Can the government ever stop spending money it doesn't have? Can we?

For many years we had a "Friday night Date" and went out to eat. About 60 years. Then came Covid. The restaurants closed, churches closed, libraries closed, schools closed, clubs closed, and no one was getting together to socialize. We had never been good at "carry-out," except for pizza. I'd look at the $50+ bill to eat in the kitchen that I could have fixed for $10. And still have a clean up. So we probably saved a lot of money. In 2020-21 the personal savings rate in the country went from about 10% to 30%. Now it's below pre-pandemic levels. We never went back to Friday Night Date. Now it's about once or twice a month. And we don't really miss it. Watch this video on I.O.U. U.S.A. Then figure out a way to decrease your costs for housing, transportation, or food. We need to ask our government also to stop spending money it doesn't have.

I.O.U.S.A.: Byte-Sized - The 30 Minute Version - YouTube

Full disclosure:  This week we did both have a pedicure.  We called it our Valentine Date.

No change in five years

Five years ago, April 28, 2017, I wrote this:

"Why should conservative taxpayers be paying to fund our "everything is hate speech" universities? By far the largest areas of state spending, on average, are education (both K-12 and higher education) and health care. Why should you pay to have the state turn your kids against you and your values?"

I was thinking about that today as the demand to pay other people's college debts grows. Yes, some college graduates have high debts. I don't. Maybe the plumber has debts for his trucks. Or the guy who was sweeping up broken glass from the accident yesterday at Five Points has a second mortgage, or the one on the mower this morning is trying to pay back the coyote who got him into the country, or my newly retired neighbors who moved in two weeks ago will have some debt to redo the 80s decorating of their unit, or the woman with a cane I saw shopping at Aldi's today could sure use an extra $500 a month for live comfortably. Those are the people who will be paying the debts of these primarily young, healthy adults with a bright future ahead of them.  Why do they need these people to pay off their debt? Debt they agreed to. Someone pays, you know. It's not "forgiven." We the taxpayer get stuck with it.  And why should they ask people they don't respect or admire to pay for their rent, nights out, pizza and beer, drugs, football games, travel costs, ripped jeans, and new computers?

A caller to the Dennis Prager show this morning said he fears for the future of our country. His kids (he was divorced in 2017) lived with him during the pandemic lockdown and he got a look at the on-line classes. He was sickened. His 16 year old told him Abraham Lincoln was the most racist of all the presidents. She knows that because her teacher told her.  His college age daughter is learning the same drivel. He asked Dennis Prager what could he do. The show went to commercial, and I arrived at my destination. But paying for these misinformed and silly children to go to college isn't the answer.

Bernie's immoral theft

Bill on the economy

Bill and I went to high school together; don't think I ever talked to him then.  He has an email list made up of Mt. Morris people, and people he knew in business.  Here's what he says about the current economy.

"April earnings are driven by two factors.  The economy is growing at AROUND 3 % AND THE WORLD ECONOMIES ARE GROWING but at not a 3% rate, but growing.  Corporate taxes will be down substantially.  The 21% is the announced rate but some will be less.  Also corporations can now expense  capital expense 100% immediately which is huge.  Normally that write off takes a few years.   People's incomes are now growing.  Wages were up 2.5% a few months ago and will be higher when announced at for the time period December 31.  Obama put 10 trillion of debt on the country.   The Trump administration has avoided debt at this point.  The total size of government is now lower as all cabinet members have reduced their areas of responsibility.  All the bitching by the lefties over the state dept. cutting back is real as the hiring freeze for all departments work.  The lefties feel this is a negative while those of us who worked in the private sector understand how cut backs in bloated organizations make them more efficient and better communicators.  The lowest cut back I have hear is 1% while the biggest cut back I heard was 6%, but again all participated.  Never heard of the size of the U.S.A. government going down, amazing. I wonder if the country and the U.S.A. voters will ever realize the private sector people in government as opposed by career politicians and academia is very much different as to accountability and results. "  

                                                                                  Bill

Federal Debt Held by Public Has More Than Doubled Under Obama

$57,431.65 for each of 117,343,000 households.

