Free Republic

The United States has traditionally had a government whereby citizens elected officials who were empowered to make decisions for the public. That is the core principle of a representative republic. Just in the past year, however, we have seen our representatives in both the House and the Senate undermine the will of the people who elected them. Let’s consider just three issues: the debt ceiling, the border, and the Ukraine War. The Debt Ceiling: Despite Kevin McCarthy’s promises to hold the debt ceiling, he caved to Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell. In meeting at the White House, he not only...

I just watched Maria Bartiromo’s interview with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. It’s pretty clear that McCarthy wants to avoid a shutdown at almost any cost. At first, I thought, “Yeah, we need to get rid of him,” but with whom are we going to replace him? Let’s face it, we’re stuck with McCarthy. Below you’ll find a segment of the interview: [video at link] Politics is the art of compromise. So, here’s my second, more rational proposal for Mr. McCarthy. Give McCarthy a budget, any budget he wants, with three very specific caveats: - Zero funding for the...

Promises Will Be Broken By Bill Bonner 12/17/12When wealth was easy to identify and easy to control — that is, when it was mostly land — a few insiders could do a fairly good job of keeping it for themselves. The feudal hierarchy gave everybody a place in the system, with the insiders at the top of the heap. But come the industrial revolution and suddenly wealth was accumulating outside the feudal structure. Populations were growing too…and growing restless. The old regime tried to tax this new money, but the new ‘bourgeoisie’ resisted. “No taxation without representation,” was a popular...

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DEFICIT: It's Not Very Big, And There's Only One Way To Close It By Joe WeisenthalDeember 16, 2012 "Trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see." "Hundreds of trillions in unfunded liabilities." "Washington is broke." "Only cranking up taxes, and slashing benefits can save us from leaving a crushing burden on future generations." Those are the kinds of lines you hear from politicians (and even some smart people) all the time as Washington DC debates the Fiscal Cliff and so on. But there's a couple of things you should know about the deficit. One...

U.S. Government Debt Goes From Frying Pan To Fire Interest-Rates / US Debt Jun 17, 2012 - 01:44 AM By: Andy Sutton This morning, the Treasury Department almost gleefully and proudly announced that foreign holdings of US Debt had hit a record high during the month of April and that bond heavyweight China had upped its holdings after trimming for two straight months. This dovetails nicely with a story that was published earlier this week about the federal reserve and its own holdings of US Debt, which have increased over 450% in the past three years. And no, that is...

U.S. Debt Load Falling At Fastest Pace Since 1950s By Rex Nutting, MarketWatchJune 8, 2012, 12:01 a.m. EDT WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Everyone knows America has too much debt. What they don’t know is that things are getting better, not worse. Little by little, our economy is reducing its debt burden, slowly repairing the damage caused by 10, 20 or 30 years of excess. If you want to know why economic growth has been so tepid, here’s your answer. Four years after the storm hit, the economy is still deleveraging. And it’s very hard for any economy to grow when everyone...

...OK, now I get it – we’re playing by government rules. It’s like Chicago rules only better. Here’s all you need to know: if generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) were good enough for government work, we wouldn’t have had to invent generally accepted government accounting principles (GAGAP). But you already knew that your government operates by it’s own rules, didn’t you? Anyway, in case you were wondering why you’re just now hearing that the national deficit is actually 6 times higher than previously reported, it’s because of the golden rule. Using these special government rules, we don’t have to count...

U.S. taxpayers can now use their iPhone to compare how much different plans to tackle the federal deficit would cost them in their yearly income taxes. Debt Bomb — based on the U.S. tax code and publicly available data from the Congressional Budget Office and other government sources — allows users to project how a raise in taxes would cost in their personal income taxes over the years. In order to make a projection, users input basic income tax data — modeled after what a household pays in taxes — into the app. “Debt is going to be one of...

The majority of economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics believe that the federal deficit should be reduced only or primarily through spending cuts. The survey out Monday found that 56 percent of the NABE members surveyed felt that way, while 37 percent said they favor equal parts spending cuts and tax increases. The remaining 7 percent believe it should be done only or mostly through tax increases. As for how to reduce the deficit, nearly 40 percent said the best way would be to contain Medicare and Medicaid costs. Nearly a quarter recommended overhauling the tax system...

Our Questions For Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong, Niall Ferguson, And The Tea Party Henry Blodget Jun. 6, 2010, 4:16 PM Paul Krugman makes a persuasive case that cutting government spending now to reduce deficits will kill the global recovery. Niall Ferguson and other debt hawks, meanwhile make a persuasive case that, over the long term, our ballooning debt and deficits are taking us to hell in a handbasket. To some extent, we think these two camps are yelling past each other, each ignoring an elephant in the room. Krugman & Co. don't offer a compelling explanation for how we'll work...

