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.

There is a tomorrow, and someone has to pay for it

"In 2021, Social Security spent $57 billion more than it collected in dedicated tax revenue and interest on its trust funds. The trustees expect this gap will widen over the next decade, quickly depleting the program’s trust funds until its runs out of money in 2035. At that point, the program’s income will cover only 80 percent of benefits promised to recipients."

 
This is an informative article. If you're looking at retirement with SS benefits to supplement your pension in 10-15 years, you definitely should be paying attention. I have a state teacher's pension so I don't get SS (that would be double-dipping). Did you know that? Nor am I be eligible for spousal benefit if my husband died first. G.W. Bush had planned to work on fixing this but with 9-11 and the war he got sidetracked and I don't think any president since then has even mentioned it. Now with raging inflation, you may need to adjust your spending and saving.

The Social Security Trust Funds | PolicyEd

USAFacts—a new way to gather government statistics

This non-profit has been launched by Steve Ballmer and wife Connie.  Although most non-profits established by wealthy capitalists claim to be non-partisan and unbiased, we’ll have to see about that.  When Ballmer gives interviews we’ll see the clues. But since I frequently use government statistics myself in making my points about medical costs, education, immigration, sex/gender, religion, animals, housing, etc., I welcome any source which can make sense of it all, particularly the blending of federal, state and local.  Federal dollars, for instance, are only 3% of total spending on education.

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/full-interview-steve-ballmer-discusses-usafacts-new-10-k-government/

“USAFacts is a new data-driven portrait of the American population, our government’s finances, and government’s impact on society. We are a non-partisan, not-for-profit civic initiative and have no political agenda or commercial motive. We provide this information as a free public service and are committed to maintaining and expanding it in the future.

We rely exclusively on publicly available government data sources. We don’t make judgments or prescribe specific policies. Whether government money is spent wisely or not, whether our quality of life is improving or getting worse – that’s for you to decide. We hope to spur serious, reasoned, and informed debate on the purpose and functions of government. Such debate is vital to our democracy. We hope that USAFacts will make a modest contribution toward building consensus and finding solutions.”

https://usafacts.org/

  

The plan is to divide all government statistics by the four items in the Preamble’s mission statement.

“Revenue And Spending

Government revenue and expenditures are based on data from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Each is published annually, although due to collection times, state and local government data are not as current as federal data. Thus, when combining federal, state, and local revenues and expenditures, the most recent year shown is 2014, the most recent year for which all three sets of data are available. We show government spending through two different lenses:

Spending by segment: We recategorized several programs and functions to align them with four constitutional missions based on the preamble to the constitution:

• Establish Justice and Ensure Domestic Tranquility
• Provide for the Common Defense
• Promote the General Welfare
• Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity

This approach is modeled after what businesses do for their own management accountability and shareholder reporting. Public companies present their businesses in segments – a logical framework for discussing the areas in which the they operate. We do the same for government. In using this constitutional framework, we have made judgements in how we group programs. . .

Spending by function: We also show spending by functional categories such as compensation for current and past employees, capital expenditures, transfer payments to individuals, interest on the debt, and payments for goods and services. “

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

Lower deficit and State of the Union

Obama took credit in the SOTU for the lower deficit, but it was the spending cuts demanded by the House Republicans and the 16 day shutdown that did that.  He also can't take any credit for increased fuel production which is making us an exporter and safer from dependency on the middle east, Africa and South American sources.  It was fracking that turned that around, lowered gas prices, and put money in the wallets of Americans. He has dragged his feet everywhere he could to satisfy his base on energy. And it's not air quality or climate change--they don't want the U.S. to be strong.

You got those tax hikes, now what?

Democrats got their massive tax hikes, and are indiscriminately cutting rather than carving with the sequestration they wanted. Creating new job losses so they can blame Republicans (ran out of the Bush excuses after 4.5 years) No reduction in the deficit, however.

The problem is Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And no one has a solution; putting younger workers on a self-directed plan while raising the retirement age will be stomped to death by Democrats (not because it is bad, but because it will work), and Republicans will scream at reduction in benefits for current recipients.  No one said Republicans were conservative about spending on themselves.

