Spending Money Because It's OPM

Spending Money Because It’s OPM

“I remember when liberals were liberal with their own money”  is a quote attributed to Will Rogers.   Modern day “spend & tax” liberals, such as President Obama are spending the US taxpayers money without restraint because it is “Other Peoples Money”.     We’ll tax other people (especially the rich), because a) they have too much money (class warfare), b) we as liberals (in government) know how to spend it better than you, c) if we don’t have it in the US Treasury now, we’ll just borrow more for taxpayers to pay back later.    Former US Senator Bill Armstrong (R-Colorado) stated the appetite for US government spending by Congress this way, “Congress is spending money like a drunken sailor, the trouble is, a sailor is spending his own money!”

    Even the moderate to liberal Politico is noting the long term and large spending patterns by the Obama Administration. The federal debt held by the public would still nearly double again from $10.1 trillion at the end of 2011 to $18.8 trillion at the end of 2022. For the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, CBO is now projecting a shortfall of $1.3 trillion. In fiscal 2013, the deficit will still hover near the $1 trillion mark — about $977 billion. And while it will fall to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2017, it then begins to grow again to 3 percent of GDP by 2022.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74109_Page2.html#ixzz1pTnvuOln

The Heritage Foundation has an excellent link, with the US government revenues and spending graphically portrayed in easy to understand charts:

            http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook

Under the Obama Administration, Federal spending per household jumped from $25,000 per year (per household) to $30,000 per year.   It had moderated under a GOP House of Representatives (where the spending bills originate) to $29,401 per household (per year).

            The 30-year average tax burden (Federal tax rate) from 1981 to 2010 has been about 18%.    The highest average rate was 20% (in year 2000), just prior to President Bush being elected.  The projection for the next decade is for average Federal income tax rates to rise from the historical average of 18% to nearly 25%, if Federal spending and taxation are not constrained by Congress and the elected President.

            Presently, the lower (bottom half) of US taxpayers only pay 2.7% of the total income taxes collected by Uncle Sam.  Whereas the top 5% of income earner (US taxpayers earning over $159,000 per year) are paying nearly 60% of the income taxes collected.   The top 1% of income producers (those who create jobs, wealth and economic activity for our country as a whole) are paying 40% of the income taxes collected.  

            So let’s tax the rich, as per the “class warfare” manta of President Obama!   Not so fast.   Our history in modern America would suggest the contrary: 

            “The most dramatic decline in the top individual income tax rate, from 70 percent to 28 percent, occurred during the Reagan Administration, during which tax receipts remained relatively constant as a share of the economy.”  Heritage Foundation

            http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/income-tax-receipts

And what will be the result of this overspending, over the next 10 years?   The Heritage Foundation projects that our US Federal deficit (if spending is unchecked) will reach 100% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2022.  Then it is “Hello Greece, or Portugal or Italy”! http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/national-debt-skyrocket

What can we do?   Tell Congress to stop the US government overspending.   Back the Paul Ryan budget bills and policy changes.   Vote for fiscal conservatives, who have voting records that actually show “stop the brutal spending” votes.   President Obama’s budget numbers show the US debt as a percentage of GDP rising from 40.3% to to 87.4% from 2008 to 2020.   Sit back and go with the “wasteful spending money” flow, and we’ll watch our beloved America go broke.  Or stand up, and vote the "over spenders" out of office.    Here’s the whole set of charts:

            http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/contents

© 2012, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org 

First Spend, Then Borrow, Then Tax

First Spend, Then Borrow, Then Tax

While the rest of the country is working hard to cut costs, reduce budgets and live within our means, the politicos in Washington are rushing to spend money they don’t have.   The “pork-ulus” (stimulus) Federal spending bill has risen by the billions by the day.  The Democrat majority in the House passed the so-call Federal economic stimulus bill without any support from Republican members.  Now the $819B Democrat bill has swelled to over $920B based on US Senate amendments to increase spending and tax cuts.