15 Scary Reasons Why It's NEW YORK That's The Next Greece Since April 1, the state has operated on week-to-week emergency spending bills Source: Businessweek Gus Lubin May. 13, 2010, 9:29 AM Unprincipled speculators -- as Greece PM Papandreou called them -- may want turn their attentions closer to home. New York faces a fiscal crisis, with a balanced budget six weeks overdue. An ongoing stalemate will damage the state's AAA credit rating. Your best chance to short the Empire State is next week when $510 million of bonds go on sale. New York could be as screwed as California...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The day of reckoning that California has been warned about for years has arrived. The longest recession in generations and the defeat this week of a package of budget-balancing ballot measures are expected to lead to state spending cuts so deep and so painful that they could rewrite the social contract between California and its citizens. They could also force a fundamental rethinking of the proper role of government in the Golden State. "The voters are getting what they asked for, but I'm not sure at the end of the day they're going to like what...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama sent Congress his first budget Thursday boasting of cutting or killing 121 federal programs in a belt-tightening he likened to that of most Americans in difficult times. But the trims amount to a tiny fraction of the new spending he wants, and some have already been nixed by allies on Capitol Hill. Obama said his cuts would amount to $17 billion — in a budget totaling well over $3 trillion for the fiscal year that begins in October. He's estimating the government's red ink will still be about $1.2 trillion, down only slightly from...

This started off as fun, but making a gif file over 10,000 pixels tall did not seem to be something Fireworks wanted to do. Still, that's what was required to illustrate how many times larger the cost of the climate plan, or Obama's underestimation of his own budget was, compared to the AIG bonuses. So, if as reported by ABC, the AIG bonuses were "staggering in size," then what adjective would they use to report Obama's budget? Read on and see the infamous gif file (it's only 54k... just very tall)

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last month. The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated Press Friday, predict Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That's $2.3 trillion worse than the White House predicted in its budget. Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable....

WASHINGTON — Federal aid for education would be frozen under a bill emerging from House-Senate negotiations. Aid for special education would increase by less than 1 percent while programs funded under President Bush's No Child Left Behind program would be cut by more than 3 percent. To avoid cutting more deeply into education, medical training and Pell Grants, lawmakers are reluctantly giving up about $1 billion worth of home state projects from a sweeping bill funding education, labor and health and human services programs.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans sweated out a victory on a major budget cut bill in the wee hours Friday, salvaging a major pillar of their agenda despite divisions within the party and nervousness among moderates that the vote could cost them in next year's elections. The bill, passed 217-215 after a 25-minute-long roll call, makes modest but politically painful cuts across an array of programs for the poor, students and farmers. The victory on the deficit-control bill came hours after an embarrassing and rare defeat on a $602 billion spending bill for education, health care and job training programs this...

Check this out interesting piece on what's true and not on the defecit. Here's a sample: Article here. Record Deficit? Well not really. Despite what many newspapers are reporting as "record deficits" the current deficit is not a record breaker. However, when adjusting all budget surpluses and deficits to 2000 dollars another picture emerges (Note: While the OMB has data back to 1789 I am looking only at data from 1940 onwards). 1. Highest Budget Deficit: 1943 $486.2 billion. 2. Second highest Budget Deficit: 1945 $456.8 billion. 3. Third highest Budget Deficit: 1944 $448.2 billion. 4. Fourth highest Budget Deficit:...

Deficits Do Matter by Hans F. Sennholz March 2004 Politicians and officials in high places are telling us that government debt does not matter; after all, we owe it to ourselves. As long as government borrows Funds internally and expenditures are financed from internal sources, so the notion goes, no real cost is incurred. Interest payment on debt merely represents transfers from taxpayers to bondholders. Debt to foreigners, by contrast, is seen as a wholly different matter because it necessitates interest payments to outsiders. It is analogous to private debt. The recurrent notion that “we owe it to ourselves” springs...

The Bush Administration got hammered on its fiscal policy last week. First, former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin came forward with a study (co-authored with Peter Orszag and Allen Sinai) warning that the budget deficit could lead to a loss of confidence in the dollar, which could lead to a disruption in financial markets. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said the study proved that the United States is becoming a Third World country like Argentina, and could soon suffer a financial crisis similar to the one Argentina is in the midst of. Then the International Monetary Fund issued a paper...