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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Fixin' to get ready

For those still able to keep track without succumbing to the vapors:

President Obama projects that the gross federal debt will top $15 trillion this year, officially equalling the size of the entire U.S. economy, and will jump to nearly $21 trillion in five years' time.

Amid the other staggering numbers in the budget Mr. Obama sent to Congress on Monday, the debt stands out — both because Congress will need to vote to raise the debt limit later this year, and because the numbers are so large.

Mr. Obama

Comments

tim zank
Mon, 02/14/2011 - 7:55pm

One would think even his most staunch supporters would have to gasp for breath at this.

Oh, I see they are:

"To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you're fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama's cowardice, or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this president has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America's fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change. Just the same old Washington politics he once promised to end.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/02/obama-to-the-obama-generation-youre-on-your-own.html

Wake up folks, you don't have a calculator at home that can even display numbers like this.

William Larsen
Tue, 02/15/2011 - 1:50am

The national debt commission has published its findings. It fails miserably to address the issues by lumping all budgets together. There are three major budgets, each has their own dedicated tax revenues. Two of these budgets have federal statutes that limit their spending to their dedicated tax revenues and the balance of their respective trust funds. The only budget that does not have any limits on it is the general budget. It is this budget that has a $14.1 Trillion debt and is running >$1.6 Trillion a year deficits.

To put it bluntly, both Medicare and Social Security cannot run deficits, cannot borrow money to pay promised benefits and by law must maintain their trust funds at a minimum of 20% of any given years projected expenses. This means that neither Social Security nor Medicare can run a deficit. NEITHER ADDS TO THE NATIONAL DEBT. Neither can borrow money to pay benefits when dedicated tax revenues are insufficient to pay promised benefits. Under current law both Social Security and Medicare MUST BY FEDERAL STATUTE cut benefits across the board when their respected dedicated tax revenues are insufficient to cover promised benefits. These two budget programs have a legislated balanced budget

Harl Delos
Tue, 02/15/2011 - 7:46am

Tim, the national debt is 14 digits. I no longer own a calculator, but when I bought my first one, back in 1973, it could handle 100 digit numbers. I don't know what you're smoking, but I suggest you make sure your tail light doesn't burn out, so the cops don't pull you over.

We used to be told that we could afford a mortgage equal to four years' income. and that we should buy as much house as possible, because the value was only going to go up. Many people owe more than twice their income. Maybe that's why they aren't scared at the idea that Uncle Sam might soon owe ONE year's income.

My grandfather died when my mother was 11. A good Republican, he never allowed any newspaper in his Fort Wayne home except the Chicago Tribune, and he taught my grandmother well. Did she hunker down and try to make her savings last as long as possible? No, she went back to college to get a teaching certificate, so she could support her family.

And yet today's pseudo-conservatives think that one should respond to hard times by cowering in the corner, trying to hide from the landlord. Honest and brave people face their obligations. No, they don't rush out to buy a new Corvette to drive back and forth to work, but if they have a flat tire on the car they already have, they buy a new tire - on credit, if necessary - so they can get back and forth to work.

If you could pay off the national debt by lowering taxes, let's cut the tax rate to zero and make the government wealthy. But that doesn't work. Our economy is most robust when our top marginal tax rate is about 57%. We need to raise taxes so that people with money need to put it to work, creating jobs.

William Larsen
Tue, 02/15/2011 - 2:19pm
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