The Congressional Budget Office estimates cumulative deficits of roughly $7 trillion over the coming decade and warns "such high and rising debt would have serious consequences," including higher interest costs for the government, reduced national savings and investment and a potential fiscal crisis. ——— The campaign promise: "I've put forward a specific $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan."—President Barack Obama, Oct. 3, 2012, presidential debate. ——— The prospects: Obama based the $4 trillion...

Though Kenneth Rogoff has written some fairly obtuse op-eds over the years, the book he co-authored with Carmen Reinhart, This Time Is Different, was very much a worthwhile read. If their Keynesian, Phillip's Curve ideology is ignored, they offered some really interesting statistics. Most useful to this reader was their soberly introduced point that Greece has been in default half of its modern existence. About government defaults more broadly, they similarly clarified that defaults are rarely an all or nothing thing, rather they generally involve slight ‘haircuts' for creditors. And while they didn't tie this to modern times, they made...

Obama’s budget proposal is dead on arrival from want of realistic solutions. The budget serves as a pie-in-the-sky fiscal trainwreck that reaffirms conservatives’ perception of the president as a tax-and-spender whose understanding of the realities of our nation’s dire fiscal situation takes a distant backseat to his radical push for punishing the wealthy and continuing big government spending...

OMB: Obama Will Become First President to Spend $4T in One Year April 10, 2013 In the historical tables it released along with President Barack Obama's fiscal 2014 budget proposal this morning, the White House Office of Management and Budget revealed that in fiscal 2016 it expects Obama to become the first president in the nation's history to preside over a federal government that spends more than $4 trillion in one year. The OMB's historical tables also reveal that the White House does not expect this administration to ever run an annual deficit as low as $458.5 billion, which was...

As the Senate prepares to produce its first budget since the FY2010 cycle four years ago, Barack Obama will finally submit his own budget proposal — two months late, of course. The last actual normal-order budget passed by Congress spent, according to the White House’s own figures, $3.456 trillion dollars on revenues of only $2.163 trillion. With even the President talking about fiscal discipline and deficit control, we must be seeing some cuts in this budget cycle, no?No: President Obama plans Wednesday to unveil a $3.77 trillion spending plan that proposes modest new investments in infrastructure and education, major new...

The U.S. Treasury Department has revised its estimates of the foreign ownership through the end of Fiscal Year 2012, which means that we can now finalize our picture of just who the major holders of the 16.027 trillion dollars of the outstanding U.S. government debt issued through 30 September 2012 are: Overall, U.S. entities own 66% of all debt issued by the U.S. federal government. Ranking the major U.S. entities from high to low, we find that: U.S. individuals and institutions, which includes regular Americans, banks, insurance companies and other government entities, own 30.5% of the nation's debt. The...

What is Tax Freedom Day? Tax Freedom Day is the day when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay its total tax bill for the year. A vivid, calendar based illustration of the cost of government, Tax Freedom Day divides all federal, state, and local taxes by the nation’s income. In 2013, Americans will pay $2.76 trillion in federal taxes and $1.45 trillion in state taxes, for a total tax bill of $4.22 trillion, or 29.4 percent of income. April 18 is 29.4 percent, or 108 days, into the year. Why is Tax Freedom Day later...

(CNSNews.com) - The federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, which takes in money via a federal payroll tax and pays it out in disability benefits, ran a record $31.2 billion deficit in calendar year 2012, according to the Social Security Administration. That means the trust fund has run a deficit in each of the first four years of the Obama presidency. For fifteen straight years before Obama took office—from 1994 through 2008—the Disability Insurance Trust Fund ran a surplus. In 2007, for example, it ran an $11 billion surplus and in 2008 it ran an $889-million surplus.

A new poll for the Hill newspaper finds that “more voters trust the Democratic Party than the Republican Party on budgetary issues . . . even though a strong majority actually prefer Republican fiscal policies.” The poll of 1,000 likely voters was taken last week by Pulse Opinion Research. It asked respondents to choose between two different budget approaches without their being identified with a particular party. A total of 55 percent picked a plan similar to the one offered by House budget chairman Paul Ryan: Trimming federal spending by $5 trillion, not raising taxes, and reaching a balanced budget...

<p>The proposition that entitlement curbs are the key to maintaining national solvency is widely accepted, though not by many congressional Democrats. President Obama, however, has endorsed it on various occasions. And he could make it happen.</p> <p>If he wants. I remain skeptical that he does. But national solvency is important enough to test this proposition at least once more. The obstacle is Obama’s current position that entitlement cuts must be “balanced” with new revenue from closing loopholes.</p>

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty safeguarded Canada’s status as the only Group of Seven country with a stable top credit rating after releasing a fiscal plan that eliminates the country’s deficit in two years. Flaherty’s budget presented Thursday projected Canada will swing to a surplus of about $800 million ($781 million) in the fiscal year that begins April 2015, from a $25.9 billion deficit in the year ending this month, by limiting spending growth to the slowest pace since the 1990s and banking on an accelerated recovery. Moody’s said in a statement the budget is in line with the government’s Aaa...

When it comes to this year’s budget debate, Republicans are united, and they are winning. At least for now. On Thursday, House Republicans plan to pass a budget that reaches balance in ten years — decades sooner than previous efforts, and without additional tax increases — with near-unanimous GOP support. Shortly thereafter, they are likely to approve a continuing resolution that locks in federal spending at sequestration levels through September 30. President Obama will sign the continuing resolution, despite his objections and those of congressional Democrats. And Senate Democrats are poised to pass a budget for the first time in...

By all accounts, the Japanese Kamikaze pilots in WWII were earnest, dedicated young men. House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan is an earnest, dedicated young man. The principal difference between Chairman Ryan and a Kamikaze pilot is that the Japanese aviators got only one shot, while Ryan has managed to fly three suicide missions in three years. Ryan’s first Kamikaze flight, his “Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Resolution”, had zero impact on Federal spending, but managed to sink Republican hopes of retaining NY-26, a congressional district that had been held by Republicans since Jack Kemp won it in 1970. Ryan’s second suicidal...

USA vs. Cyprus: Gross Government Debt to GDP- By: Larry Walker, II -According to Speaker of the House John Boehner, “We do not have an immediate debt crisis.” No, then what would you call it? Seems to me it was immediate in 1995, and again in 2008, so what is it now? Are we just screwed? And according to Barack Obama, “We don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt. In fact, for the next 10 years, it’s gonna be in a sustainable place.” Yeah, what place is that, Wonderland? Have you people lost your minds? The chart...

Well, isn't this just peachy. This is actually the first time I've heard anything about it, but apparently, the public servants of the United States Senate have been enjoying taxpayer-subsidized trims and shaves on Capitol Hill since before the Civil War --- an oh-so-beloved tradition that, in merely the past fifteen years, has cost taxpayers over five million dollars. Senate Hair Care Services is technically open to the public, for those who know/care about it, but last year alone the salon needed a $300,000 bailout from the Senate coffers to cover their jacked-up costs.The convenient little Senatorial perk has steadily...