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Drowning in debt: Obama's spending and borrowing leaves U.S. gasping for air
The New York Daily News ^ | August 9th 2009 | Mort Zuckerman

Posted on 08/09/2009 5:35:26 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued

The unprecedented, improbable and indeed almost unimaginable global financial crisis has virtually put an end to the comfortable notion that American and Western capitalism would dominate the world economy. In turn, the financial meltdown threatening another Great Depression has been the rationale for a phenomenal expansion of government spending to prop up demand and fend off economic disaster.

As a result, the deficit quadrupled from $459 billion in 2008 to $1.85 trillion this year. It has gone from 3.2% of gross domestic product to 13.1%, twice the post-World War II record of 6% in 1983 under President Reagan. What's more, the debt surge is unlike the one that accompanied WWII in that it will not be temporary.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reckons that the deficit will run for a decade and will still exceed $1.2 trillion in 2019. By that time, the United States will have virtually doubled its national debt, to over $17 trillion. Then, after 2019, we get another turn of the screw as the peak waves of baby boomers move into their retirement years and costs soar for the major entitlements, Social Security and Medicare.

At 41% of GDP in 2008, the accumulated federal debt will rise to 82% by 2019. One out of every six dollars spent then by the feds will go to interest, compared with 1 in 12 dollars last year. These out-year budgets will require an increase in everyone's income taxes, raising federal income taxes an average of $11,000 for families, a hike of 55% per household - a political impossibility.

The Government Accountability Office estimates that by 2040, interest payments will absorb 30% of all revenues and entitlements will consume the rest, leaving nothing for defense, education or veterans' pensions.

(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial
KEYWORDS: bho44; bhodeficit; federalspending; thecomingdepression; zuckerman
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To: Clintonfatigued

Money in savings fueled the economy too. It was loaned to business which created jobs. Now business are scared to expand, they don’t want to become targeted.


21 posted on 08/09/2009 6:14:01 PM PDT by GeronL (http://unitedcitizen.blogspot -Guilty of deviationism- http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com)
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To: Clintonfatigued

The government is buying its own debt. staggering. Inflation will come, if deflation comes first people better stock up


22 posted on 08/09/2009 6:15:08 PM PDT by GeronL (http://unitedcitizen.blogspot -Guilty of deviationism- http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com)
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe

You gotta wonder what it will take to get an audit of the Fed.


23 posted on 08/09/2009 6:25:32 PM PDT by rodguy911 (HOME OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE--GO SARAHCUDA !!)
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To: Candor7

Until the 20th Century the Federal government was adequately funded on tariffs and fees. It wasn’t until the constitution was amended to institutionalize the income tax that revenue was sufficient to support big government programs and constituencies demanding more federal dollars.

Tariffs also provided protection from foreign competition for emerging US manufacturing. If we want to rebuild our manufacturing base, and pay down the debt, we need to seriously look at higher tariffs. Our population is large enough to support our manufacturing. No matter what the globalists say, higher tariffs will benefit US manufacturing and permit more jobs to be created in America.


24 posted on 08/09/2009 6:31:24 PM PDT by Soul of the South (When times are tough the tough get going.)
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To: randita
Daily News - Zuckerman - amazing.

Mort Z. always endorsed W.
25 posted on 08/09/2009 6:38:16 PM PDT by Miss Didi ( "After all...tomorrow is another day." Scarlett O'Hara, Gone with the Wind)
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To: Clintonfatigued
Laws will have to be changed to achieve real cuts in spending.

Cold turkey. Like I say, I wouldn't want to live near anywhere near DC. A big federal gov't is passe. The DC Berlin Wall wall is going to fall. Not going to be pretty.

26 posted on 08/09/2009 6:38:22 PM PDT by VRWC For Truth (Throw the bums out who vote yes on the bail out)
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To: VRWC For Truth

HMMMMmmmm.....more like the WELFARE WALL......we should start promoting it’s fall....