"Debt held by the public represents federal debt issued by Treasury and held by investors outside of the federal government, including individuals, corporations, state or local governments, the Federal Reserve, and foreign governments,”  explains the Government Accountability Office. “The majority of debt held by the public consists of marketable Treasury securities, such as bills, notes, bonds, floating rate notes, and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities that are sold through auctions and can be resold by whoever owns them. Treasury also issues a smaller amount of nonmarketable securities, such as savings securities and State and Local Government Series securities."

"Intragovernmental debt holdings represent federal debt owed by Treasury to federal government accounts—primarily federal trust funds such as Social Security and Medicare—that typically have an obligation to invest in federal securities their excess annual receipts (including interest earnings) over disbursements,” says GAO.

“Unlike debt held by the public,” says GAO, “intragovernmental debt holdings are not shown as balances on the federal government’s consolidated financial statements because they represent loans from one part of the federal government to another."

As of the close of business on Tuesday, the total debt of the federal government was $18,150,481,620,363.39. Of this, $13,046,512,400,965.87 was debt held by the public, and $5,103,969,219,397.52 was intragovernmental debt.

The $13,046,512,400,965.87 in debt held by the public was an increase of $6,739,201,661,284.21—or 106.8 percent--from the $6,307,310,739,681.66 in debt held by the public on the day Obama was inaugurated. (CNS News)

http://useconomy.about.com/od/usdebtanddeficit/p/US-Debt-by-President.htm

First time home buyers

I heard on the news today that the median age for a first time home buyer is 33. I was 22 when we bought our first home (a duplex in Champaign-Urbana so the renters could pay the mortgage for us). I think I know the problem. Today young people sell their lives to various tech companies for their phones, cable,Netflix , Facebook and Instagram and they drive nice cars. Fifty years ago we didn’t have any of that. TV, no cost but the set; phone, no cost but rent from the phone company and monthly charge; movies were something you went to in a theater, not that came to us; an automobile--we didn’t have one in 1962, but had a bike. Today’s young families spend so much on their tech contracts they can’t afford a mortgage. Oh, and at 22 we had no college loans to pay back. No one did. We bought an older home in a racially mixed neighborhood with mixed zoning. Today people would rather rent for 10 years with amenities, then start big.

The typical first-timer now rents for six years before buying a home, up from 2.6 years in the early 1970s, according to a new analysis by the real estate data firm Zillow. The median first-time buyer is age 33 — in the upper range of the millennial generation, which roughly spans ages 18 to 34. A generation ago, the median first-timer was about three years younger.

The delay reflects a trend that cuts to the heart of the financial challenges facing millennials: Renters are struggling to save for down payments. Increasingly, too, they're facing delays in some key landmarks of adulthood, from marriage and children to a stable career, according to industry and government reports.

 http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/Older-First-Time-Homebuyers-houses/2015/08/17/id/670406/

Educators who make race relations worse

I haven't checked out this story--someone is clearly misguided if it is true. But what is true is it was completely unnecessary: Among 2014 high school graduates, 86.1% of Asians enrolled in college, compared to 70.9% of black graduates, 67.3% of white graduates and 65.2% of Hispanic graduates. So why are educators still trying to create hard feelings, entitlement and victimhood?

What we really need is some direction for students who won’t be going to college, a place they’ll rack up debt for jobs that won’t be able to support the debt.

