Tag: national debt

Categories
Quick Analysis

Why America’s Economy is Failing

The federal 2017 fiscal year began this month, and the news about its 2016 predecessor is deeply worrisome.

According to the Treasury Department, Washington spent more than $587 billion than it took in in revenue, a deficit that jumped 34% from last year. The government spent $3.9 trillion dollars, but took in “only” $3.3 trillion, a record high amount.  USGovernmentRevenue  notes that “Government Revenue in the United States has steadily increased from 7 percent of GDP in 1902 to over 35 percent today… by 2026, the deficit is projected to be considerably larger relative to gross domestic product (GDP) than its average over the past 50 years.”

The US Debt Clock notes that as of the time this report was being prepared, the federal debt was $19,703,158,000,000. In 2008, the last year of the Bush Administration, the debt was $10,024,724,896,912.49, as recorded by Polidiotic,  As a sign of the weakening economy, the federal budget deficit will increase in relation to economic output for the first time since 2009.

Relief is nowhere in sight, The Congressional Budget Office reports that “If current laws generally remained unchanged—an assumption underlying CBO’s baseline projections—deficits would continue to mount over the next 10 years, and debt held by the public would rise from its already high level.”

The Obama Administration has almost doubled the national debt. What’s worse, it has nothing to show for all that spending. It cannot blame the 2007—2009 recession (which was the result of federal policies that forced lending institutions to give credit to individuals with a poor prospects of paying it back.) “Even seven years after the recession ended, the current stretch of economic gains has yielded less growth than much shorter business cycles…In terms of average annual growth, the pace of [the post recession period]… has been by far the weakest of any since 1949” notes the Wall Street Journal.

The Obama approach to spending and federal budgeting has devastated the middle class. The Institute for Policy Innovation notes that when it comes to the middle class he “has failed miserably… Median household income is lower today than when he took office.” Senior Citizens have been poorly treated, receiving less in cost of living increases than they have at any time in decades.

Where has the money gone?

America’s infrastructure needs are certainly not being met.

The American Society of Civil Engineers “2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure” graded the nation’s infrastructure a “D+” . In 2013, for surface transportation categories:

  • Roads received a grade of D as compared to a grade of D- in 2009;
  • Bridges received a grade of C+, up from a C in 2009;
  • Transit received a D, showing no change from 2009; and
  • Rail received a grade of C+, up from a C-, the greatest increase in the 2009 Report Card.”

Receiving the right amount of blood the tadalafil tablet male organ. The exact same thing you are dealing with such viagra uk cheap severe anxieties that without being potent in bed one cannot have the happiest of conjugal life. When heavy use of laxatives is involved, then that may make the person badly constipated. super generic viagra While many families choose online for new Ds to complete their drivers ed in Texas, the important thing to remember is that some type of drivers’ education must be completed before obtaining a license. levitra on line sale
There has been no noticeable improvement since that analysis was completed.

The spending hasn’t gone into defense, either.  In constant 2015 dollars, the Pentagon has been cut from $740 billion in 2009 to $525 billion in 2016, as reported by Heritage. Even crucial needs are going unmet. As Russia, China, and North Korea ramp up their nuclear arsenals, President Obama has actually decreased his funding requests for crucially needed missile defense. The last request by President Bush was for $9.3 billion; the 2016 request by President Obama was $8.1 billion. Nor has the current White House taken any effective action to protect the nation’s electrical grid from an EMP disaster resulting either from a natural occurrence or an enemy attack. Such an incident could destroy the entire U.S. electrical grid, resulting in massive casualties from the lack of power, shut down reservoirs, and the elimination of any means to transport food or provide medical care. Other more conventional military elements, such as manpower, have also been cut.  America’s Army is now smaller than North Korea’s, our navy is the smallest it has been since World War I, and the air force’s inventory of planes is the smallest and oldest it has been in the entire history of that service.

Even comparatively tiny federal programs have been slashed. NASA’s manned space flight effort was virtually eliminated by Obama.  The Space Shuttle program was prematurely shut down. Its planned successor was also cut. NASA will not be capable of putting an astronaut in space until the next decade. At a Congressional hearing earlier this year reported by the Daily Caller.  Rep. Brian Babin,(R-Texas)  chairman of the House Subcommittee on Space stated that the White House “budget takes our human spaceflight program nowhere fast. This budget undermines our space program and diverts critical funding to lower priority items…Orion and [the Space Launch System] are strategic national assets and must be sufficiently funded. Proposed cuts to the planetary science division are equally disturbing.”

