Deficit is biggest as share of economy since 1945

Deficit is biggest as share of economy since 1945

www.miamiherald.com

BY JEANNINE AVERSA AND CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
AP ECONOMICS WRITERS
WASHINGTON -- Not since World War II has the federal budget deficit made up such a big chunk of the U.S. economy. And within two or three years, economists fear the result could be sharply higher interest rates that would slow economic growth.
The budget plan President Barack Obama sent Congress on Monday foresees a record deficit of $1.65 trillion this year. That would be just under 11 percent of the $14 trillion economy - th

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More proof our government is simply an out of control fraud, as tax and spend, has been permanently replaced with tax, spend, borrow and spend some more.

While this sorry state of affairs tends to illustrate that our money really has no value, at least when one considers the way the government abuses and uses it, it also makes one wonder at the rate of borrowing, just how high the Government plans in running up the National Debt and if there is a way to ever pay it back.

They don’t seem to be attempting to pay it back, but simply pay the interest on it, as they keep voting to increase the debt through deficit spending for everything and anything they want to spend money on.

Important things that help America like funding foreign wars, destabilizing regimes, bankrolling favored states and spreading enough money around to local special interest groups so they are as happy with it all as the corporations and banks that benefit from the largesse, corruption and insanity of it all, to continue the process unabated.

You and I have to live within our budgets, and are considered ‘bad’ and ‘deadbeats’ and foolish selfish people attempting to live beyond our means if we can’t, and have to borrow and can’t pay that back. You and I are expected to solve any problems we have between us peacefully without resorting to violence or using mechanisms outside the law.

Not our government, it seems to espouse and do everything that the people should never.

It really makes you wonder just how these clowns got authority over us in the first place and why we allow them to have it in the second.


www.miamiherald.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Whoa, whoa, whoa. We live in the greatest country on the planet. Lets place the real blame where it belongs, which is with social services. they are bankrupting our country just like they have many european countries. I admit it's great that we can pay people who need help, but it goes too far, people LIVE off of these things which was never what it was meant for. we need to scale back our government and eliminate the beuarocracy that allows this to happen. We need to return to a limited government structure that provides basic oversight and millitary protection. This is the way this country has lasted and the way it will endure.

We live now in a perpetual state of boom and bust, and the banks are STILL being propped up, whilst doling out record bonuses and making record profits for basically failing to do what banks are supposed to.

Face it, the US and UK are being run for the benefit of bankers, corporations and money grubbing politicoes.

Any show of concern for the well-being of the populace is nothing more than an illusion, and has been for many years.

Trillions in derivatives will soon become the next phase of the bursting bubble, as instead of manufacturing, the US economy has been built on a house of cards consisting of paper wealth that has no bearing on reality except to further enrich those who got us into this mess in the first place.

@ pyrodude
The bancrupting of European countries is a great big fat lie - if we owed as much as the self professed "greatest country in the world" we would be a lot worse off in the UK than we already are.
In the meantime, Germanys economy has grown by nearly 4% in the last year, unemployment is at 6% and they have one of the more generous social welfare systems.

It might be an idea to get your facts right before spewing nonsense.

Well said Proto! It is a train wreck. This is the major story, not anything the MSM tends float around as news. This is an imminent catastrophe! We have the Fed waiving its magic wand with QE this and QE that, running the presses 24/7, meddling with interest rates, bailing out financial institutions and corporate entities, and essentially giving the stooges in government a blank check to do what it wishes while digging the ditch deeper. It is insanity, plain and simple! If we conducted ourselves and businesses like that we would be in jail.

The President's budget proposal is a joke, and is only a mere drop in the bucket at alleviating the debt disaster on the horizon.

Obama Unveils $3.73 Trillion Budget for 2012

President Barack Obama is sending Congress a $3.73 trillion spending blueprint that pledges $1.1 trillion in deficit savings over the next decade through spending cuts and tax increases.

Obama's new budget projects that the deficit for the current year will surge to an all-time high of $1.65 trillion. That reflects a sizable tax-cut agreement reached with Republicans in December. For 2012, the administration sees the imbalance declining to $1.1 trillion, giving the country a record four straight years of $1 trillion-plus deficits.

We are looking at insolvency if the spending and waste continues unabated. Those politicians are sent to Washington to make intelligent decisions and tough calls, but instead they are more concerned with political careers and the next campaign. Cuts are going to have to be made, and as far as I am concerned nothing is safe. From defense to the lowly government bureaucracy. Are people going to froth at the mouth when some of their benefits are cut and their quality of life is challenged? That is a given, but it boils down to the solvency of the country and survival. The numbers they are throwing around is phenomenal, and I can't remember a time ever when trillions of dollars were thrown around so nonchalantly by politicians and the media. The current situation is insane!

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


I look at the situation like this:
We, no wait...THEY are spending ourselves into defeat, or submission.
Why else would any government spend sooooo much money?
They are being told to do so now, before the imminent collapse.
I love the fact that no one seems to agree with me that this is all planned out.
No one wants to think that elites want to destroy what we, the people, created.
No...America is too big to fail.