How to be poor in the 2nd and 3rd quintile

Even from sound conservative sources I see comments like this, "No one who works full time should live in poverty." Well, think about that and the personal choices that people make, even those with good jobs and an education, that impoverish their families and soul. Sure, the "income" may put them in the 2nd or 3rd quintile, out of range of the census figures that describe poverty, but they've maxed out the credit cards, drinking and drugging, too many vacations, too many manicures and fashionable clothes. They've forgotten they could eat that $20 restaurant meal for $3 at home. No savings, no retirement fund, no money for the church. Yes indeed, you can work full time and be poor and miserable, and it's no one else's fault. No government program will force you to marry the mother of your children to protect them; no government program will force you to eat right and exercise (although it will spend millions to nag you).

Lifestyle choices condemn many to poverty.

Government profits $51 billion from student loans

Story at Huffington Post, May 14, 2013

“The Obama administration is forecast to turn a record $51 billion profit this year from student loan borrowers, a sum greater than the earnings of the nation's most profitable companies and roughly equal to the combined net income of the four largest U.S. banks by assets.

Figures made public Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office show that the nonpartisan agency increased its 2013 fiscal year profit forecast for the Department of Education by 43 percent to $50.6 billion from its February estimate of $35.5 billion.

Exxon Mobil Corp., the nation's most profitable company, reported $44.9 billion in net income last year. Apple Inc. recorded a $41.7 billion profit in its 2012 fiscal year, which ended in September, while Chevron Corp. reported $26.2 billion in earnings last year. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo reported a combined $51.9 billion in profit last year.”

Pants on fire Prez

“Negotiation is how the Founders intended for things to work. They knew that people would disagree, but in negotiation and bargaining, all would come to something that was right for the country and about which everyone could at least accept, if not really agree. Mr. Obama has never really understood the office he holds, and it is always about him, not the country." Wall St. Journal 9-24-13, commenting on the lies Obama told himself and the nation about "never in the history of this country" yada, yada, when in fact 25 times since 1973 this has happened. I guess private schools (he never attended a public school) don't do any better with history than public schools. Or maybe it was that darn teleprompter again.

Monday memories—no college debt

An article in today’s WSJ reports the average student graduates with $30,000 indebtedness.  I'm surprised the  debt is "only" $30,000. I got married before I finished college, so I had to "borrow" my senior year's tuition from my dad and pay it back, which I did. He was sort of old fashioned and figured once married I was a responsible adult, possibly my husband’s responsibility. Costs at a state university were about $1000/year, so let's say it was $4000 for 4 years in 1961. That's $31,250 in 2013 for inflation.

So why were so many people graduating then without debt? No student loans or grants, and very few scholarships would be my guess. The more money available, the higher the tuition and fees charged by academe.

 http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/05/18/number-of-the-week-class-of-2013-most-indebted-ever/?mod=e2tw

             

1958 Father’s Day, University of Illinois at McKinley Hall (I still have that dress in my “archives.”)

Tomorrow is the Super Bowl

Some people watch it only for the ads, which are very, very expensive. At Super Bowl XLVII between the Ravens and 49ers, the average cost of a 30-second advertisement was around $4 million.

Obama and fiscal responsibility

“But I am absolutely committed to fiscal responsibility, which is why I’ve already proposed freezing all discretionary spending unrelated to national security for the next three years. And once the bipartisan fiscal commission finishes its work, I’ll spend the next year making the tough choices necessary to further reduce our deficit and lower our debt — whether I get help from the other side or not.” (President Barack Obama at Cuyahoga Community College, Parma, OH, 9/8/10)

1952-2012: U.S. Government Debt vs. Household Debt

Flip, flop, clippity clop, through the slop

It’s a whole lot more than $16 trillion

“The full extent of the problem has remained hidden from policy makers and the public because of less than transparent government financial statements. How else could responsible officials claim that Medicare and Social Security have the resources they need to fulfill their commitments for years to come?

As Washington wrestles with the roughly $600 billion "fiscal cliff" and the 2013 budget, the far greater fiscal challenge of the U.S. government's unfunded pension and health-care liabilities remains offstage. The truly important figures would appear on the federal balance sheet—if the government prepared an accurate one. . .

