Free Republic

This video is a must see and share with everyone you know. It is powerful and extremely well done. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=626431014085686

When it comes to federal government spending, we are almost back to normal.  According to the Office of Management and Budget, the federal government spent 20.8% of GDP in fiscal 2013.  That is not a rosy-scenario, computer-generated prediction, but an actual count of dollars already spent.That is the lowest level since President Obama was inaugurated, and down from the peak of 24.4% in 2009 – a drop of over $600 billion in today’s dollars.  It is almost back to the pre-Obama level of 20.2% of GDP in 2008.  And it matches the 24-year average from 1975 through 1998. It is...

Budget hawks and free-marketeers very badly need to retool their rhetoric on the dangers of government borrowing and America’s ever-deepening national debt — last clocked at $17.4 trillion. “How dare we pass along our bills to our children and grandchildren . . . yadda, yadda, yadda . . . ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . . . ” Such ubiquitous references to indebted youngsters have grown hackneyed. These proverbial little boys and girls have zero practical impact on and limited emotional appeal to Americans who do not have and perhaps do not want offspring. Despite the widespread assumption that “everyone has kids,” tens...

The standard media coverage of President Obama's new budget claimed the proposals will cut $600 billion in spending over the next decade. It was just about impossible, though, to find any media story mentioning some basic numbers that belong in any story about a new federal budget. How much money is the federal government spending this year? How does that compare to what it spent last year, or expects to spend next year? Perhaps the reason for this failure is because the real numbers don't match up with the storyline. For example, in the current year, the federal government is...

President Obama's latest budget proposal paints a troubling picture of America's fiscal future. Here's a startling snapshot: -- By 2024, the total national debt would rise from $17.4 trillion to nearly $25 trillion. -- By 2020, U.S. taxpayers would be paying more in interest on the debt than they would on the entire Defense budget. -- By 2017, those interest payments would be bigger than the budget for Medicaid. Despite Democratic claims that President Obama has tackled the deficit, the numbers give a sense of what fiscal hawks -- who have not given up their fight despite an election-year aversion...

In Fiscal Year 2013, the official federal deficit was $680 billion. Liberals have cheered this drop while subsequently ignoring how this deficit is both larger than all of Bush’s pre-recession deficits and is expected to grow dramatically over the next several decades.However, the Treasury Department’s annual report on the finances of the U.S. federal government shows that not only is $680 billion an incomplete measure of the federal government’s finances, it’s off by nearly a factor of five.From Just Facts Daily: The U.S. Treasury has just released its annual “Financial Report of the United States Government,” which provides an account...

Our Demander-in-Chief has once again put together a budget so mind boggling stupid, so bereft of credibility that it will spontaneously abort somewhere between the White House and the desk of Senator Harry Reid (D-Who Me?). You can think of Obama’s newest budget as the “legitimate rape” of America. All you really need to know about the budget is this headline from the Washington Post’s Wonk Blog: “Obama budget seeks new spending, new taxes to boost economy, tame debt”. Ha, ha, ha. Stop me if you heard that one before. If we gave the government a buck for every time...

Federal spending and debt are out of control If America does not change course, the future will be dramatically worse. Now more than ever, it is crucial that Americans understand what our nation's spending, taxes, and debt mean for them and their families. The Heritage Foundation's Federal Budget in Pictures offers a unique tool to learn about the federal budget in a clear and compelling way.

A mere eight weeks from the December budget deal, House Republicans on Tuesday bowed to the inevitable and allowed a vote on a "clean" debt-ceiling increase that Democrats promptly passed—no reform strings attached. Perhaps as a follow-up the GOP could repeal the debt ceiling altogether and finally end this periodic self-torture. Before it created the debt ceiling in 1917, Congress had to vote to approve each new government bond issue, specifying the amount to be borrowed and the terms. This is in stark contrast to today's practice, when Treasury is generally free to borrow at will until it hits the...

Most people accept the notion that politicians don't always tell the truth. Some lies are harmless enough; others more consequential. Lyndon Johnson skirted the truth when he promised during the 1964 presidential campaign not to send any more American troops to fight a land war in Southeast Asia. He knew then that American intervention would eventually be necessary, but the lie helped him win the election. After the election, Johnson sent additional troops, more American lives were lost and the war escalated. Richard Nixon claimed he knew nothing about Watergate. "I am not a crook," he said. Lies. In 1976,...