In my opinion, this entire spending spree is a giant uphill rollercoaster.
We are clicking up to the top as we speak(and as our gov't spends).
Pretty soon, the chain will let go and we will free fall back down.
Only then, the plan to start a new world gov't and money, can be complete.

Just my opinion.
Oh yeah, and how you pointed out the subject on citizens credit vs. Gov't credit...
Priceless.
We can only borrow so much.
They dont seem to have a limit.
We should have ousted these guys a century ago...




All your threads are thought provoking and concise.
Thanks!

reply to post by havok


The last act of any Government is too loot it's treasury.

You though really have to worry even more about a Government who after looting the treasury leaves an I.O.U. in it, in the name of the people for trillions more to private banks around the world.

Thanks for posting.

reply to post by Jakes51


Great post Jakes51 and you really have to wonder about the overall integrity of government and just what they must think about the people's overall intelligence with some of the word games involved.

"Defecit Savings" ?????

Honey normally at the end of the month after I have blown my money on wine, women and song, I am a 1,000.00 in the hole and need to borrow that much.

Great news this month I am only 750.00 in the hole!

That's deficit savings, and they actually promote that like it's some stellar accomplishment and virtue.

I think one of the things that concerns me the most is just that level of disdain and arrogance that government and media shows towards the general populace in coining these words and how they present these things.

One can only surmise that they have such a low opinion of our overall combined intelligence and resolve to understand these things that they feel we can be so abused in such a fashion.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

Secret U.S. Military Spending Surpasses Entire Military Budget of Russia

The Obama administration plans to spend more money than ever on secret military projects, commonly referred to as the Defense Department’s “black budget.” Just over $50 billion will be allocated, which representing a 3% increase over last year’s total and the highest amount any administration has budgeted for classified programs. To give it some perspective, the U.S. black budget will consume more money than all defense spending in Russia, the U.K., France or Japan. All in all, about 7.5% of the Pentagon’s total spending is now classified.

Link

Billions of taxpayer dollars are vanishing into a fiscal black hole.

The black budget operates without constitutional authority or broad congressional oversight and is a hive of absurdly speculative and astonishingly expensive hallucinations, including the notion of "winning" a full-tilt, six-month nuclear war synchronized by a satellite network that charts the progress of the apocalypse. It is also the nerve center that allows us to sleep relatively peacefully in an unstable world increasingly plagued by the threats of nuclear and chemical terrorism. The black budget is, indeed, the good, the bad and the ugly of postmodern militarism. And many are now questioning the ethical, financial and constitutional premises that allow such a phenomenon.

www.metroactive.com...

I can go on and on quoting external sources about this phenomenon but I think you get the point. The amazing thing is that if we ask for them to be accountable about it we will be told nothing. If we pry into the matter we will be arrested. If we take action we will be killed.

reply to post by jackflap


So in other words the man who promised to restore 'transperancy' to government is actually spending more money than ever to keep secrets from the people?

Who would have thought that.

It's a clear sign that our system is broken and can't be honestly fixed or even addressed by partisan candidates in the present system.

With only 600+ representatives elected to Federal Government to speak for 400 million plus people, who instead spend most of their time entertaining corporate and foreign interests and not those of the people, I really think it's time for Americans to declare the system broken and to stop pretending their is a fix in "hope and change" no matter who says it on the left or right, how smart they dress, and how 'kewl' they appear to be.

How does it keep us secure by having a huge secret military apparatus that no one amongst the people knows what they are planning or doing?

Answer: It doesn't.

Great post my friend.

reply to post by budski


So Enlighten my budski, what are your facts that overspending and social services didnt bankrupt Greece and such? and while your at it explain to me how the UK is going to save it's hospital and medical services??

Last year was already bigger than that. The real deficit for 2010 fiscal year was 1.64 trillion.

The fiscal year deficit for 2011 will be 2+ trillion.

reply to post by pyrodude


I'm not here to educate you - do your own research, as I and many others have. Suffice to say that the money for healthcare has been ringfenced and that cuts are going to be made in other area's, the same with education.

Your rant about social healthcare is not only erroneous, it smacks of the selfish attitude of "I'm alright Jack" that got the western world into this mess in the first place.

Greatest country in the world my backside Only if it means spending what you don't have in a house of cards designed to further enrich those who control you, your country and its pursestrings.

Reagan proved deficits don't matter

-Dick Cheney


Social spending is not the biggest issue. The eroding tax base due to corporate loopholes, and the out of control defense budget are the biggest problems.

If conservatives are so worried about the deficit, why did they explode it with income tax cuts for millionaires/billionaires, while also dropping the estate tax on the wealthiest, those with estates worth in excess of several million dollars ?

reply to post by budski


I agree that there is no reason for governments not to be able to afford healthcare and quality social services for the citizens.

Part of the problem is governments like ours in the United States sells, rents or leases valuable land and natural resources to corporations for a piddance of their value and though the coporations benefit most off of commerce and the infrastructure that sustains it, they pay the least amount of tax percentage wise to the government even though they are making the lion share of it.