The actual liabilities of the federal government—including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees' future retirement benefits—already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550% of GDP. ”

Cox and Archer

A notice about debt

This is a public service announcement for any Occupiers, or people who call themselves the 99%-ers, or those earning the new Girl Scout badge for good credit. If you believe ads like this that promise "rewards," or "deals," or "savings," or "earnings," or "shopping made easy," or "20% off," or "cash back," please know that they are asking you to spend money and go into debt. Debt has to be paid back, sometimes with interest, sometimes after the item wears out! You are making the 1% richer if you don't realize that "save" actually means "spend." Don't say you weren't warned or that you didn't know, and go whining to the banks or the President that life is unfair.

More signs of late brain maturity--stress from debt

"Researchers [at Ohio State University] found that the more credit card and college loan debt held by young adults aged 18 to 27, the higher their self-esteem and the more they felt like they were in control of their lives. The effect was strongest among those in the lowest economic class.

Only the oldest of those studied – those aged 28 to 34 – began showing signs of stress about the money they owed." Rachel Dwyer

I suspect the researchers should have included in the study the amount of alcohol and drugs these 20-somethings ingested as teen-agers. That's a known factor for destroyed brain cells, or slowing their maturity.

But then, what's Congress' excuse?

Why the Tea Party can't trust the Republican Party

President Johnson, a Democrat, declared a war on poverty, and poverty won (NYT declares War on Poverty lost, 1999). I remember reading the book by Michael Harrington in the 1960s that supposedly started that war. However, President Nixon, a Republican, was even more liberal than Johnson. He tripled anti-poverty spending, and promoted "The New Federalism" giving us the huge environmental regulatory agencies which strangle growth to this day. How does that help the poor? Under Nixon, Medicare spending rose by 246% and he took us off the gold standard. The two Bushes were Republicans but they were not conservatives. Clinton's increase in the Federal budget was 12%. George W. Bush's was 42%.

Also, don't trust racialist labels. Nixon wasn't a racist (although he didn't like gays), but Johnson was. Before he became President, Johnson had voted against virtually every bill that wouldn't have helped blacks. Both hurt the African American family by encouraging men to leave the home through various "poverty" programs like AFDC. Despite his spending habits, George W. Bush with his stance on abortion and stem cell research, at least was morally and ethically for the black community which with only about 14% of the population is having 42% of the abortions, including the late term horror that we've recently witnessed in Philadelphia.

Since 1961, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, we've only had Progressive Presidents--JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush I and II--men who grew the government and broke their promises. If the Tea Party-supported new members of Congress don't want to get Beltway Fever and eat pork, they need to distrust the Republicans, and ignore the Democrats, toss out the word "bipartisanship" and "civility" and get down to the business of America, which is business.

The herd of sacred cows will continue to graze if. . .

This herd of sacred cows has doubled in size in two years, from Bush cows to Obama cows.
Alan Simpson said that on Fox News last night. He's one of Obama's chairs of the Deficit Commission. It's short enough that one could actually read it, unlike the massive health care bill of over 2,000 pages. However, it's not terribly believable. If both parties have contibuted to the deficit, having a bipartisan (both parties) commission look at spending makes little sense. I think the American people should look at the spending so they aren't just moving money from the wallet to the pocket and calling it "savings," like shifting inefficient federal health costs to even worse state health costs.

I've only been a Republican for a decade, but since they seem to be the same party I registered with in the 1960s I see some problems. Republicans talk small government and fiscal responsibility, but once inside the beltway they become first RINOs, then progressives, then socialists, feeding at the public trough, schmoozing with the lobbiests, and playing games. Huey Long in the 1930s, an opponent of Roosevelt, wrote a pamphlet called Share Our Wealth, and his stealth theft of wealth is indistinguishable from today's government, regardless of which party is in power.

