Barack Obama's $3.834 trillion answer to the American voter

Voter outrage shown through a Tea Party gathering in front of the Glendale City Hall after both Stimulus and Omnibus spending bills were passed out of congress (without transparency or being read by members of Congress) and signed by Barack Obama. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2009)

Barack Obama's $3.834 trillion answer to the American voter

The Obama Administration has been in office now for a little over one year, and the Democrat party led Congress (House of Representatives and Senate) has been in office for a little over three.

In this time of Democrat political party leadership, we have seen our economy blow-up and our Government spending balloon to levels (even adjusted for inflation and cost of living) that defy logic. The Stimulus and Omnibus spending bills passed out of Congress and signed into law about ten months ago increased the budgets of the departments of Government on average of about 24% - the perspective on this type of increase is that budgets of Government are generally increased to reflect the increased cost of living and inflation or between 2-3% … no more than 4%. The American voter reacted to this increase in Government spending by organizing gatherings throughout the country on April 15, 2009 – Tax Day, and increased communication at Town Hall meetings throughout the year to voice their displeasure with the direction and depletion of our working labors.

This activity became known as the Tea Party Movement – this is a movement created by a Government wanting to become bigger and bigger in order to gain even greater control over our daily lives … and thereby control over our money. The Tea Party Movement is not left/Democrat Party or right/Republican party politics but a movement of Democrat, Republican, and Independent voters who wish to have our country seek a smaller Government and get back to the values outlined in the founding document of our country – The Constitution.

In November 2009, the Tea Party Movement spoke. Entrenched Democrat political party Governors were replaced in Virginia and New Jersey ... and just last month, Massachusetts voters booted out the decades long one-party representation by Edward (Ted) Kennedy (deceased) and the Democrat Party with the stunning election of Scott Brown to the US Senate.

Today, Barack Obama and his administration issued his proposal for the budget of the US Government to a record $3.834 trillion from October 2010 to September 2011. A $1.6 trillion total deficit is projected and as measured against the size of the economy, the $1.6 trillion deficit equals about 11% of the United States gross domestic product.

Debt would double under Obama's plan. Image Credit: The Heritage Foundation

This excerpted and edited from the New York Times –

$100 Billion Increase in Deficit Is Forecast
By JACKIE CALMES - Published: February 1, 2010

The additional tax cuts and public works spending that President Obama has proposed to spur job creation would add $100 billion to this year’s deficit, bringing it to nearly $1.6 trillion, according to an administration official.

A deficit of that size for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 would be about $150 billion greater than last year’s deficit, which was the highest since World War II.

Measured against the size of the economy, a $1.6 trillion shortfall would equal almost 11 percent of the gross domestic product. Economists generally consider annual deficits above 3 percent to be unsustainable.
Reference Here>>

Voter outrage expressed in handmade posters in front of the Glendale City Hall after both Stimulus and Omnibus spending bills were passed out of congress (without transparency or being read by members of Congress) and signed by Barack Obama. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2009)

This analysis excerpted and edited from Reuters –

Analysts View: 2010 budget deficit to hit new record
Reuters – February 1, 2010

Following are analysts' comments after President Barack Obama on Monday projected in his budget for the fiscal year to September 30, 2011 the budget deficit would soar to a fresh record of $1.56 trillion in 2010.

ANDRE BAKHOS, PRESIDENT, PRINCETON FINANCIAL GROUP, NORTH BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY

"We're talking about a record budget with record deficits. In it we have I believe $100 billion stimulus on top of what's already been approved in the past, and it's going to be interesting to see how that plays up.
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PETER BOOCKVAR, EQUITY STRATEGIST, MILLER TABAK & CO., NEW YORK:

"I don't think there is anything out there that is job creating and I don't have much confidence that some of the spending cuts will actually happen.

"I would rather come in today and focus on fundamental earnings rather than what the government's budget deficit is going to be. It's going to be large, it's going to be big and that's the most disappointing thing and this [budget] doesn't change that."