One of the things I marvel at is some of the well goverened Indian Reservations in the United States where many manage to take a relatively small geographical area and through it's resources and businesses actually achieve a profit and share that with their people equally.

At the end of the year the Tribal enterprise runs out it's profits and then divides it up between every man woman and child who is a citizen/member of the tribe, after paying for all police, hospital, road and other infrastructure from it too.

Not only are the tribal members not paying tax, but they get a dividend check of cash which locally here in South Florida works out just shy of a 100K a year for a family of 4.

That 100K is just for being born and being a member of the tribe, if you want to go out and work at a tribal enterprise or outside of it, then you get a paycheck on top of it.

When you start to use well managed governments that actually are of the people and for the people and what they accomplish fiscally and how they reward their citizens through that, versus poorly managed and corrupt governments that tax and spend and borrow because they sold, rented or leased the governments valuable property and natural resources for a pittance to corporations that help them get in office and scratch their backs in a whole number of other ways, you begin to see the truly ciminal enterprise that most of our governments are, that tax and punish people for their labor and loyalty, instead of reward and pay people for it.

I don't understand why nobody is mentioning both the military budget, and the overseas wars costing trillions for fighting a non existent threat, and enriching select companies with ties to those who started the wars.

Is there REALLY a need for a military budget close to 1 trillion dollars?

The answer is a resounding NO - but as ever, the war machine of the military industrial complex needs to be fed while the puppet paymasters sitting in the whitehouse con everyone that it's in their best interests...

The easiest way to pay it back is to not have to pay it back. Simply we toss the spenders out and then we form a new government and review all moneys spent and honestly figure out which moneys did not benefit the citizens and declare it odious debt.

www.odiousdebts.org...

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Hush mate - that sounds suspiciously like socialism and you know how some people feel about that!

You know, a system where everyone contributes as they are able, and collectively reap the rewards instead of the system where everyone works as hard as they can just to make 1% of the population even richer.

Joking aside (or semi-joking) I have wondered for years why more citizens don't look at and accept this economic model - it's not communism, it's just common sense.

Originally posted by Schaden

Reagan proved deficits don't matter

-Dick Cheney


Social spending is not the biggest issue. The eroding tax base due to corporate loopholes, and the out of control defense budget are the biggest problems.

If conservatives are so worried about the deficit, why did they explode it with income tax cuts for millionaires/billionaires, while also dropping the estate tax on the wealthiest, those with estates worth in excess of several million dollars ?

Sadly it's because of the "You scratch my back, I will scratch yours" system of politics both Democrats and Republicans engage in, where the people themselves always lose in part because the people tend to believe it's just one party doing it.

A democratically controlled Congress delivered everything Bush Jr wanted after standing up and decrying it for the benefit of their 'scratch my back constituents' then sat down and voted for it.

Both parties are corrupt and really just put on a show so people who want to can blame it all on one, so they go ahead and vote more corrupt politicians in, in a process that repeats itself again and again and again.

Originally posted by budski
I don't understand why nobody is mentioning both the military budget, and the overseas wars costing trillions for fighting a non existent threat, and enriching select companies with ties to those who started the wars.

Is there REALLY a need for a military budget close to 1 trillion dollars?

The answer is a resounding NO - but as ever, the war machine of the military industrial complex needs to be fed while the puppet paymasters sitting in the whitehouse con everyone that it's in their best interests...

I mention it so often some members of ATS no doubt have Proto Voodoo dolls they stick pins in.

It used to be until the economy tanked 1 out of every 7 Americans was employed or made money off of the Car Business, in either manufacturing, shipping, advertising, sales, service, parts, banking etc.

Our only real industry left in America is defense/aerospace and now I would estimate 1 out of 10 Americans is somehow enjoying some form of living or profit off of it, in computers, tech, software, manufacturing, sales, consulting, security contractors etc.

So there is sadly a very large contingent of citizens who dirive their living from it, and many politically active groups to shout down those who are opposed to these wars and the military spending, and because they do and will pay Internet Bloggers, as well as have control of the Media and Government, ending this wasteful and destructive system is hard.

The 1 out of 10 Americans employed by it, know their paychecks and way of life is dependent on it, while some might privately believe it's morally and fiscally wrong, they are publicly unwilling to say that not out of fear men in black will come to visit them but that their paycheck will stop if the funding for the companies they work for stops, and since all that money does come from the military budget, and that military budget is sold as being necessary because of the war on terror, they do promote the government, the wars, and assail anyone who doesn't with a passion and a vengence to keep their paychecks secure.

We are as a people so badly divided and conquered it's not funny, and many are desperately living from paycheck to paycheck and entirely dependent upon the system and the status quo to survive.

Overcoming that is not a thing that the media, government, or corporations are going to help in, they are in fact going to do the opposite.

It's an uphill battle but one responsible and moral individuals should be waging nonetheless.

Excellent points my friend.