90% of Obama’s problems are Bush’s—he says

On 60 minutes Obama surprised even his supporters by only accepting 10% of the blame for the economy. Washington Post Fact Checker goes through this morass rather carefully and gives him four Pinocchios (the maximum), the little dummy with the long nose that grew with lies. The very long article concludes with some sadness that it is time for him to start accepting some responsibility for the mess—and the consequences of the healthcare law will be killers.

Clearly, a huge part of the deficit problem — about half — stems from the recession and forecasting errors. But Obama’s policies represent a big chunk as well. (We would welcome suggestions for fine-tuning these numbers.)

Now one could argue, as Obama’s defenders do, that his policies to combat the recession were intended to be temporary. But he has also supported permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for Americans making less than $250,000, which by itself will shrink federal revenues for years to come. That means these are no longer Bush’s tax cuts, but Obama’s.

Moreover, an important part of Obama’s legacy — the health-care law — has not even taken full effect yet. The CBO calculated virtually no impact on the deficit in the first 10 years after enactment, but all bets are off after that.

Finally, Obama claims that “we have actually seen the federal government grow at a slower pace than at any time since Dwight Eisenhower.” We regret to say that the president is repeating a widely debunked column that appeared on MarketWatch earlier this year. We devoted three columns to the column’s faulty logic, and FactCheck.org and the Associated Press also said it was bunk. (PolitiFact said it was “half true.”)

Not to get too deep in the weeds again, but the claim is based on treating 2009 (as we said, an amalgam of Bush and Obama policies) as actually Bush’s year, and then ignoring Obama’s proposed spending increases in the future. Such calculations help to dramatically shrink the growth of spending under Obama relative to other presidents.

What exactly worked?

Increased deficit?
Loss of religious freedom?
Increased health care costs?
Expanded war zones?
More people on food stamps?
Loss of prestige globally?
More radical Muslim governments in power?
Highest unemployment since WWII?
Businesses sitting on their capital rather than investing it?

And somehow only 10% of the people who supported him in 2008 are defecting?

Obama will succeedd--in destroying the country!

Obama has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Didn’t he warn the Republicans if they didn’t play ball, or call his bluff, or eat their peas, or kick the can they’d be blamed for the downgrad? Laughs are on them. The game was fixed either way. They might as well have played hard ball.

The spending the first day of his new slush fund was higher than the cuts agreed to for the duration. No other President has been able to do what he has done and it took him less than 3 years! As a bonus play, he made the Republicans look like absolute dupes and fools and the Tea Party members brilliant political strategists.

Democrats over 60 hoping to retire with that 403-b or 401-k: I hope you like the change your guy has brought to your living standard. Democrats under 60: unless you work for the government or Hollywood, better stick with the job you have even if there is no hope and lots of change.

A letter from 43 Senators about

Harry Reid's plan: "The plan you have proposed would not alter the spending trajectory that is putting our economy and national security at risk. In return for an unprecedented $2.4 trillion debt limit increase, your amendment reduces spending by less than $1 trillion over the next decade. Setting aside the $200 billion shortfall between the CBO scored savings and the $2.4 trillion debt limit increase, identified by the Congressional Budget Office, most of the proposal’s alleged savings are based on a false claim of credit for reductions in war-related spending that were already scheduled to occur. This amendment proposes no change to our military posture and, for that reason, these savings are the sort of widely ridiculed accounting gimmick that breeds cynicism about our ability to tackle our fiscal challenges. The only possible justification for a $2.4 trillion increase in borrowing authority is to allow the President to avoid any accountability for these issues before his 2012 election. " Signed by 43 Senators

GOP is looking for an Obama win in 2012

If the GOP caves on this cut cap and balance, they are handing Obama a win in 2012. Obama will blame them either way. I've tried to follow this in the news and it's too frustrating and confusing. We do know it's only a cut in the increase, not a true cut. We do know that Obama is just too clever and has too many brain dead followers for the likes of Boehner to go up against.

When has your credit rating ever been improved by doing what the Democrats want?