The basic, and very expensive,  thrust of President Obama’s budgetary policies has been de-emphasizing a capitalist approach that, despite occasional recessions, was responsible for developing and maintaining the planet’s most robust economy, replacing it with one that more closely resembles the social democrat approaches of other nations, including large welfare programs (the supplemental nutrition assistance program has grown 42% under his watch) and the transformation of America’s medical system into a more federally centered effort. In large part, “Obamacare” is based on federal subsidies. Not unsurprisingly, many report that the quality of care has been reduced.

Mr. Obama’s emphasis on attempting to reduce poverty through vast spending programs has backfired. Indeed, the poverty rate has actually gone up on his watch, increasing from 13.2% in 2008 to 13.5%, while destabilizing the federal budget.

Attacking the engine of economic growth–the free market–with excess regulations and continued high taxes–while initiating massive spending on social programs driven more by ideology and politics than the hope of actually producing a growing economy has caused significant harm both to the federal budget and the overall economic health of the nation.

 

Categories
Quick Analysis

What Politician’s Refuse to Discuss about the Economy

The United States economy is in a great deal of trouble, but there are political reasons no one is really talking about how big a crisis truly exists. The White House, and those linked to the White House, don’t want to lose public confidence when the accurate results of their mismanagement of the economy is revealed. Those opposed to White House policies don’t wish to sound so depressing that no one will listen to them.

The U.S. debt  is rapidly approaching the $20 trillion-dollar mark. Half of all that debt was accumulated during the Obama Administration.  Gross domestic product was at $18.437 trillion in the second quarter of this year–meaning America owes more than it currently makes.  What makes that problem far worse is that nothing of any value was truly gained for all the excess spending in the past eight years. America’s infrastructure remains in a declining state, the armed forces are deteriorating, senior citizens have had fewer cost of living increases than at any time in living memory, taxes remain excessively high, schools continue to turn out noncompetitive students, and businesses continue to move overseas, taking their jobs with them, thanks to the nations’ corporate tax rates that exceed those of our trading partners.

Under current policies, no upswing is in sight. In fact, some key observers such as Deutsche Bank believe that “The U.S. has a 60% of entering a recession in the next 12 months—the highest probability since the Great Recession.”

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted that in fiscal year 2016, the federal budget deficit will increase in relation to economic output for the first time since 2009. “If current laws generally remained unchanged—an assumption underlying CBO’s baseline projections—deficits would continue to mount over the next 10 years, and debt held by the public would rise from its already high level…by 2026, the deficit is projected to be considerably larger relative to gross domestic product (GDP) than its average over the past 50 years…CBO…estimates that the 2016 deficit will total $590 billion, or 3.2 percent of GDP, exceeding last year’s deficit by $152 billion (see table below). About $41 billion of that increase results from a shift in the timing of some payments that the government would ordinarily have made in fiscal year 2017; those payments will instead be made in fiscal year 2016 because October 1, 2016 (the first day of fiscal year 2017), falls on a weekend. If not for that shift, the projected deficit in 2016 would be $549 billion, or 3.0 percent of GDP—still considerably higher than the deficit recorded for 2015, which was 2.5 percent of GDP.”

The Congressional Budget Office also predicted that in fiscal year 2016, the federal budget deficit will increase in relation to economic output for the first time since 2009. “If current laws generally remained unchanged—an assumption underlying CBO’s baseline projections—deficits would continue to mount over the next 10 years, and debt held by the public would rise from its already high level…by 2026, the deficit is projected to be considerably larger relative to gross domestic product (GDP) than its average over the past 50 years…CBO…estimates that the 2016 deficit will total $590 billion, or 3.2 percent of GDP, exceeding last year’s deficit by $152 billion (see table below). About $41 billion of that increase results from a shift in the timing of some payments that the government would ordinarily have made in fiscal year 2017; those payments will instead be made in fiscal year 2016 because October 1, 2016 (the first day of fiscal year 2017), falls on a weekend. If not for that shift, the projected deficit in 2016 would be $549 billion, or 3.0 percent of GDP—still considerably higher than the deficit recorded for 2015, which was 2.5 percent of GDP.”
The medicine should not be viagra australia price taken without medical instruction from a health expert. Six to eight hours of schoolroom (or approved learningworksca.org cialis for sale australia home training course) is usually needed. Not once did I consider I would one day still gather generic viagra sildenafil learningworksca.org around the table. Mixing them seems to be tempting, and many get viagra do it to experience a euphoric extravaganza.
Those defending the current Administration’s economic policies will state that the dramatic increase in aid to the poor is responsible, and that this a necessary humanitarian act. (The SNAP program, often referred to as food stamps, is up by about 40%.) The problem with that argument is that the spending hasn’t reduced poverty.  In fact, as noted by the Daily Wire “During the Obama years, the number of Americans below the poverty line is up 3.5 percent.” Not only is the poverty rate high than during the Bush Administration, it is higher than all but a few years going back almost half a century.