MARC OSTWALD, CURRENCY, RATES STRATEGIST, MONUMENT SECURITIES, LONDON:

"When the deficit is that size and you want to cut it meaningfully, you have to do more.

"It is still tinkering around the edges. One has to look at more meaningful things in terms of what will actually reduce the deficit, (which is) the revenue picture.

"This is really something that is going to have an impact on equities, rather than the dollar or Treasuries because it's individual areas (such as aerospace) what may be impacted."
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KORNELIUS PURPS, STRATEGIST, UNICREDIT MIB, MUNICH

"The problem of how we're going to deal with these huge deficits, not only in Greece but in the UK, Germany, this question is unsolved and today's (U.S.) budget figures are just another confirmation that it's probably a huge problem. The bond markets have little choice when it comes to investing in triple-A securities like U.S. or German Bunds because other countries are probably faring even worse than these triple-A rated countries, so I wouldn't expect a particularly negative bond market reaction."

PETER DIXON, ECONOMIST, COMMERZBANK, LONDON

"Probably the spending cuts are not really sufficient to generate the kind of savings required to get the U.S. fiscal balance back in order anytime soon. It looks like we are going to have a situation in which the U.S. budget deficit and consequently the amount of debt will be an issue."
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KENNETH BROUX, MARKET ECONOMIST, LLOYDS TSB, LONDON

"It looks to me like they are bumping up the deficit forecasts very near term so frontloading the spending just to stabilize the labor market. That's what they want to concentrate on going into the Congressional elections in November. Raising spending near term, get the deficit up but bring it down after that. If they will bring it down below 10 percent next year it will be some unqualified success."

DAVID BUIK, PARTNER, BGC PARTNERS, LONDON

"They have chosen the path of glory which is to spend their way out of trouble and this just endorses it. The taxpayers will pay for this and I think it will damage growth very badly."
Reference Here>>

Barack Obama does not care about the economic damage his Progressive political philosophy will bring to the country he calls home and has been elected to manage from the highest Executive management position in the land.

Welcome world, to Carter’s Second Term!

Stimulate This, Jimmy Carter

President Obama after meeting with, from left, National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.). Image Credit: Bill O'leary/The Washington Post

Stimulate This, Jimmy Carter

The poor economic record of the Carter years ... and in particular, the unusual combination of high inflation and high unemployment ... was an important reason for Carter's loss of popularity and his 1980 defeat.

The 39th President of the United States has nothing on the potential for economic havoc that liberal federal government spending will have once the 44th President, Barack Obama, has his proposed $3.5 to $4 trillion dollar budget approved and placed into action.

The budget proposal released today is coming on the heels of the approval of $787 Billion dollars of tax monies to stimulate our economy ... the largest spending bill ever passed by our leaders in the U.S. Congress in the history of the United States.

Just try to understand how much money of our citizen supported spending, the Government has approved on our behalf, after hearing that the next budget President Obama wants to have approved may spend about $4 Trillion dollars.

This all becomes a little inconceivable.

Example:

If one was to spend only $1,000,000 (that's one-million dollars) a day and intended to spend this money until one had spent $1,000,000,000,000 (one-trillion dollars), one would not finish until three (3) thousand years from now.

So, TIMES FOUR (4) – that’s a million dollars a day for twelve-thousand years!

There are only three-hundred million (300,000,000) men, women, ... and children who live in the United States – do the math.

The Obama Effect - This chart, showing the utter devastation Obama has wrought on the stock market, is from Investor's Business Daily.

This excerpted and edited from Commentary Magazine -

How Big Is Big?
Jennifer Rubin - 02.25.2009 - 7:07 PM

The spending numbers become meaningless after awhile. This helpful guide puts things in perspective:

$787 billion would buy 4.6 million homes here in the US at the most recent median price of $170,300 for January 2008.

$787 billion would send a check for $2,623 to every man, woman and child in the US.

$787 billion would fund 7.7 million four year scholarships to the average private university in the US at current tuition rates.

$787 billion would fund 30 million full four year scholarships to the nation’s public universities.