The GOP regulars and RINOs are unhappy with Conservatives and Tea Party folk. Was it John McCain who said something about their experience? Well, who got us into this mess? Republicans who believed the lies of the Democrats! And compromised.

Where would spending be without Iraq?

Obviously, we'd still have a huge problem.

Chart from American Thinker using CBO figures.

Blogging may be light

I've apparently picked up another computer infection--not sure why my MacAfee and firewall stuff aren't working. Gary says you can get them between updates of the virus protection. It's really irritating. Wicked people in the world. So I'm in the kitchen at the laptop which prefers to try to connect to my neighbor next door instead of my office in the next room! Anyway. . . thoughts along the way. . .

Although it was totally narcissistic, Obama's comment that the 2012 vote will be about him and his policies not the other candidate is something I agree with. He currently loses against any unnamed person of any party. Still, "this is all about me all the time" attitude irks me. I saw something at Tammy Bruce about a campaign ad, but didn't see a link.

His whining over the debt ceiling is so irritating. Not even Richard Nixon, old Tricky Dick, was this annoying.

And we think Obama had too little experience to be a president? Look at poor Syria. "Until he became president, Bashar al-Assad was not greatly involved in politics; his only public role was head of the Syrian Computer Society, which introduced the Internet to Syria in 2001." [Wikipedia] I think Assad is an ophthalmologist by training, and his wife was born in the UK.

The House approved the Republican "Cut, Cap, and Balance" deficit plan to end the federal government's cycle of borrow and spend, borrow and spend. This wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the Tea Parties. Let's see if they can stop the stampeding elephants and RINOs from crushing the plan. Republicans helped create this debt.

Tom Zawistowski of the Portage County (Ohio) Tea Party reminds Boehner, "Most in Washington are representing the people who will get the money when they raise the debt ceiling but few are representing the people who will be on the hook to pay another $2 trillion in debt plus interest. We expect the conservatives we helped elect to represent us, the taxpayer." Boehner's another Nancy Pelosi type, an old timey wheeler and dealer, except he weeps and she didn't. Not sure these new guys have the patience for that.

Our oppresive heat continues. I walked early this morning and was still looking for shade at 7:20. My daughter, who is at the lake house, says the heat index there is 120. We thought that sounded a bit high, but I suspect it's for Toledo, 50 miles to the west, which is always hotter than Lakeside since it isn't on the Lake. But at least they did have some rain up there. We almost lost our impatiens during Methodist conference, but they've come back nicely with daily watering.

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.
------------------
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

Jam it through before the Republicans see it--Obama signs $1.4 billion food safety bill

"The Food Safety Modernization Act, is estimated to require $1.4 billion in new funds over five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That cost was causing some Republicans, emboldened by GOP gains in November and increased public concern over deficit spending, to question whether the investment is worth the cost." The Packer

Usually I don't use a wiki to look for stats, but this one of foodborne illnesses will have to do because I seem to only be getting 1999 stats. For a country that won't raise the legal driving age which could save thousands of lives a year both of teen agers and their passengers, parents and siblings riding in the car, it seems like a lot of money for hospitalizations from food poisoning and almost no deaths. The CDC claims our food supply is 99.999% safe. Many people die from hospitalizations alone so I think it's a toss up, based on my food poisoning experience of several years ago (food purchased in Europe, but hospitalized in Columbus). This law doesn't cover meat, eggs or poultry and will just add reams of regulation and headaches for producers and raise the cost of our food. Will they add that to the $1.4 Billion? Probably not. And support from the industry? Well, why not? Like most government regulation, it knocks out the competition.

“While it’s a great re-election tool to terrify people into thinking that the food they’re eating is unsafe and unsanitary, and if not for the wonderful nanny-state politicians we’d be getting sick after every meal, the system we have is doing a darn good job,” Rep. Jack Kingston.

Obama signs bill boosting food inspections, oversight and allowing mandatory recalls - latimes.com

PPACA aka Obamacare

or as I like to call it, Pee-pee and Ca-Ca (Spanish and French for poop). Liberals like to claim it will reduce the deficit by $143 billion the first decade, and $1.2 Trillion the second. Tell me the truth. Have you ever seen a government program, under any president or congress, actually shrink anything? Until Obama, a Democrat, the biggest spender on social programs was George W. Bush, a Republican. Obama has taken us to new heights of government control and new depths of hostility toward the market system which grew this country.

