S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating

"However, one of S&P's explicit criticisms of the compromise was that it didn't address the biggest drivers of the nation's debt -- Social Security and Medicare -- and didn't allow for additional tax revenue." Read it here.

They Kicked the Can Down the Road Again!

"Debt deal done ... for now" The U.S. Senate passed a last-minute compromise plan to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling Tuesday, sending the bill to President Barack Obama to be signed into law only hours before what would have been an unprecedented default.
The bill, which imposes sweeping new spending cuts over the next decade, was approved in a 74-26 vote; 60 votes were required for passage. Read More

What would Reagan Do?

On the blogs and news sites I read this "Inflexible GOP should listen to Reagan on debt"
You can red the CNN Op-Ed here

Now back in 1987 When Reagan gave that radio address the country only had $275 billion in deficit spending(inflation adjusted)
Now we have over $1.5 trillion!!!! The damges is here. I can't find any better of an analogy other than that of a heroin addict that needs his fix.

Speaking of Reagan here is what else Reagan did while Obama sat with his super majority and did the oposite:
1. President Reagan cut marginal tax rates. President Obama wanted to allow the largest tax hike in American history and now you don't ever hear that come up.
2. President Reagan reined-in government union power by firing striking air traffic controllers. President Obama bailed-out state government unions, hired more federal government union members, and even bought a car company for the very same union that ran it into the ground in the first place.
3.President Reagan simplified and reduced telecommunications and anti-trust regulations. President Obama expanded and complicated regulations in the health and financial sectors.
4. President Reagan returned power to the states by reducing the percentage of state expenditures that come from the federal government. President Obama, through both the failed $862 billion stimulus and the trillion dollar health care plan, has made the states more dependent on Washington than ever.
5. What about Libya? KaDaffy is still there fighting. And so are we. That's no news these days.
6. Average annualized growth during the first seven quarters of the early 1980s recovery under Ronald Reagan was 6.6%. Not coincidentally, employment grew by almost 5.3 million during those seven quarters (the equivalent of about 8 million today), and the unemployment rate dropped from 10.1% to 7.2%. Today's 9.3% is the new norm bot to mention 11.2% in California!


Its true that under Reagan, deficit spending sky rocketed compared to preceding years. But now.....deficit spending is on warp drive. I like Matts first comment the best, let's take our lumps now. For me anything is better than fantasy spending away what we pretend we have. I believe the pain we could face if we choose not to rais e the debt ceiling will be small in comparison if we choose to over spend $1.5 trillion every year. I feel basically we already HAVE painted ourselves in a corner and I have no desire to wait for the paint to dry.

Washington Struggles to Solve Debt Ceiling Issue

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama will deliver a statement on the status of the debt ceiling talks Friday morning -- one day after House Republican leaders pulled their plan back from consideration when it became clear they did not have the votes to pass it.
GOP leaders will try to bring Speaker John Boehner's bill to a vote again by the end of the day.
The delayed vote on the measure -- already pronounced dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate -- revealed a deep rift within the GOP that could undermine the party's latest attempt to avoid an unprecedented national default and stave off potential economic catastrophe. Watch the Report on CNN

Historical Tax Lesson about Cutting Taxes

"Ed Schultz Lies About Bush Tax Cuts Seconds After Saying 'Republicans Make Stuff Up'

Read more: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/04/19/ed-schultz-lies-about-tax-revenues-under-bush-seconds-after-saying-re#ixzz1KMd8Gmos

S&P lowers its outlook on U.S. debt; stocks decline

The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned the United States on Monday that it could lose its coveted status as the world’s most secure economy if lawmakers don’t rein in the nation’s nearly $14.3 trillion debt.

Read the full article

5% cut from the budget, Whoopty Do! Budget deal: Good news, bad news

A last-minute agreement averted a government shutdown late Friday, but analysts say the high-stakes standoff revealed persistent issues that Washington still must address. CNN Opinion asked a number of regular contributors and guests for their views.

read full arrticle

The ugly math of Medicare

The ugly math suggests Medicare is unsustainable in its current form.
Medicare is financed through a combination of payroll taxes, premiums and general revenue. The problem is that spending has been growing faster than the economy and is projected to do so indefinitely.

