Free Republic

Since taking office in 2009, it has been tough sledding for the economy. Congress and the administration have increased the federal debt held by the public from $7.5 trillion to $11.2 trillion in 2012. To clarify, in terms of percent of gross domestic product-a measure of the nation's total output-the federal debt has grown from 54 percent of GDP in 2009 to 72 percent of GDP in 2012, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But sector by sector, the administration appears bent on imposing the regulations that thwart entrepreneurial activity and economic growth. ObamaCare, the jewel of Obama presidency, is...

The Day the Dollar Dies America’s financial Pearl Harbor is coming December 6, 2015, 3 p.m. HKT, Hong Kong Twenty-one men representing China’s most powerful institutions file into a conference room atop the ICC Tower looming over Victoria Harbor. The Politburo Standing Committee has mustered the CEOs of China’s four largest banks, Sinopec, and several other state-owned multinationals, plus officers from the Central Military Commission and a pair of academics from China’s top technology universities. The general secretary formally opens the meeting.“As you know, the United States of America continues to manipulate its currency,” he begins. “It is devaluing...

Congress is beginning its new year with a budget deal that busts right through “caps” it was supposed to have on spending. At Heritage, we want to hold Congress accountable for its tax-and-spend ways, even as Members claim there’s no room to cut. A good place to start is understanding the mountain of debt Americans are already under. Check out and share our infographic below that puts it in perspective.

Welcome to the New Year. The usual platitudes for early January include wishes for greater success, greater health and all-around greater prospects. But we all know our nation faces some bleak times. Our constitutional rights are at an all-time low, and our national debt is at an all-time high. The government is spying on its citizens like never before, and anyone who thinks endless spending (such as “QE Infinity”) is the way to handle our economic issues is a blind fool. In short, while I won’t go so far as to make any dire predictions for what 2014 will bring...

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 11, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Planned Parenthood performed 327,166 abortions last year while collecting more than half-a-billion dollars from U.S. taxpayers, according to its most recent annual report. The numbers represent a modest decrease from 2011 levels, when Planned Parenthood performed a record-setting 333,964 abortions and collected $542.4 million, or 45.2 percent of its total revenue, from government funding. “In 2012, abortions made up 93.8 percent of Planned Parenthood’s pregnancy services, while prenatal care and adoption referrals accounted for only 5.6 percent (19,506) and 0.6 percent (2,197), respectively,” the Susan B. Anthony List noted in a fact sheet....

One of the Obamas' two dozen Christmas trees arrives. You may remember earlier this year that President Obama, in a fit of pique over Congress actually allowing his sequester cuts idea to take effect, had White House public tours canceled to save lunch money. During the later partial government shutdown, he ordered national monuments "closed," even though most are open-air. Now, comes holiday season in the Obama White House. Every president entertains there, though the Obamas showed no shyness about frequent lavish celebrity galas even as millions of fellow Americans struggled during the recession's highest unemployment. Every president decorates...

There are some stories that are just too good to ignore. Time would escape me to write about all the nonsensical lies coming out of liberal land, but this one is really priceless. Thanks to Cry and Howl for pointing me to this piece from a blog that is clearly trying to sell a lie to the American people. It makes the claim that President Obama has reduced the national deficit by 50%. Let me explain why that is nothing but a load of hogwash. The title of the post is "NATIONAL DEFICIT DROPS 50% UNDER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION!". I'll come...

A gift of days with the extended family stretching from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday inevitably invites reflection on the fields of folly where we find the rising generations at work and play. Youth, beautiful in its blossoming, arrives with predictable attitude, often illustrated by various piercings and tattoos. They're adolescents forever in search of a way to make the "meaningful" statement, as elusive as the maturity that lies ahead. Babies, naturally, are exempt from criticism, gurgling and sucking their thumbs, blissfully unaware that the Brobdingnags around them are blowing their inheritance on big-government deficits. But as the seniors say, leaving...

On Oct. 16, Congress gave President Obama a blank check. That’s right. For the next three months, our chief executive will be able to increase the national debt as much as he wants, and as a practical matter, no one will be able to stop him. A newly enacted law, H.R. 2775, temporarily suspends the U.S. government’s statutory debt limit and shifts Congress‘ borrowing power to the president. This is a radical and unprecedented delegation of power that should trouble every American.