$787 billion would buy 27.7 million cars at the average price of an automobile sold last year in the US.

$787 billion would fund four full months of a tax holiday in the US.

This not only helps clarify how much we are spending, but how poorly we are allocating taxpayer dollars. If we actually did a couple of these things there might be broader support even among conservatives for the stimulus or the other spending projects Democrats have in mind. However, who thinks we’re going to get much value or immediate productive economic activity from the $787B?

You have the sense that, if they tried, they couldn’t spend the money in a more inefficient and less productive fashion. And you’d be right. The Democrats’ goal is to expand the public sector and pet liberal projects, not to worry about efficiency and productivity.They’re doing a fine job.
Reference Here>>

Then there is this little budget of $4 Trillion dollars and the claim that it will reduce the deficit by half.

This excerpted and edited from The Washington Post -

In President's Budget Plan, Broad Agenda and a Few Gaps
By Lori Montgomery, Washington Post Staff Writer - Thursday, February 26, 2009

President Obama's spending plan is built on the assumption that lawmakers can resolve some hugely contentious issues -- and it relies on a few well-worn budget tricks.

The request he will deliver to Congress today proposes to provide what administration officials are calling a "down payment" on a major expansion of health care coverage for the uninsured. It identifies $634 billion in tax increases and spending cuts to cover the cost of part of the program, but does not say how the administration hopes to raise the rest of the money -- hundreds of billions of dollars more. "TBD" has been penciled into categories for cost savings and benefit reductions.

Obama's budget also would make permanent a tax cut for the middle class enacted in the recent stimulus package. But to pay for it, the president counts on a big infusion of cash from a politically controversial cap-and-trade system, which would force companies to buy allowances to exceed pollution limits. Even if that plan is approved, some lawmakers have other ideas about how to spend the money.
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"They've painted the worst-case scenario in order to make it as easy as possible to improve on," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which champions deficit reduction. “But I'd like to see them go much further in terms of fiscal responsibility in actually closing that deficit gap."
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"It's a bold plan. This is big strokes. This is not a budget about little things," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the House leadership.
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A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the budget has not been released, said the spending proposal is just a summary of a fleshed-out plan that will be complete in April. In addition, some details were intentionally left out of the document because the president did not want to dictate policy changes to lawmakers.

The health reform proposal, for example, "is the starting point of a conversation with Congress," the official said. "We're not going to go to Congress and say, 'Here's the plan.' We're starting a conversation and saying, 'This is what we want to get done.' "
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The deficit is perhaps the trickiest issue in Obama's spending plan. He has pledged to cut it in half by the end of his first term. Specifically, administration officials say the annual gap between federal spending and tax collections will fall from something north of $1.4 trillion this year -- the highest since World War II -- to $533 billion in 2013.

But Republicans and some budget analysts noted that this highly touted goal is not particularly ambitious: This year's budget deficit is bloated by spending on the stimulus package and various financial-sector bailouts, expenses unlikely to be repeated in future years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently predicted that the deficit could be halved by 2013 merely by winding down the war in Iraq and allowing some of the tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration to expire in 2011, as Obama has proposed. That alone would cut the deficit to $715 billion, according to the CBO.

"It's easy to cut the deficit in half after you've quadrupled it," said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "The end of the recession, the drawdown of Iraq spending and the end of temporary stimulus spending will by itself cut the deficit in half. He should do more."
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The official defended the administration's figures, saying they accurately represent recent war costs. "It's a change in our policy that is going to bring those costs down," the official said.

But several budget analysts criticized the speech as misleading.

"It's a hollow number," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, who recently withdrew as Obama's nominee to head the Commerce Department. "You're not getting savings if you're assuming spending that isn't actually going to occur."
Reference Here>>

Ahhhh! The benefits of Central Planning ... it took only 12 Five-Year Plans to bring down the Soviet Union. How long will it take to dismantle the freedoms we enjoy here in the United States (many say the freedom train has already left the station).

Carter's Second Term ... on STEROIDS!!!