Presto, change-o! At the beginning of the year, we were sternly lectured that huge tax increases were absolutely necessary to confront our looming debt crisis. America was driven to the edge of the “fiscal cliff,” ostensibly producing business panic that explained a fair measure of Barack Obama’s permanent economic malaise, by the President’s refusal to budge an inch from his demands for those deficit-fighting tax | Read More »
“Those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.” — Barack Hussein Obama, Inaugural Address January 20, 2009
There were many things that were disappointing about President Obama’s first term.
The good folks at Reason TV take a look at some of the disappointments in a new video retrospective of Obama’s rhetoric versus reality.
Read More »The crazy-man speaks. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predictably rails against the E-vil Amerikan Empire. The really bizarre and frightening aspect of this particular harangue is the utter lack of deracination. This time, the Nut-Job can back his assertions with quantitative data. This time the crazy-man may not be so crazy. Ahmadinejad delivers what he hopes to be a japing eulogy below.
Read More »“How long can a government with a $16 trillion foreign debt remain a world power?” he asked at a press conference with Kuwaiti media personnel. “The Americans have injected their paper wealth into the world economy and today the aftermaths and negative effects of their pseudo-wealth have plagued them.”
On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the impact of of QE 3 on retirees, how it discourages saving and the Fed’s roll in propping up Washington at the expense of the American economy.
Read More »You are familiar with the Tax Foundation’s “Tax Freedom Day” — the date by which the average American has earned enough to pay his taxes for the year. This year Tax Freedom Day finally arrived on April 17th. To borrow a phrase from President Obama, let me be clear, on average Americans, must use every penny they earned from January 1st until April 17th to pay their taxes for the year.
One of my favorite economists, Professor Antony Davies, and his colleague, James R. Harrigan, suggest we also celebrate what they call “Deficit Day” to focus Americans’ attention on the on fact that we are headed to bankruptcy. They explain it all in an excellent article they published at Real Clear Markets.
Read More »Today, the national debt is $16,015,769,788,215.80 (as of 8/31/12 — US Department of the Treasury, TreasuryDirect.gov, accessed 9/4/12). It was $10,626,877,048,913.08 when Obama became president. That is an increase of more than a five and one-half trillion dollars (50 percent) during in the forty-two months of the Obama presidency.
In honor of this momentous occasion, the Republican National Committee in conjunction with Romney for President released a new video titled, “$16 Trillion.”
http://youtu.be/7UEDJncZbh4
Read More »The Congress doesn’t cut spending and balance the budget because they can’t. Not even if they remove every department and employee including the military.
So says Hal Mason in the shocking accompanying video titled, “United States Budget Dilemma.”
President Obama, in his proposed Fiscal Year 2013 budget, would spend $3.8 trillion. But the federal government will only collect $2.5 trillion in taxes, resulting in a deficit of $1.3 trillion. That $1.3 trillion is an amount larger than Congress appropriates to operate the federal budget.
The problem is easily stated; spending on mandatory programs and interest is greater than taxes collected. According to Mason, in order to balance the budget, Congress would have to raise taxes 50 percent or eliminate the federal government.
Read More »Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Jordan Ballor to discuss how the sinking economy has caused a declining birthrate in America, the problems that will cause, and why Europe’s struggles may be a preview of our bleak future. We’re brought to you as always by Stephen Clouse and Associates. | Read More »
In the new ABC News/Washington Post poll, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney extends his lead among Independents to 14 points, 53-39 percent. Two months ago, a POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground poll found Romney had a ten-point lead among the critical Independent voters. The mainstream media is touting the poll as showing the race is “dead even” — a 47-47 percent Obama-Romney contest among registered voters. | Read More »
You can’t make this stuff up. Your tax dollars are being used to market ”livestock semen.” Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) has put together a new study titled “Treasure Map: The Market Access Program’s Bounty of Waste, Loot and Spoils Plundered from Taxpayers.” The report released today found that the federal government has spent more than $2 billion on a program to promote private companies marketing products | Read More »
SoakTheRich.us started as a series of pie charts and turned into something much bigger. Here’s why! Promising the moon and hoping no one will ask, “hey, what’s a moon cost these days, anyway?” turns out to be the one business model Progressives endorse. If you’re an Obama bundler, a union boss, or Ezra Klein, it’s great news — you can get rich selling snake oil, riding | Read More »
“A budget is values,” says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office and an adviser to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “When you put together a budget, you display where you’re going to put the nation’s resources and what you care about.” (HT:Washingtonexaminer) Something went wrong with the universe after the Puerto Rican GOP Primary. Mitt Romney not only made an accidental relevant | Read More »
When Republicans agreed to raise the debt ceiling last year, not only did they credit Obama’s credit card by $2.1 trillion, they also gave him a lifeline until after the election. At the time, it was projected that $2.1 trillion in new debt allowance was sufficient to last until January 2013, sparing Obama the embarrassment of raising the debt ceiling right before the election. Well, | Read More »
Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the deteriorating situation in Greece, Tim Geithner’s testimony before Paul Ryan, and Obama’s missing plan for debt reduction. We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can | Read More »
“My guess is that once the US loses its triple-A, it’ll be gone forever.” – Felix Salmon Izvestia in Atlanta (CNN) We now suddenly receive a recent history lesson abouthow S&P financially rated Lehman Brothers prior to its collapse. Why would this be any more relevant to today’s problems than Paul Krugman’s cheerleading for a big housing bubble back in 2002? Because S&P could still | Read More »
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