The CBO this month provided some more bad news for Americans and good news for those pushing tax hikes. It released a report indicating the federal government took in $1.6 trillion and spent $2.6 trillion in just the first nine months of the fiscal year. That’s a deficit of $1 trillion in a mere nine months. Do you now understand why President Obama is pushing for a special session of Congress—after the elections—to raise taxes?
Obama was smart in the way he set up his commission. It reports to Congress on December 1. Congressmen who were voted out of office in November for excessive government spending will be allowed to stick it to the taxpayers one more time by voting for massive tax increases, and, since they’re already unemployed, they’ll face no electoral consequences.
The President told his commission that “everything has to be on the table.” Translated, this means the commission needs to marry small, symbolic spending cuts with higher taxes on the average American. In testimony before the commission, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget suggested a carbon tax to raise money. Others want a value-added tax. A VAT is essentially a hidden national sales tax that could raise the federal tax bite by 25% or more. Both of these proposals would hit lower-income people who are looking for jobs. Taxpayers should worry that lame-duck politicians, lacking all accountability, will make one last effort for team Obama and raise taxes.
Showing posts with label budget deficit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label budget deficit. Show all posts
Monday, August 2, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Obama goes conservative, issuing bad news at 3 p.m. on Friday
Peter Orszag, the president’s outgoing Director of the Office of Management and Budget, released the annual mid-year update to the administration’s budget projections at 3 pm last Friday afternoon in a conference call with reporters. That was a dead giveaway that the administration was hoping not to make much news with its latest budget projections, or at least not make news in a way that anyone would notice.
They weren’t entirely successful in burying the report, but it’s understandable why they tried. The numbers are eye-popping. The budget deficit in 2010 is expected to set a record at $1.471 trillion – or 10% of GDP. In 2011, the administration projects the deficit will again top $1.4 trillion. From 2010 to 2020, the Obama budget plan would run up a cumulative deficit of nearly $10 trillion, and the nation’s debt would reach $18.5 trillion in 2020, up from $5.8 trillion at the end of 2008.
Even more ominous for the president is the economic forecast. It shows unemployment remaining at over 8% through the 2012 presidential re-election campaign, despite the assumption that relatively normal economic growth would have been underway for more than two years by then.
The primary problem is quite plainly out of control federal spending. In 2008, total federal outlays were about $2.9 trillion. President Obama wants to add $1 trillion to that total in 2011, or about a 33% expansion of governmental activity in just three years. And that’s just the beginning of it. By the end of the decade, federal outlays would reach $5.6 trillion, nearly double what they were a little more than a decade earlier, and that’s assuming a massive and speculative peace dividend after 2011 and cuts in domestic discretionary programs that the president has yet to identify. Of course, the baby boomers are also now entering their retirement years, and will begin flooding into the Social Security and Medicare program in the next few years, pushing spending on those programs up even more rapidly than they have grown in the past. By 2030, there will be 71 million Americans age 65 and older, up from 41 million this year.
All of this building budgetary pressure is now a clear drag on growth and a hindrance to hiring. Firms are worried that the “solution” politicians will ultimately pursue to close the widening gap between federal revenues and spending is more debilitating tax increases. The latest long-run budget forecast from the Congressional Budget Office won’t allay those fears.
In that report, CBO found that a massive tax hike is already in the offing.
They weren’t entirely successful in burying the report, but it’s understandable why they tried. The numbers are eye-popping. The budget deficit in 2010 is expected to set a record at $1.471 trillion – or 10% of GDP. In 2011, the administration projects the deficit will again top $1.4 trillion. From 2010 to 2020, the Obama budget plan would run up a cumulative deficit of nearly $10 trillion, and the nation’s debt would reach $18.5 trillion in 2020, up from $5.8 trillion at the end of 2008.
Even more ominous for the president is the economic forecast. It shows unemployment remaining at over 8% through the 2012 presidential re-election campaign, despite the assumption that relatively normal economic growth would have been underway for more than two years by then.
The primary problem is quite plainly out of control federal spending. In 2008, total federal outlays were about $2.9 trillion. President Obama wants to add $1 trillion to that total in 2011, or about a 33% expansion of governmental activity in just three years. And that’s just the beginning of it. By the end of the decade, federal outlays would reach $5.6 trillion, nearly double what they were a little more than a decade earlier, and that’s assuming a massive and speculative peace dividend after 2011 and cuts in domestic discretionary programs that the president has yet to identify. Of course, the baby boomers are also now entering their retirement years, and will begin flooding into the Social Security and Medicare program in the next few years, pushing spending on those programs up even more rapidly than they have grown in the past. By 2030, there will be 71 million Americans age 65 and older, up from 41 million this year.
All of this building budgetary pressure is now a clear drag on growth and a hindrance to hiring. Firms are worried that the “solution” politicians will ultimately pursue to close the widening gap between federal revenues and spending is more debilitating tax increases. The latest long-run budget forecast from the Congressional Budget Office won’t allay those fears.
In that report, CBO found that a massive tax hike is already in the offing.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
As Obama preaches austerity in Europe his government runs up a record 19th consecutive monthly deficit
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States posted an $82.69 billion deficit in April, nearly four times the $20.91 billion shortfall registered in April 2009 and the largest on record for that month, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.
It was more than twice the $40-billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue.
Department officials said that in prior years, there was a surplus during April in 43 out of the past 56 years.
The government has now posted 19 consecutive monthly budget deficits, the longest string of shortfalls on record.
For the first seven months of fiscal 2010, which ends September 30, the cumulative budget deficit totals $799.68 billion, down slightly from $802.3 billion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009.
It was more than twice the $40-billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue.
Department officials said that in prior years, there was a surplus during April in 43 out of the past 56 years.
The government has now posted 19 consecutive monthly budget deficits, the longest string of shortfalls on record.
For the first seven months of fiscal 2010, which ends September 30, the cumulative budget deficit totals $799.68 billion, down slightly from $802.3 billion in the comparable period of fiscal 2009.
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