Decent paying jobs are in short supply, the labor participation rate is worse than any time going back about 50 years, median income is declining and the middle class is floundering.

Despite the dismal status, there is a roadmap for recovery, one followed by former presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Rather than increasing poverty programs, sparking the private sector allowed both men to take the U.S. economy from the doldrums to growth. Lawrence Kudlow, writing in the Wall Street Journal, described what happened:

“Reagan, like the Democrat JFK two decades earlier, understood the importance of restoring economic growth. In 1980, Reagan adopted Rep. Jack Kemp’s “duplication” (as Kemp called it) of the Kennedy tax cut. The masterful communicator then persuaded so many Democrats and liberal Republicans that both the 1981 and 1986 tax cuts had big congressional majorities. The 1986 act passed the Senate 97-3 and took the top income-tax rate down to 28%, one of the lowest levels ever. Along came another two-decade period of growth…The JFK-Reagan policy nexus shows that we have the model to return to growth. It works. There is no reason the model cannot be used again now.”

Categories
Quick Analysis

Delusional Thinking in Domestic Affairs

America in 2016 is, in many ways, a nation that has failed to address key issues due to the delusional thinking on the part of government. Yesterday, the New York Analysis of Policy and Government reviewed international affairs. Today’s column examines domestic matters.

The core domestic issues affecting the United States include:

  •  a crippling national debt made worse each year by annual deficits,
  • The dramatic growth of the Executive branch and federal bureaucracy at the expense of Congressional authority,
  • the lack of adequate numbers of middle income jobs, and
  • a failed educational system.

HEPAVIVE is the best supplement for support because it contains 3 other secretworldchronicle.com buy generic viagra liver health ingredients. 1. Being dependent on unnecessary drugs or medications is not in any way reflective of a lack of effectiveness of brand name medications but reflective of the real problem as it should be and many will choose to http://secretworldchronicle.com/tag/ubermensch/ viagra 25 mg that is not real or not from reputable sources. Generic purchase cheap levitra Sublingual must be put under the tongue until it dissolves completely. That being said, as Sildenafil becomes more and more best generic cialis common, so the treatment of infertile cases is getting more and more tight, your health, even your sexual health, is not trivial.
A quick glance at those selections may raise eyebrows, because nowhere in them can be found the headline-grabbing topics that so frequently top the evening news.  The reality is, however, that without resolving these fundamental challenges, the financial and intellectual resources to resolve the myriad problems that do gain more frequent attention will be unavailable.

The stunning national debt of the United States, estimated at the time this article was prepared is closing in at $19,400,000,000,000. This prevents many subsidiary problems from being easily or rapidly resolved.  America’s infrastructure certainly needs repair, but state and local resources are already stretched thin (in many ways, thanks to mandates from the federal bureaucracy) and Washington is already mired in a financial hole of its own making.

The story of the national debt is a telling sign of the delusional thinking of the past eight years. There are frequently good reasons, for families or governments, to accumulate debt. Buying a house and securing a college degree are two good examples.  But the near doubling of the national debt over the past eight years was the result of spending that was the equivalent of blowing the mortgage money at the race track.

Vast sums were spent, (including an over $800 billion “stimulus” program, and hikes in assistance programs) with almost no results.  Consider: As the national debt doubled, America’s infrastructure needs remain unaddressed, the military has been cut to dangerously low levels, taxes remain high, poverty has not been reduced, and Social Security is still heading towards bankruptcy. Other examples could certainly be added.

Despite gimmicks such as the Sequester,  the problem is not getting better.  The Sequester, which reduced some federal spending, itself was an example of delusional thinking.  It didn’t adequately discriminate between spending on frills and spending on vital necessities.

Indeed, the prospects for the future are grim.  Delusional thinking has played a key role.  Spending on welfare-type programs such as the 41% increase in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, rather than emphasizing job creation, created a fiscal dead end.  The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) emplaced significant disincentives to hire full time workers, while accumulating significant new amounts of expense. Middle class jobs, already under stress from a number of factors, received yet another body blow.

Speaking of traditional middle class jobs, the challenges of controversial environmental regulations (promulgated in some cases unconstitutionally by President Obama’s executive action rather than by legislation) which devastate many well-paying jobs, trade deals (particularly that signed by President Clinton in 2000) that allowed manufacturing jobs to migrate overseas, and America’s extremely high corporate tax rate have all worked together to devastate opportunities in the workplace.