So I challenge you, liberal or conservative to find an agency, commission, program, department, task force, Congressional office, government GSE or think tank, and find a section of its budget and take it apart, piece by piece. Find the pork or the graft if it's coming to your city or state and you don't want it to die permanently, or decide why the entire thing is a scam if you can handle a really sharp knife. Or, you could do it by topic--like poverty, education, housing, health, or job training and dig out the waste as it resides in multiple departments like Education, Energy, Health.

Or, you could do it by non-profit status or by religion. How much are Lutherans or Methodists or Catholics or fair-housing groups and trade associations getting from government grants instead of their members, and are they then able to meet their original mission statement or do they have to be gradually silenced? Has Jesus' command in Matthew changed from "Therefore go, . . . because I said so" to "Therefore NO, . . . because the government says so."

Does the government need to still be offering zero percent down home mortgages? You can get one through the USDA. Did we learn nothing from the last three years? The USDA is right up there with HHS as the biggest spender of pork in government--it's in everything from day care to home mortgages. So citizens, let's call this pulled pork and see what we find, then pass it along to your Congressional representative.
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Update: Here's one from the Department of Energy someone could look at. The DOE's Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) was created in 1976 to assist low-income families who lacked resources to invest in energy efficiency. You would think that after 35 years, most low income homes would be insulated or have window replacements, but apparently not because $5 billion of ARRA money was dumped in their lap after an annual allocation of around $225 million. Imagine the frantic hiring and and equipment buying and ordering supplies hastily that must have put in motion! Although I didn’t find the cost, one of the grants was for a webinar for a nonprofit (NASCSP) to teach its members how to use social media and blogging to sign people up to use this money. And to think I started 12 blogs with no government or any start up costs.

Update 2: Rusty suggests: Well, that'll be easy as the Dept of Energy was the first I was going to eliminate all together. It has done nothing over the last 30? years. Next I would eliminate all agricultural subsidies. How much sense does it make to pay for a farmer NOT to plant something. Or pay them to plant corn for ethanol. Without a subsidy, fuel WITH ethanol would cost more than gas without. Then federal lands, that are leased to cattle operations in the West, need to be rented at rates that reflect prices for comparable non-federal lands. And after that, the Department of Education.

Update 3: Bill says: In the UK they froze senior benefits and the military budget and then went to the other government organizations with a % they must cut. The per cents are not small, like 20 and 25%. If the department head balks or says it can't be done, the department head gets eliminated. Then Carol adds, she thinks Social Security and the military are untouchables.

Update 4:Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe: "Other 10-year Cato spending cut estimates: Scrapping the departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development saves $550 billion; ending farm subsidies would produce nearly $290 billion. Cutting NASA spending by 50% would save $90 billion. Repealing Davis-Bacon labor rules produces $60 billion. Ending urban mass transit grants would save $52 billion. Privatizing air traffic control, as other nations have done, saves $38 billion. Privatize Amtrak and end rail subsidies and save $31 billion. Reform federal worker retirement, $18 billion. Retire Americorps, $10 billion. Shutter the Small Business Administration, $14 billion."Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe: What Congress Should Cut - WSJ.com

217 Democrats committing suicide

When I got back from church tonight, I checked my site meter, and my blog about the Morgenthau quote had suddenly gone off the charts, so I back tracked through referrals and found I'd been cited by Roger L. Simon.

. . . the substance is true. The New Deal made the Depression worse – and we are doing it again, only with bigger numbers and more zeros. Furthermore, now the Chinese own us. We enact this nonsensical budget and we might as well give them the whole thing – the Statue of Liberty, McDonald’s and Apple Computer. No backsies. They can have Steve Jobs’ next iPad extravaganza in Shanghai. They build everything over there already anyway.

But unfortunately this is no joke. The passing of this budget is a straight out act of economic insanity. Everyone knows it. The 217 Democrats who passed it surely know it too. Only they are too corrupt to face it honestly. Shame on them. Shame on them. Shame on them.