This Has To Give You A “Warm Fuzzy”
Not content with busting the bank with the Pork bill and TARP II, now, finally, the 50+ trillion in unfunded mandates are apparently next:
The following week, the president will host what the White House is billing as a “fiscal responsibility” summit on February 23. The goal of the summit is to begin weighing the impact of massive federal programs like Social Security and Medicare just days before the president plans to unveil his first annual budget to Congressional leaders.
Budget? There’s nothing left to spend. Frankly I think Michael Ramirez has the best take on it.
My guess is this can will get kicked down the road, left for 45 or 46 to deal with.
~McQ
I’m sure it will. Hey, the current crisis is so dire, we had to ram that bill through……so the Pres. can let it sit on his desk while he leaves Washington (AGAIN) to go to ritzy restaurants with his wife.
Hey Lightworker, if this is such a crisis, GET BACK TO WORK.
Washington is already beating him down. Lightweight 4 life is this guy
Phase One… Give away as much as possible.
Phase Two… Tax away as much as possibe.
Imagine the following situation: Obama is present at an emergency where a child is at the bottom of a well.
Obama: The rope isn’t long enough! Get some rope and tie onto the end.
Rescue worker: We don’t have any more rope.
Obama: Then just cut some off the other end of this rope! Quick, there’s no time to lose!
“My guess is this can will get kicked down the road, left for 45 or 46 to deal with.”
That will last until the Chinese stop buying our bonds.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp
Phase One… Give away as much as possible.
Phase Two… Tax away as much as possibe.
The California plan.
At this point my feeling is “more please and faster”. Seems like the only way to end this insanity is to bring on a full fiscal collapse. If so (and I hope beyond hope it isn’t) then let’s get this on and shoot the wad. When interest rates and inflation are in the multiple digits there will be no more such stimulation possible. I’m getting my storehouse of non-perishable food ready.
And for those who think this is Amerikkka getting its much deserved come-uppance the rest of the global economy is in this crisis as deep as us or deeper.
I’m afraid that we are about to experience the exact opposite of Milton Friedman’s “starve the beast” theory. Rather than unsustainable government deficits leading to reduced government spending, we are about to get massive tax increases to pay for all the good and wonderful things that the government is doing for us. Just look at California. We have a $40 billion-plus budget deficit over the next year and a half. The state legislature has cooked up a cockamamie scheme where they will borrow $11 billion, raise taxes approx. $15 billion and cut spending by approx. $15 billion. The only problem is that they expect close to $15 billion in stimulus funds which will be used to replace the spending cuts. The long and the short of it is that, in this recession, California’s state government is raising taxes by approximately $1,400 per family while effectively maintaining their spending. The messiah will eventually join with Pelosi, Rangel and Reid to raise our taxes to pay for the skillfully executed stimulus that saved us from armegeddon.
Inflation. They will run the presses.
It won’t help SS as it has COLA, but they will do it anyways.
Harun, look for them to change the way the COLA is figured (which they should do anyway since ithe current configureation overstates inflation.
Inflation is always the socialists preferred tool. I’m looking to buy gold.
Indeed. Because it’s a stealth tax levied disproportionately on those the socialists hate most, that is, successful people who have been prudent enough to build up their own store of wealth (and so don’t need to be government dependents).
That whole 2045-’49 projection for SS insolvency presumes that the government finds a way to pay out the 6.2 trillion dollars of IOUs to itself currently in the “trust fund.” The last numbers from the government I saw has SS going into the red in 2018. So of course in reality it will probably happen in 2015. In six years the government will have to start finding the money to pay out these IOUs.