Much of the harm, through excess spending and disincentives to create businesses and hire workers, comes from a disregard for the legislative process, which would have illuminated the potential harm from bureaucratic actions.

The delusion behind all these factors is that the rules of the marketplace can be ignored, and that Washington can simply print money to cover the losses. Poverty can only be resolved by providing opportunity, not handouts. The War on Poverty, commenced in the 1960s, has stretched for half a century, consumed $22 trillion, and failed to make any dent in the poverty rate. The Heritage Foundation  notes that “Adjusted for inflation, that’s three times the cost of all military wars since the American Revolution.”

These delusional actions on the part of the federal government have not provoked the level of outrage that would be expected. And that is why the failure of America’s educational process is so important.

For far too long, when discussing government and economics, the previously standard, fact based curricula of our schools, from elementary to graduate levels, has been replaced by an ideologically-driven agenda which ignores common-sense reviews of economics and how the U.S. Constitution works. Absent this knowledge, the delusional policies that currently dominate do not raise the vitally needed objections that could motivate a return to realism.

Categories
Quick Analysis

U.S. Economy In Great Danger

The American economy is in a deeply troubled condition, according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s latest report.

The 2016 deficit is now projected to be $600 billion, over $160 billion higher than the prior years’ deficit. In March, the Congressional Budget Office had predicted a $66 billion lower deficit.

This puts the total U.S. National Debt on track to reach a nearly $20 Trillion hole.  Despite the fact that the debt has just about doubled during President Obama’s tenure, close to nothing was gained from all that spending.  America’s infrastructure remains deficient, our military has weakened considerably, the middle class continues to shrink, and decent jobs continue to vanish. For the first time, America’s seniors have endured multiple years within a presidential administration without a social security cost of living increase.

The weak and worsening Gross Domestic Product forecast combined with massive spending on non-fundamental expenses is responsible. The forecast for a weak 2.7% growth rate has been even further downgraded to a mere 2.2%. Investors.com  notes “That means Obama will have the unique distinction of presiding over an economy that never once grew at more than 2.4% in eight years…This is, to put it mildly, a disaster. Growth at these low levels will mean that middle class families will continue to fall behind, more people will drop out of the labor force, more will end up in poverty, and more will be looking to the government for help…Even the White House admits that this combination of anemic economic growth and fast-growing  federal entitlements (which Obama has turbocharged) puts the government on track to pile up $9 trillion in additional debt — a 67% increase from today’s already historic levels. By 2026, interest payments alone will cost $787 billion…The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that, if nothing is done to change course, the national debt will equal 141% of GDP. (Even during World War II, the highest national debt got was 106% of GDP.)”

An improved outlook is nowhere in sight. The National Interest reports that “Deficits are projected to reach the trillion-dollar level by 2022 and continue growing from there. In total, the federal government is projected to rack up an additional $9.4 trillion in deficit spending over the next decade.”

The Obama/Democrat-progressive concept of high spending on social programs (other than Social Security and Medicare) at the cost of funding traditional governmental obligations has failed at both the federal and state levels.  The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)  2016 “Rich States, Poor States” rankings indicate that states with more traditional spending habits (Utah, North Carolina, North Dakota, Wyoming, Arizona, Indiana, Tennessee, Florida, Wisconsin, Oklahoma) have the best overall economic outlook, while those with the most Democrat-progressive policies (Oregon, Hawaii, Illinois, Delaware, Minnesota, California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and New York) have the worst overall economic outlook.

A 2015 analysis by the financial news source ETFdaily news  cited the reasons why the U.S. economy is in serious trouble: “Did you know that the percentage of children in the United States that are living in poverty is actually significantly higher than it was back in 2008?… let us not neglect the long-term economic collapse that is already happening all around us…

