debt

Under current law, the U.S. economy will tumble over the so-called fiscal cliff at the start of the new year, when roughly $500 billion in across-the- board tax hikes and $100 billion in spending cuts are scheduled to take effect. Numerous economists predict the automatic tax increases, the result of expiring Bush tax cuts and other tax laws, will cause another recession. Pentagon officials say the spending cuts, part of the 2011 debt ceiling deal, will “hollow out” the military.

President Obama and congressional leaders declare they’re committed to striking a deal to avert a fiscal fall. But Obama also says he wants to raise income tax rates on individuals and small businesses making more than $250,000, and Republicans say that’s a deal-breaker.

A dedicated libertarian, William Niskanen was also a dedicated pot-stirrer. For him the two vocations—pressing the case for small government and, at least intellectually, making trouble—were inseparable. He was best known as an original member of Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, one of a principled band of Reaganites who followed their man into the White House and then drifted away as Reagan succumbed to political compromise and ideological deviationism.

John Boehner laid out the House Republican position in the upcoming legislative debate on the fiscal cliff in remarks Wednesday afternoon. "Mr. President, the Republican majority here in the House stands ready to work with you to do what's best for our country," Boehner said, calling the massive national debt, now larger than the entire economy, our "greatest challenge of all."

A chart from the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee shows that "U.S. Per Person Debt [Is] Now 35 Percent Higher than that of Greece."

From December 1941 to August 1945, the United States of America joined the other Allied powers and fought against the Axis powers in Europe and the Pacific, during the greatest and most destructive war in all of human history.

The $831,000,000,000 economic “stimulus” that President Obama spearheaded and signed into law requires his administration to release quarterly reports on its effects.  But “the most transparent administration in the history of our country” is now four reports behind schedule and has so far not released any reports whatsoever in 2012.  Its most recent quarterly report is for the quarter than ended on June 30, 2011.

A new report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service finds that the largest federal budget item is spending on welfare programs. To support the 83 programs that CRS identified as welfare programs, the federal government spends $745.84 billion. 

That dollar amount exceeds the $725 billion spent by the federal government on Social Security, $480 billion on Medicare, and $540 billion on non-war defense.

In the wake of the Treasury Department’s newly released summary of federal spending for 2012, it’s now possible to detail just how profligate the Obama years have been.  Here’s the upshot:  Under Obama, for every $7 we’ve had, we’ve spent nearly $11 (or, to be more exact, $10.95).  That’s like a family that makes $70,000 a year — and is already knee-deep in debt — blowing nearly $110,000 a year.

Former presidential candidate Ross Perot has endorsed Mitt Romney, according to the Republican nominee's campaign.

As Mike Warren highlights, moderator Martha Raddatz apparently didn’t think Obamacare was important enough to make the cut as one of the nine topics she brought up during the vice presidential debate.  Two other closely related topics that didn’t make her cut were federal spending and the national debt.  Anyone who had been asleep for four years before waking up and tuning in would never have guessed that Obamacare, rampant federal spending, and unsustainable federal debt had given rise to the Tea Party and had propelled the GOP to gains of 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats in the 2010 elections.

In May 2009, President Obama released his updated budget estimates, which projected that the federal deficit for fiscal year 2012 would be $557 billion (see table S-1).  The Congressional Budget Office now says that the deficit for fiscal year 2012 (which ended on September 30) was about $1.1 trillion — or about twice what Obama said it would be.  In other words, Obama’s estimate was off by more than half a trillion dollars.

A new study by Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum finds that President Barack Obama's spending plan would raise taxes on the middle class.  "[T]axpayers making as little as $30,000 will carry $1,500 more in taxes annually over the next 10 years," the study finds.