According to the Wall Street Journal  http://online.wsj.com  “Twenty moderate senators -- from both parties -- are pushing a plan to bring the total package's cost down to about $800 billion, and put more emphasis on tax cuts. Led by Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Ben Nelson (D., Neb.), the group has been combing over the bill for spending programs deemed unlikely to provide immediate benefit to the economy.”

The WSJ indicated that the House has issues with the Federal stimulus: “Separately, a caucus of fiscally conservative House Democrats, known as the Blue Dogs, urged party leaders to embrace a "redoubled effort to streamline the stimulus and recovery package." In the House, 11 Democrats voted against the $819 billion package, nine of them Blue Dogs. Several other Blue Dogs voted for the package, but with reservations.”

According to FOX news, www.foxnews.com the public opinion is mounting against the stimulus bill, and the US Senate is feeling the political heat.   "This idea that the public is not excited about this package ... is really having an effect on Capitol Hill," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told FOX News, adding that most of the Senate suffers from a "herd mentality" and is swayed by public opinion. "There's nothing inevitable about this," said Phil Kerpen, director of policy at Americans for Prosperity. "The American economy is enormously resilient and it's always recovered in the past."            

In an interview with Greta Van Susteren from Fox News Channel, Senator Lindsay Graham R-South Carolina was blunt in his criticism, “Senator Graham: Yes, I think the process (stinks) -- can you imagine trying to do -- can you imagine a group of people taking a trillion dollars from the next generation of Americans, borrowing money from children and grandchildren, and doing it in a week? If it looks like we're making it up, we are. There are 16 senators off in a corner trying to save $100 billion. God bless them, but that's not the way you get bipartisanship. Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill set down and found a way to go forward with Social Security.           

On Fox News, Senator Graham continued, “I like President Obama. (But on this bill) He's been AWOL…he's writing op-ed pieces trying to scare people to vote for this bill. He's had lunch with us, he's had cocktails with us, he's talked to us on the phone, but he's never done the hard work of getting Republicans and Democrats in a room and telling the left: This is not going to be a free-spending bill. You're not going to be able to spend a trillion dollars that doesn't create jobs. And he needs to tell Republicans: You need to do more than just cut taxes. The president has not led. He has tried to campaign. The campaign is over. We've got to govern. Roll up your sleeves. There are at least 15 Republicans who want to do more than cut taxes, understand we need to stimulate the economy, but nobody is going to agree to this process. This is not the way to govern this nation and obligate future generations to trillions of dollars of spending.”   Interview with Greta Van Susteren, Thurs Feb 5, 2009

Americans for Prosperity has launched a petition on the Web site called http://nostimulus.com to oppose what it calls the "big-government pork-barrel spending bill." The conservative Cato Institute www.cato.org also recently took out a group of ads with a statement, signed by 200 economists, saying they "do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance."  www.cato.org/special/stimulus09/cato_stimulus.pdf

The total US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is approximately $14 Trillion dollars.   The proposed Federal stimulus bill plus interest (to borrow the money) is approaching 10% of the US GDP.    Or to put the spending and tax cut binge in perspective:  The US Senate package is about the size of the total GDP (economy) of Australia, and with the interest tacked on it will approach the total GDP of Canada.  In FY 2007, the cost of the US government was $2.7 Trillion dollars.   Clearly the amounts of money (from taxes, US Government borrowing or from the devaluation of US dollar due to inflation) that the US taxpayer is expected to come up with is staggering.  

Leadership on fiscal policy would be for the US Senate to vote down the pork filled “so called stimulus package” and start over with a more reasonable bill.   Or the President could veto the measure.   Unfortunately, the Democrat leadership in the US Senate is determined to pass the bloated bill, at the expense of the US taxpayer for decades to come. Maybe it is time for the US taxpayers to throw out the big spenders (Dems and GOP) in Washington, and vote for a return of limited government that lives within it’s means and respects the taxpayers hard earned monies.   

© 2009, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org