  • Back in 2008, 18 percent of all Americans kids were living in poverty.  [it has] risen to 22 percent…
  • In early 2008, the homeownership rate in the U.S. was hovering around 68 percent.  Today, it has plunged below 64 percent.  Incredibly, it has not been this low in more than 20 years.
  • While Barack Obama has been in the White House, government dependence has skyrocketed to levels that we have never seen before.
  • In 2008, the federal government was spending about 37 billion dollars a year on the federal food stamp program.  Today, that number is above 74 billion dollars…
  • the U.S. national debt was sitting at about 9 trillion dollars when we entered the last recession.  Since that time, the debt of the federal government has doubled.  We are on the exact same path that Greece has gone down, and what you are looking at …is a recipe for national economic suicide…
  • During Obama’s “recovery”, real median household income has actually gone down quite a bit.  Just prior to the last recession, it was above $54,000 per year, but now it has dropped to about $52,000 per year…
  • Even though our incomes are stagnating, the cost of living just continues to rise steadily.  This is especially true of basic things that we all purchase such as food.
  • In a healthy economy, lots of new businesses are opening and not that many are being forced to shut down.  But for each of the past six years, more businesses have closed in the United States than have opened.  Prior to 2008, this had never happened before in all of U.S. history.
  • Barack Obama is constantly telling us about how unemployment is “going down”, but the truth is that the  percentage of working age Americans that are either working or considered to be looking for work has steadily declined since the end of the last recession…
  • We have seen a spike in the inactivity rate for Americans in their prime working years…. the percentage of males between the ages of 25 and 54 that aren’t working and that aren’t looking for work has surged to record highs since the end of the last recession…
  • A big reason why we don’t have enough jobs for everyone is the fact that millions upon millions of good paying jobs have been shipped overseas.  At the end of Barack Obama’s first year in office, our yearly trade deficit with China was 226 billion dollars.  Last year, it was more than 343 billion dollars.
  • Thanks to all of these factors, the middle class in America is dying.  In 2008, 53 percent of all Americans considered themselves to be “middle class”.  But by 2014, only 44 percent of all Americans still considered themselves to be “middle class”…

Check how safe is the product – It’s always great to be certain that you’re lowest price for cialis purchasing a product from a fake online service provider. Furthermore, untreated acquisition de viagra anti snoring may result in job disability and automobile crashes. It stimulates production of nitric acid which relaxes and dilates blood vessels much like http://www.learningworksca.org/webinar-series-3-quantitative-leap-how-math-policies-can-support-transitions-to-and-through/ purchase generic cialis and other drugs within the identical range. Finally with reference to drink use also depressive diseases; that is actually an most severe possible strategy during dealing cialis from india online learningworksca.org with depression.

Categories
Quick Analysis

Wrong Decisions from White House Harm Middle Class and U.S. Economy

The U.S. Economy is severely mismanaged, and the impact is being felt most sharply by the middle class.  From high taxes which drive employers to move overseas, to the diversion of funds from crucial needs to nonessential programs, Washington has steered America in the wrong direction.

The U.S. Treasury reports that the federal debt as of May 10 had reached $19,204,514,007,221.38. CNS notes that this catastrophic figure exists despite the fact that FY2016 Taxes set a record through April– $12,679 Per Worker!  Revenue isn’t the problem. Government spending on the wrong priorities is.

Not to be overlooked in the factors affecting the economy is the White House’s environmental policies, emplaced without the consent of Congress. For example, Hot Air  reports that there is “visceral disgust” for Obama’s environmental policies in the Appalachian counties… West Virginia…energy costs are expected to go up 40 percent under Obama’s Clean Power Plan (CPP), which sets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels. It’s a regulatory nightmare, a job killer, and a policy that Hillary Clinton plans to continue if she’s elected.”

The Stratfor intelligence organization reported in 2013: “The threat to the United States is the persistent decline in the middle class’ standard of living, a problem that is reshaping the social order that has been in place since World War II and that, if it continues, poses a threat to American power… In the 1950s and 1960s, the median income allowed you to live with a single earner — normally the husband, with the wife typically working as homemaker — and roughly three children. It permitted the purchase of modest tract housing, one late model car and an older one. It allowed a driving vacation somewhere and, with care, some savings as well…  Government programs frequently fail to fulfill even minimal intentions while squandering scarce resources…”

A just released report from the Pew Research Center  reveals that “The American middle class is losing ground in metropolitan areas across the country, affecting communities from Boston to Seattle and from Dallas to Milwaukee. From 2000 to 2014 the share of adults living in middle-income households fell in 203 of the 229 U.S. metropolitan areas examined in a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. The decrease in the middle-class share was often substantial, measuring 6 percentage points or more in 53 metropolitan areas, compared with a 4-point drop nationally.
Apart from these, men who are taking these generic drugs more frequently, do not know that they are reducing viagra 50mg canada their chances of obtaining natural erections. Chiropractic is usually a life-style along ordine cialis on line Prices with a philosophy of residing. Yet, because Republican John McCain won the state, their votes were not buy uk viagra even tabulated in the results. Take this medication orally with or without food, 30 minutes prior cialis lowest price to the physical intimate sessions / activities.
“The shrinking of the middle class at the national level, to the point where it may no longer be the economic majority in the U.S., was documented in an earlier analysis by the Pew Research Center. The changes at the metropolitan level, the subject of this in-depth look at the American middle class, demonstrate that the national trend is the result of widespread declines in localities all around the country.”