From an Extreme Radical Independent Centrist- By: Larry Walker II -In his 1943 study entitled, The New Philosophy of Public Debt, U.S. economist, founder and 1st president of Brookings Institution (1927-1952), Harold G. Moulton expounded on the two conflicting debt philosophies of that era. First was the traditional view, that “a continuously unbalanced budget and rapidly rising public debt imperil the financial stability of the nation.” And, second, the new conception of the day, that “a huge public debt is a national asset rather than a liability and continuous deficit spending is essential to economic prosperity of the nation.”At...

Since John Boehner became speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 5, 2011, the debt of the federal government has increased by $3,064,063,380,067.72. That is more than the total federal debt accumulated in the first 200 years of the U.S. Congress—during the terms of the first 48 speakers of the House. It also equals about $26,722 for each of the 114,663,000 households the Census Bureau estimates are now in the United States. The $26,722 in new debt per household accumulated under Speaker Boehner would have been more than enough to buy every household in the United States a...

Although politicians and the press have generally referred to what has been happening in the federal government since Tuesday, Oct. 1 as in a “shutdown” or “partial shutdown,” that did not prevent the U.S. Treasury from being open for business on Thursday—the third day of the “shutdown” and issuing $106.291 billion in new debt, according to the Daily Treasury Statement released at 4:00 p.m. on Friday. … Even though the net debt held by the public declined by $5.039 billion in Thursday, and the cash reserved declined by $33.080 billion, according to the Daily Treasury Statement, the same statement said...

A restaurant manager from Tyler, Texas, briefly became the world’s first trillionaire earlier this week—until his $4 trillion bank balance was found to be an online glitch. In an interview with KLTV, Reggie Theus said he would have used $3 trillion of his windfall to pay down the national debt.

Give Up 300,000 Federal Workers… and then we’ll talk.- By: Larry Walker II -“Treasury Secy. Jack Lew warns the country will run out of money later this month. Actually, that's another lie. The country ran out of money $17 trillion ago. It's all borrowed since then, much of it by this administration.” ~ Andrew Malcolm *The United States federal government shutdown of 1995 and 1996 was the result of conflicts between Democratic President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress over funding for Medicare, education, the environment, and public health in the 1996 federal budget. The government shut down after Clinton...

Former President Bill Clinton, who sat in the Oval Office during the last government shutdown, supports President Barack Obama's refusal to negotiate with congressional Republicans and argues he should call their "bluff" as the government nears a possible shutdown and default. "He could stop it, but the price of - the current price of stopping it is higher than the price of letting the Republicans do it and taking their medicine," he said in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week." Clinton went on to say that House Republicans, having realized they have little chance of pushing through...

more than 60 percent of Americans want spending cuts. ... According to a Rasmussen Reports poll published earlier this week, 64 percent of Americans surveyed believe that spending cuts are the best option for the economy. ... Washington has raised the debt limit seven times during Obama’s presidency, adding $43,000 of debt for every American household in just the past four years," the Heritage Foundation's Michael Sargent wrote. "And the last time Congress and the President raised the debt ceiling, not only did they fail to accomplish any spending cuts; they also racked up an additional $300 billion in national...

... When Standard & Poor's reduced the U.S.’s credit rating from AAA to AA-plus, it was the first time the U.S. ever suffered a downgrade to its credit rating. The S&P took this action despite the plan Congress passed last week to raise the debt limit. The downgrade, S&P said, "reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics." It's those medium- and long-term debt problems that also worry economics professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, who served...

Here's my response to Commander Zer0's verbal assault on reason that took place last night. I realize that our Dear Leader's plans to provide al-Qaeda air cover may not materialize, but keep this in mind: We have a failing dictator who's willing to start world War III to distract the country from his varied scandals and Zimbabwe-like economy. Anything is still possible with this pile of human debris in the White House. Without further ado: *** For the last couple of days, we've been exposed to an endless stream of war propaganda in support of Chairman Obama's Syrian adventure. Without...

The Treasury Department’s latest official daily accounting of the U.S. government’s receipts, expenditures and borrowings—released this afternoon at 4:00 p.m.—indicates that the legally limited debt of the federal government has now been exactly $16,699,396,000,000 for 100 straight days. The Daily Treasury Statement released today showed the status of the government’s accounts as of the close of business on Friday, Aug. 23. Because the Treasury does no business over the weekend, the federal government’s debt did not change on Saturday or Sunday. The statement for Aug. 23 said the federal debt subject to the legal limit set by Congress was $16,699,396,000,000—or...

Today's US National Debt Clock status.