The Pentagon’s “Did Jesus die for Klingons too?” symposium In 2012, we issued a report titled “Department of Everything” that showed how the Department of Defense could make cuts in “non-defense” spending – spending in DOD that has nothing to do with our national defense, which we’ve estimated totals almost $68 billion. In the report, we highlighted surprising spending on beef jerky and a smartphone add to gauge caffeine intake. Our eyebrows were also raised by a strategy planning workshop for which nearly $100,000 was allocated. One of the sessions at the symposium explored the relationship between Jesus and Klingons,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. budget deficit is set to fall to $514 billion this year, down substantially from last year and the lowest level by far since President Barack Obama took office five years ago, a congressional report said Tuesday. The Congressional Budget Office credits higher tax revenues from the rebounding economy and sharp curbs on agency spending as the chief reason for the deficit's short-term decline. But the budget experts see the long-term deficit picture worsening by about $100 billion a year through the end of the decade because of slower growth in the economy than they had...

Obama Adds Over $500 Billion In New Debt in Just Three Months Under McConnell’s Blank Check Debt Ceiling Deal Half a Trillion in Just Three Months President Barack Obama has blown through more than $500 billion in deficit spending in the three months since passage of the deal proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on easing the debt ceiling battles that gave Obama virtually unlimited borrowing authority from October 17, 2013 through this February 7th. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew sent a letter to Congress today imploring the debt ceiling be raised by February 7th, or the end of...

The deregulation of the financial system during the Clinton and George W. Bush regimes had the predictable result: financial concentration and reckless behavior. A handful of banks grew so large that financial authorities declared them “too big to fail.” Removed from market discipline, the banks became wards of the government requiring massive creation of new money by the Federal Reserve in order to support through the policy of Quantitative Easing the prices of financial instruments on the banks’ balance sheets and in order to finance at low interest rates trillion dollar federal budget deficits associated with the long recession caused...

More bad news for Gov. Chris Christie: New Jersey is dead last in the nation in terms of its fiscal solvency, according to a new report. The study, released this week by the free-market Mercatus Center at George Mason University, ranked each state's financial health based on a variety of measures, such as cash on hand to pay its current bills, budget surpluses or deficits, unfunded liabilities and ability to provide adequate public services. The Mercatus study used 2012 data. New Jersey came in last on two of those measures — budget and long-term solvency — and finished in the...

Sequester, we hardly knew ye. The omnibus budget deal slithering its way toward President Barack Obama’s desk for signing abandons the automatic spending cuts that resulted from an earlier fiscal compromise. Why was the sequester abandoned? Like the Gramm-Rudman Act a generation earlier, the sequester had to be stopped for one fundamental, undeniable, bipartisan reason. It worked. It did not work perfectly, and it did not balance the budget or put us on course for a balanced budget. But it did play a critical role in nudging the deficit away from “catastrophic existential threat” territory and toward “terrifying money-suck.” It...

I thought you’d like to know: with the release of the greatly anticipated White House feature, “2013 – YEAR IN REVIEW”Yes: the White House really did title this image “Hero”the WhiteHouse.Gov site has officially been recognized as the most thorough, reliable and verifiable propaganda machine in the nation! It readily beat out all of its close competitors at ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Ms.NBC and the New York Times for the title Propagandist of the Year.You can see why, with “highlights” from each and every month of the year that includes a vast array of fun facts:@ 1:34: “Here’s where it...

The financial position of the U.S. is not just troubled; it is artificially created to fool the people. The nation's budget deficit and debt are exponentially higher than what our politicians say they are. None of the headline figures used as the basis of public discourse have any relevance to the true state of U.S. finances. The government's financial reporting is misleading because our political leaders have subverted the democratic process to advance their personal interests. Adding all of the costs associated with the nation's social-insurance programs to the amounts reflected in the Financial Report shows that over the past...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Monday she’ll push for a vote for more unemployment benefits and said the additional $25 billion cost should be tacked onto the deficit rather than paid for by cuts elsewhere. On a conference call with fellow House Democratic women, the California lawmaker said Republicans acted “cruelly” when they went home for a three-week vacation earlier this month without approving more weeks of unemployment payments for the long-term jobless. As many as 1.3 million people will lose benefits on Saturday, when enhanced benefits expire. Republicans have said they would consider taking up a bill, but...

Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud Beytenu) had harsh words for Finance Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) on Saturday night. Speaking on Channel 2’s “Meet the Press”, Steinitz, who served as Finance Minister before Lapid, said that his successor misled the public and created unnecessary panic about the state of the Israeli economy. Steinitz claimed that the deficit, which is expected to be released in January, will stand at about 3%, in contrast to Lapid’s earlier predictions. "By doing this, he caused severe damage,” he charged. “No top official in the Treasury or in the Bank of Israel ever told...