The reason for the recent decline of the U.S. middle class and the general weakness in the U.S. economy is not the result of a cyclical downturn in business, or the bursting of a bubble.  It is not a reflection of the 2007—2009 recession.  It is the specific result of federal tax and spending practices which ignore the needs of the private sector, and redirects federal dollars away from essential needs such as economic growth, defense and infrastructure and towards entitlements (but NOT Social Security of Medicare.)

In the 1950s, Washington spent significantly on infrastructure, building the interstate highway system. The nation prospered. In the 1980s, President Reagan spent vast sums on the military, and the economy grew stronger. Just as it did in the period before World War II, the dollars spent on defense provided jobs—middle class jobs. The shrinking of programs to build badly needed replacement weapons for the aging equipment in the armed forces depresses the economy, and the shrinking manpower of the military increases unemployment.

The huge increase in entitlements (such as the 41% increase in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) drains funds from essential needs and provides a drag on economic growth.  If, instead of spending more on entitlements, the Obama Administration had lowered taxes and cut back on regulations, business would have expanded, more jobs would have been created, and the resulting growth would have strengthened the economy.

Categories
Quick Analysis

U.S. Economy stagnates in debt and regulation

It’s already known that America’s 2016 national debt has surpassed the $19 trillion mark under President Obama, a dramatic increase from the debt accumulated over 233 years which at stood $10.6 trillion when he took office.

The hike has been startling, but even more so when one considers that nothing of significance or lasting value has been added to the U.S. with all that expenditure. Other periods of heavy spending resulted in clearly visible results.  During the 1940’s, extensive outlays produced a victory in the Second World War.  The 1950’s saw the development of the U.S. highway system. President Reagan’s arms buildup in the 1980’s ended the first Cold War.

Even in comparison with the anemic growth that has become common since Mr. Obama assumed office, the state and outlook of the economy as 2016 moves into February is worrisome. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics release on Jobs indicates that job growth, in particular, remains disappointing.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis  notes that real gross domestic product — the value of the goods and services produced by the nation’s economy less the value of the goods and services used up in production, adjusted for price changes – barely edged up at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, a reduction from the very weak third quarter increase of 2%.

CNS News reports that the huge jump in the national debt represents a liability of $70,612.91 for every U.S. household

The first evidence of an extremely expensive and utterly failed economic policy came from the $830 billion dollar “stimulus,” passed early in the Obama Administration’s reign, which tripled the yearly annual deficit.

The Wall Street Journal summarized it this way: “The federal government poured billions into the government and education sectors, where unemployment was low, but spent only about 10% on promised infrastructure, though the unemployment rate in construction was running in double digits. And some of the individual projects funded by the law were truly appalling. $783,000 was spent on a study of why young people consume malt liquor and marijuana. $92,000 went to the Army Corps of Engineers for costumes for mascots like Bobber the Water Safety Dog. $219,000 funded a study of college ‘hookups.’

“In aggregate, the spending helped drive federal outlays from less than $3 trillion in 2008 to $3.5 trillion in 2009, where federal spending has roughly remained ever since.
The legacy is a slow-growth economy: Growth over the last 18 quarters has averaged just 2.4% — pretty shoddy compared to better than 4% growth during the Reagan recovery in the 1980s and almost 4% in the 1990s recovery.

“The failure of the stimulus was a failure of the neo-Keynesian belief that economies can be jolted into action by a wave of government spending. In fact, people are smart enough to realize that every dollar poured into the economy via government spending must eventually be taken out of the productive economy in the form of taxes.”

In addition to skyrocketing debt with no substantive return, the nature of the once robust American economy seems to have been altered. The Heritage Foundation notes that “America’s Economic Freedom Has Rapidly Declined Under Obama, largely due to rapidly rising government spending, subsidies, and bailouts.”

Heritage’s annual 2016 Index of Economic Freedom reveals that “America’s economic freedom has tumbled. With losses of economic freedom in eight of the past nine years, the U.S. has tied its worst score ever, wiping out a decade of progress. The U.S. has fallen from the 6th freest economy in the world, when President Barack Obama took office, to 11th place in 2016.” In addition to the enormous new debt, the huge impact of new regulations and healthcare takeover are cited as reasons.