No one really believes these deficit reduction figures, not even the Democrats, Socialists and Obamacons who preach them. We know there won't be more consumer choice and that there will be millions still uninsured (the purpose of all this, we were told when Obama was in campaign mode). We know private practices will close due to increased taxes; that there will be death panels, regardless of whether you call them that. And why not, when we've elected a man who believes in late term abortion--why not early on eternal rest? The only way to cut costs is to cut services. Growing government has never saved a dime. Bailing out unions or insurance companies or automobile companies is not the government's job, and it's a given that eventually the "public option" will be the only option for Pee-Pee and Ca-Ca.

May Break

There's lots to blog about--immigration, oil spills, deficits, our future, cap and trade scam, political philosophies, economics, history, etc., but my to-do list is getting long. So I'll shut down for awhile. See you later!

What happened to the Democrat bean counters?

You remember--the ones who screamed about what that Iraq war money could be doing for the poor if we weren't protecting them from terrorists?

"The director of the Congressional Budget Office today [May 11] updated his projections for the budget and economic outlook and is now anticipating a $1.8 trillion deficit this year, and $1.4 trillion in 2010.

This is up from CBO director Douglas W. Elmendorf's January 2009 projection of a $1.2 trillion deficit this year. In short, the US government is borrowing 50 cents for every dollar it spends.

The new projected deficit is four times the 2008 deficit, which was a record high for its time.Deficit Now Projected at $1.8 Trillion for 2009.

It seems so long ago, but I can remember when I thought Henry Paulson was the most misguided man in the government. Peanuts. 700 billion? What a piker.

He will take the credit and shift the blame

The recovery funds really aren't out the door yet, not even the extended unemployment benefits or the $250 boost; certainly not that tax cut for 95% of the people. That first sidewalk hasn't been poured, and no spreading around of trickle sideways dollars has begun so people can buy cars or go out to eat to help the salesmen and busboys. And yet the media have been mildly optimistic recently--have you noticed? Unemployment, which shot up as soon as it was known in the summer that Obama would be the Democratic candidate and most likely the President, has started to level off. The stock market is making a weak recovery--at least that's what our retirement accounts show. This is pure and simple because of the efforts of the American people and their backing off from fear--fear of a collapse, fear of Obama, fear of the steamroller roaring down at us.

But Obamaides will claim victory if it continues even though no ARRA programs have begun to work, and they will blame Bush if they fail. Heads he wins; tails he wins. But he really wins if we let him destroy our economy in the process of "saving" us. All industrialized nations are struggling more than the U.S., have slower growth, higher taxes, more stagnant work force--and why not? Their workers get more generous time off before they really need to look for work. And it's self-fulfilling. Take a vacation; fix the car; read some good books; build a web page, hike in the mountains. Then maybe after 18 months of 90% salary replacement you can dust off the resume. What's the hurry? It's just the economy--it will be there when you get back.

There's only one way to jump start and fuel the economy--reduce taxes and reduce government spending. It works every time. It's just hard to get re-elected if you don't bring home the pork if a Republican, and hard to get reelected if you don't punish the rich if you are a Democrat. It even partially works if you just reduce taxes the way George Bush did--but he threw money at every domestic program he could think of, particularly education--President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation--instead of dialing back. Democrats who supported him on the war screamed bloody murder about the tax cuts--said it was criminal--but he brought in more money than they ever did--and he spent it too. President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal anti-poverty programs, but President Me-Too Obama has already in­creased this spending by 20 percent. He won't be bringing in more tax money the way Bush did and will have to raise taxes. Social spending was out of control during the Bush years. That's another big lie the Democrats love to tell--that Republicans are stingy on DoE, USDA, HHS, HUD. Oh, that it were true, we'd be so much better off with a smaller federal government.

The BushBamBudgets
WaPo graphic
Bush 8 years includes 2 wars