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Drowning in debt: Obama's spending and borrowing leaves U.S. gasping for air
NY Daily News ^ | Mort Zuckerman

Posted on 10/24/2009 8:53:09 PM PDT by indianrightwinger

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: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: budget; debt; deficit; obama
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We are all doomed on this current trajectory....Pray!!
1 posted on 10/24/2009 8:53:10 PM PDT by indianrightwinger
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To: indianrightwinger

and who gets to pay for the Obama dreams?


2 posted on 10/24/2009 8:55:51 PM PDT by himno hero
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To: indianrightwinger

They are far from being done...ObamaCare numbers will invariably be over $1 trillion then there is Cap and Tax, etc., etc.


3 posted on 10/24/2009 8:57:00 PM PDT by cranked
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To: indianrightwinger

Kind of ironic, isn’t it Mort, that you supported all the political turds responsible for this mess (Carter, Clinton, Bambi). Remember the Community Redevelopment Acts, Mort? The ones that increasingly forced the banks to make bad loans, Mort? That subsequently crashed the whole world economy, Mort?

I often wonder, Mort, how can someone be so clever and smart about making money in their own personal financial life, and be such a totally blind, willfully ignorant fool in their political life?

How is that Mort? MORT? (SLAP SLAP SLAP) MORT, I’M TALKING TO YOU, MORT!!!!!


4 posted on 10/24/2009 9:13:09 PM PDT by Blado (Liberals are so smart they can perform self-lobotomy surgery "where the sun don't shine")
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To: indianrightwinger
But we have money for this. Obama offers millions in Muslim technology fund
5 posted on 10/24/2009 9:15:57 PM PDT by ocr1 (Get with the program GOP, the game has changed forever, we dont like RINOs)
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To: Blado

Hahahahahaha....in fact, he wrote a few articles critical of Obama’s Iran / Israel policy too.

Looks like even a liberal like Mort Z finds Obama’s policies across the board repulsive. Can’t be a good thing.


6 posted on 10/24/2009 9:20:42 PM PDT by indianrightwinger
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To: indianrightwinger

We are not doomed. There is a solution to this seemingly never ending hell. The Governors of the fifty states need to grow spines and tell Uncle Sugar to pound sand. Taxes should be paid by the people to their respective states instead of going straight to the Federal pig trough. The Federal Government should have to come with it’s hand out to each of the fifty states asking for our money. With our tax money at the state level, we can take care of our communities first and then make sure we only vote state representatives that know and are versed in the United States Constitution in order to guarantee that the only money that flows up is used for only those powers granted to the federal government in the US Constitution. We’ll get the added benefit of really making politics local and will get more people involved protecting their hard earned cash.


7 posted on 10/24/2009 9:22:10 PM PDT by Wolfhound77
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To: indianrightwinger
Mort supported Obama for President.

Note the comment section: the Dems knock him as a neo-Con warmonger and greedy capitalist. A lone voice of sanity pins responsibility on the Dems for forcing banks to make bad loans.

What I find interesting is that the public looks at it like Mort does: Obama is causing this mess, and by implication the Dems in Congress pre-Obama, although most independents are not even aware of that. They know there's no money for program expansion. So, knock yourself out politically Rahm and Barack, push for those programs and fail. Obama will not listen to Mort's advice to pinch pennies. Obama will barrel ahead, not letting a good crisis go to waste.

This is key to Republican success in 2010. Don the mantle of the budget cutter and limited government. Use Mort's arguements. Let the Dems destroy themselves.

One caveat: give enough Dems the illusion of re-election for a couple of months to make sure ObamaCare and Cap&Trade go nowhere.

Put another way: if all the Dems can do to strike back at Mort is to call him a neo-Con warmonger (a racist position) and capitalist pig, then they are on the wrong side of this issue. Keep them there.

8 posted on 10/24/2009 9:26:03 PM PDT by Praxeologue
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To: indianrightwinger
We are all doomed on this current trajectory....Pray!!

Not quite the rallying cry with which our Founding Fathers defeated the British.

9 posted on 10/24/2009 9:26:15 PM PDT by DTogo (High time to bring back the Sons of Liberty !!)
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Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: DTogo

2010 is a long way and not much other than a prayer. Even after that, 2 more years of him as the President. Wish it was better....


11 posted on 10/24/2009 9:32:21 PM PDT by indianrightwinger
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To: indianrightwinger

Well I’m swimmin’ in debt
And the money’s all gone
I ain’t got nothin’ I can call my own
Work my fingers to the blood and bone
For a big disappointment when my paycheck comes
If I only had a little I could do just fine
I could put a down payment on some peace of mind
But I’m hangin’ at the end of a credit line
Lord I’m just livin’ on borrowed time


12 posted on 10/24/2009 9:40:52 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie (0bummer attacks not Unemployment, the Taliban, Deficits, China, or the Sudan, but attacks FOX.)
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To: Uncle Miltie

Oh I got plenty of nuttin. And nuttins plenty for me.


13 posted on 10/24/2009 9:51:01 PM PDT by shineon
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To: shineon

14 posted on 10/24/2009 9:52:28 PM PDT by shineon
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To: indianrightwinger

How else can he afford his Marxist ways, only by stealing first, pay later! And it will be at the end of a gun barrel. Remember, they got their monies up front with the bailouts or whatever you want to call the corrupt legislation that was past. Now, you can hear them squealing after looking under the hood at GM, OMG, they declare only if we had known, it’s worse than we could have imagined! And that is why they would not entertain bankruptcy for all to openly review their books and actions, so what you say to a plant in South America, China and Russia…who do you think got stuck with the bill…a clue, not those that made the decisions while lining their pockets.


15 posted on 10/24/2009 9:54:37 PM PDT by ntmxx (I am not so sure about this misdirection!)
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To: indianrightwinger

All part of O the muzzie’s plan. I hope and pray it’s part of God’s plan as the beginning of the end. Because I don’t see anything that’s gonna’ stop O boy.


16 posted on 10/24/2009 9:55:14 PM PDT by Terry Mross (I hate all politicians...including republicans.)
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To: indianrightwinger

Here’s a good article which explains why a VAT (value-added tax) is the only way out of this mess:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/05/retirement/next_crisis_americas_debt.fortune/index.htm

The VAT is coming sooner or later, and it will absolutely crush the middle class in this country. I’m so angry at what’s happening I can hardly think straight.


17 posted on 10/24/2009 9:59:46 PM PDT by Deo volente (This administration is a national emergency!)
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To: indianrightwinger

And we have not even gotten started with cap and trade yet. Don’t worry Obama will sign the the treaty this december.


18 posted on 10/24/2009 10:09:03 PM PDT by ColdSteelTalon (Light is fading to shadow, and casting its shroud over all we have known...)
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To: Deo volente
Here’s a good article which explains why a VAT (value-added tax) is the only way out of this mess:

Wrong.

19 posted on 10/24/2009 10:15:13 PM PDT by Lurker (The avalanche has begun. The pebbles no longer have a vote.)
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To: indianrightwinger
Ruinous tax increases… dramatic erosion… a crash in the value of the dollar… Americans have learned that they cannot continue to be borrowers.

Sad but true, I am paying off my debts, spending less money and fear the loss of more money from my paycheck due to higher taxes.
20 posted on 10/24/2009 10:28:07 PM PDT by Falconspeed ("Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others." Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94))
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