Heritage worries that “This is not something to take lightly. Economic freedom is the foundation of U.S. economic strength, and economic strength is the foundation of America’s high living standards, military power, and status as a world leader. The perils of losing economic freedom are not fictional. It is painfully clear that our economy has been performing far below its potential, with individuals, families, and entrepreneurs being squeezed by the proliferation of big-government bureaucracy and regulations…Self-inflicted wounds include:

  • The S. has the highest corporate tax ratein the developed world. This has driven new jobs to other, more competitive nations and has meant fewer jobs and lower wages for Americans.
  • The overall annual costof meeting regulatory requirements has increased by over $80 billion since 2009, with more than 180 new regulations in place. In terms of ease of starting a new business, analyzed by a recently published World Bank report, the U.S. is ranked shockingly low at 49th, trailing countries such as Canada, Georgia, Ireland, Lithuania, and Malaysia. No wonder the labor force participation rate has remained at near record lows after more than five years of steady decline.

Not wholesale viagra only does it helps you with your sperm count as well and increases your testosterone level, enhances frequency of orgasm and last but not the least arouses your sex drive along with desire. Men looking for pleasurable lovemaking every night with their lovable tadalafil cheapest price female partners. Due cialis tablets 100mg to unnecessary or unhealthy weight, the vessels are blocked with some plaques on the walls. Transparency and understanding are the two things which maintain bond http://www.devensec.com/planning-docs.html cialis no prescription in a relationship.
In the past, major global recessions were healed by the dynamic strength of the U.S. economy. However, eight years after the “Great Recession,” America’s failure to unleash the potential of its free market has not provided that boost.  The World Bank notes that “Global growth disappointed again in 2015, slowing to 2.4%. “

Categories
Quick Analysis

Washington: spending more, achieving less

The trend of Washington taking in ever increasing, indeed, record amounts, of revenue, yet still running deficits continued in August. The U.S. Treasury  reports that the federal government took in $210,837,000,000, but spent $275,257,000,000. So far in the current fiscal year, Washington has absorbed $2,883,250,000,000, but is running a $530 billion dollar deficit.

The national debt, as calculated by the National Debt Clock now stands at $18,386,204,600,000. That works out to $57,148 per citizen, and an astounding $154,549 per taxpayer.

As the New York Analysis has previously reported, the increased revenue does not come from an improved economy, but from higher taxes, including higher personal income taxes, phasing out some exemptions and deductions, and hikes on dividends, capital gains, interest, and royalties. The U.S. continues to impose the highest corporate taxes of any of its trading partners.

According to the Cost of Government Center, “The total cost of government in 2014 was 51 percent of the annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP). [Last] year, Americans had to work 121 days to pay for total spending, which made up 33 percent of GDP.  Americans worked 81 days to pay for federal spending and 40 days to pay for state and local spending. To pay for regulatory costs, Americans had to work 42 days to meet federal regulations and 23 days to meet state regulations. In total, regulatory costs amount to a full 17 percent of GDP.”

The Center on Budget Priorities reports that  24% of federal dollars went to social security, 24% went for medical programs, 18% for defense, 11% for safety net programs, and 7% for interest on the debt. The remaining 16% “goes to support a wide variety of other public services. These include providing health care and other benefits to veterans and retirement benefits to retired federal employees, assuring safe food and drugs, protecting the environment, and investing in education, scientific and medical research, and basic infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and airports. A very small slice — about 1 percent of the total budget — goes to non-security programs that operate internationally, including programs that provide humanitarian aid.”

Federal spending in 2010 totaled $3,618,000,000,000. Proposed spending for 2016 is $3,999,000,000,000, according to the White House.

The taxpayers, both current and those in the future, should be concerned that so little of those constantly increasing dollars Washington collects are being used for the core functions that keep the nation safe from attack, maintain its infrastructure, or insure future prosperity.
Keep track of your blood pressure on cheap cipla tadalafil a daily basis. Three types of movements are recommended: stretching, strengthening and”hardening” cheap levitra on line joints and lifting weights improves and maintains quality of life and may interfere with day to day activities. More pressure, more irregular lifestyle result in many other disorders. always in stock levitra 20 mg prices viagra Some patients may choose chiropractic as an alternative form of medicine? Because today, people are more used to taking medications as this is the standard form of the Kamagra.
The Washington Post  notes that “The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has calculated that an additional $1.6 trillion should be spent on infrastructure by 2020. A 2010 report by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs estimated that an additional $134 billion to $262 billion must be spent every year through 2035 to rebuild and improve roads, rail systems and air transportation.

Keeping the nation safe is the most essential responsibility of the federal government.  However, defense spending has been slashed over the course of the Obama Administration. Politifact.com notes that military spending constituted 20.1 percent of the federal budget in 2010, but an estimated 15.9 percent in 2015. And over the same span, national-security spending fell from 4.6 percent of gross domestic product to 3.3 percent. Those cuts came at a time when threats from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea expanded greatly.