27 posted on 08/09/2009 6:52:07 PM PDT by goodnesswins (Tell everyone, DEMS are the RACISTS...they created the KKK and Jim Crow Laws...to start)
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To: Clintonfatigued
Mr. Zuckerman, care to explain why American citizens and businesses have taken somewhere between US$14 and US$19 TRILLION (not a misprint!) in liquidity out of the US economy because of our confiscatory income tax laws? And done by participating in the underground economy and the legal "offshoring" of assets to the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Panama, Singapore, Switzerland, etc? And why so many American corporate headquarter and manufacturing operations are done outside the USA?

Fix or just kibosh our failed income tax system so we have a system that encourages personal savings and capital investment in the USA and our economy would turn around faster than an F-16 fighter doing a 9-G turn.

28 posted on 08/09/2009 6:56:46 PM PDT by RayChuang88 (FairTax: America's economic cure)
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To: Clintonfatigued
It’s a question of how. Interest on the debt can’t be controlled and a lot of entitlement spending is mandatory. Laws will have to be changed to achieve real cuts in spending.

When push comes to shove the Supremes can cut spending, just all of a sudden realize that most of it is in fact unconstitutional.

29 posted on 08/09/2009 6:58:39 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
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To: Candor7
Down Size the Federal Government to only a military and strategic function.

Downsize the government to its constitutional limit.

30 posted on 08/09/2009 6:59:56 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
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To: Soul of the South

Agreed. We will have to eventually go to higher tariffs on imports, as inflation destroys us,and the economy goes south. We will have to rebuild, and that means higher tariffs on imports for 20 years or more.


31 posted on 08/09/2009 7:09:27 PM PDT by Candor7 (The weapons of choice against fascism are ridicule ,derision ,truth. (member NRA)
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To: Clintonfatigued

32 posted on 08/09/2009 7:31:51 PM PDT by Iron Munro (You can't kill the beast while sucking at its teat - Claire Wolfe)
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To: Clintonfatigued

Thanks for the pings. Last I posted from them, you didn’t have to excerpt the NY Daily News or The Hill.


33 posted on 08/09/2009 7:42:13 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: Clintonfatigued
Chicago Tribune 1934


34 posted on 08/09/2009 9:05:42 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici
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To: Clintonfatigued; AdmSmith; Berosus; bigheadfred; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; ...

thanks Clintonfatigued.

DRUDGE: Pelosi/Hoyer op-ed in Monday USATODAY
calls townhall protesters ‘un-American’
http://www.drudgereport.com/
Posted on 08/09/2009 3:02:30 PM PDT by RatsDawg
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2312122/posts


35 posted on 08/09/2009 10:45:02 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/__Since Jan 3, 2004__Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: VeniVidiVici
That 1934 cartoon describes today's situation to a tee. All you have to do is change the names. One of the names is familiar, though. “Ickes” was Harold L. Ickes, father of Clintonista Harold M. Ickes, who was senior adviser to Hillary's first Senate campaign.

History is repeating itself. Obama’s socialism is just like FDR's, only on steroids this time around.

36 posted on 08/09/2009 11:05:12 PM PDT by Deo volente ("WE ARE AMERICANS AND WE HAVE A RIGHT TO DEBATE AND DISAGREE WITH ANY ADMINISTRATION!" HRC, 2003)
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To: Clintonfatigued; sickoflibs
"The American people are becoming more savings and thrift oriented now. Ironically, this is one of the reasons the economy has been slow, as credit-based spending has been a fuel of economic growth in the past."

Apt observation.

37 posted on 08/10/2009 3:14:32 AM PDT by Impy (RED=COMMUNIST, NOT REPUBLICAN)
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To: Daisyjane69

“Because a decent chunk of our T-bills are now short-term instead of long term. There appears to be a lot of “waiting and watching” going on by those buying our debt.”

That’s all I’m holding. Anyone holding long term t bills right now is a fool. Interest rates are going up up up. When they do, the price of long term t bills goes down down down.


38 posted on 08/10/2009 11:39:40 AM PDT by ModelBreaker
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To: Impy

Thanks very much!

: )


39 posted on 08/10/2009 5:04:48 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued (Liberal sacred cows make great hamburger)
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To: Clintonfatigued

Zuckerman just figured this all out? LOL.


40 posted on 08/10/2009 6:29:49 PM PDT by jwalsh07 (CommieCare: Need a Stent, Take a Pain Pill. Next!)
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