For Americans worried about their senior years, social security may only be able to pay 100% of benefits for the next 18 years.  A CNN study notes that there is a closer, “near-term cash crunch in one part of Social Security that lawmakers must resolve in the next year or two. The trust fund for Social Security disability benefits, which is separate from the fund for retirement benefits, is on track to be insolvent — most likely by the end of 2016 but no later than 2017.”

A vital portion of the nation’s future economic prosperity depends on America’s ability to lead in space, but NASA has not been a recipient of all that federal spending. In 2010, the space agency budget  was $18,724,000,000. The projected figure for 2016 is $18.5 billion.

Washington’s increased taxes and increased spending have failed to beneit the nation.

 

Categories
Quick Analysis

U.S. economy deeply troubled

While not receiving much attention in the general media, the federal budget and the state of the U.S. economy are deeply troubled.

Despite taking in an unprecedented amount of tax dollars during the current fiscal year, $2,672,414,000,000, Washington nevertheless ran a $465.5B Deficit. The national debt now stands at $18,112,975,000,000. 

The increased amount collected is a reflection of tax increases, not a healthy economy. In 2012, the top individual income tax rate was increased 4.6%, while some deductions and exemptions were phased out. Obamacare also brought in an additional 3.8% on dividends, capital gains, royalties and capital gains.  American corporate tax rates are the highest of any developed nation.

In a troubling letter, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew wrote  to Congressional leaders:

“I am writing to notify you, as required under 5 U.S.C. § 8348(1)(2), of my determination that, by reason of the statutory debt limit, I will continue to be unable to fully invest the portion of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund (CSRDF) not immediately required to pay beneficiaries. I have determined that a “debt issuance suspension period,” previously determined to last until July 30,2015, will continue through October 30,2015. As a result, the Treasury Department will continue to suspend additional investments of amounts credited to, and redeem an additional portion of the investments held by, the CSRDF, as authorized by law. By law, the CSRDF will be made whole once the debt limit is increased. Federal retirees and employees will be unaffected by these actions. I respectfully urge Congress to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting to increase the statutory debt limit as soon as possible.”

So without in a hospital and a treatment which could be a much better generic levitra canada robertrobb.com cure for it. Do not get doubtful, get Kamagra today, if you have the same problem of keeping erections in the bed. cheap viagra bought here To buy Kamagra online makes better choice for those who do not eat animals or animal viagra pills from canada products to make sure they get adequate amounts of vitamin B-12. This is also effective natural remedy for rheumatism. * A gentle massage with Arthcare Oil (Anti-Inflammatory) is recommended to relieve arthritis pain and to strengthen prices in uk viagra the bone tissues, the skeletal and the neuromuscular systems, giving a comfortable movement of joints and muscles. Indicators of a weak economy are significant. A recent AP report noted that “U.S. food banks are expected to give away about 4 billion pounds of food this year, more than double the amount provided a decade ago, according to Feeding America, the nation’s primary food bank network. The group gave away 3.8 billion in 2013.”

Profit Confidential.com http://www.profitconfidential.com/economic-analysis/economic-outlook-for-2015/ states that “the stock markets may be doing well, but the underlying fundamentals that hold the U.S. economy together are not…For those who have jobs, they’re making less than they did before the Great Recession. Wages for workers at every pay level, save for the bottom 10%, declined from the second half of 2013 through to the second half of 2014. And there’s no indication wages will increase.For 70% of the workforce, inflation-adjusted hourly wages are still lower than they were in 2007. Over the same period, inflation (CPI) has risen 15%.”

Writing in Counterpunch former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Craig Roberts writes:

“Today there are 4,000,000 fewer jobs for Americans aged 25 to 54 than in December 2007…As of July 2015, the US has 27,265,000 people with part-time jobs, of whom 6,300,000 or 23% are working part-time because they cannot find full time jobs.  There are 7,124,000 Americans who hold multiple part-time jobs in order to make ends meet, an increase of 337,000 from a year ago…With so many manufacturing and tradable professional skill jobs, such as software engineering, offshored to China and India, professional careers are disappearing in the U.S…Clearly, this is not an economy that has a future…

The Wall Street Journal’s Economic forecasting survey  reveals poor prospects for future GDP rates. The Actual 2015 second quarter growth rate is 2.3%; the third quarter projection is 2.7%, and the 4th quarter, 2.8%. That will shrink, according to the projection, to 2.6% in the first quarter of 2016, and may rise slightly to 2.7% in the 2nd quarter. None of those figures are sufficient to raise the American economy out of its doldrums. The WSJ also notes that “Since the recession ended in June 2009, the economy has advanced at a 2.2% annual pace through the end of last year. That’s more than a half-percentage point worse than the next-weakest expansion of the past 70 years…”