The reasons for that are simple: The number of people expected to enroll in the program will surge as the population ages and health care costs continue to grow far faster than inflation.
In just the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, enrollment in Medicare will grow by a third and spending per enrollee will jump by 50%. Between 1975 and 2010, the number of enrollees doubled to 47 million, and the real cost per enrollee quadrupled, according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that runs the program. By 2040, Medicare will cover 88 million people and the cost will be nearly three times higher than in 2010.

Not surprisingly, payroll tax revenue and premiums aren't keeping pace with the program's increasing costs. And that means the draw on federal coffers will grow larger barring any policy changes. To wit, in 1975, the program's income from revenue and premiums covered 69% of total Medicare disbursements. In 2010, they covered 40%. By 2040, they'll only cover 30%.

So how to fix it? Read the full article

This is the meaning of CTRL-ALT-DELETE!

"It looks like it's headed in that direction," Reid said on the Senate floor when discussing the possibility of a shutdown. "The numbers are basically there, but I am not as nearly as optimistic -- and that's an understatement -- as I was" after a meeting Wednesday night with President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, at the White House.

AMEN!

"I'm not the slightest bit worried about a government shutdown," Tea Party supporter Robin Maas said at a March 31 rally in Washington. "I think we find out that there are many things government does that we really don't need to keep this country going. And a government shutdown would actually save us some money."

Finally REAL NUMBERS YOU CAN COUNT... $TRILLIONS "GOP budget chief calls for $6.2 trillion spending cut"

Top House Republican leaders unveiled a 2012 budget proposal Tuesday that would cut $6.2 trillion in federal spending over the next decade while radically overhauling Medicare and Medicaid -- two hugely popular entitlement programs that have long been considered politically untouchable.

The proposal, drafted by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, would also overhaul key portions of the tax code, dropping the top rate for individuals and businesses to 25% while eliminating a number of loopholes.

read full article

THANKS TO OBAMACARE "A shift toward smaller health insurance networks"

Of course this article that appeared in the LA times won't admit it...but yes. Because of Obamacare employers are now slimming down on their benefits.

"Thousands of employers in California and across the country are slashing expensive doctors and hospitals from their insurance rosters in a move to hold down rising healthcare costs — a trend that is gaining favor with corporate bosses, if not the rank and file.

The savings on insurance premiums — nearly 25% in some cases — are gained when companies switch their health plans to "narrow network" HMOs that offer fewer choices of medical providers.

California, with nearly 21 million people in health maintenance organizations, is driving the rapid expansion of these networks. More than 10,000 California employers and public agencies have enrolled, mostly since the recession struck in 2008.

read the full article

Trillion Dollar Deficits are here to Stay "I JUST CAN'T TELL YOU WHY!" by Braden Barty

Rand Paul was on the Late Show with David Letterman not too long ago as they discussed the economy, taxes, and debt.

Letterman, who, he himself is worth millions (erroneously calling himself middle class) was given government economical 101 basics by Paul but ended up unknowingly burying his head in the sand. He assumed the $14 trillion national debt was only something like $2 to $3 trillion (you can tell how worried he really is.)

I tell people this over and over again. Defense Spending for 2011 is $964.8 billion. The national deficit is $1.64 trillion. If you cut defense spending by as much as 50% you would still be stuck with $1.158 trillion deficit. If you taxed the top 1%, 100% of all their income, you still fall short of funding the government to last long enough before still needing to borrow more money. Besides that there is something called Hauser's Law that states that federal tax revenues since World War II have always been approximately equal to 19.5% of GDP, regardless of wide fluctuations in the marginal tax rate.

The majority of Tax revenue (96%) comes from the millions of earners who make up the top 50% of wage earners. It's not the quality of tax earner that makes up the income tax revenue but rather the quantity.

Filmmaker Michael Moore is someone who feels very strongly that the rich do not pay their fair share of taxes. I have already pointed out in the past that US Corporations pay the highest percentage compared to the rest of the world. This is the break down when it comes to personal income tax. Top 1% pay 37% of all the taxes. The top 10% pay 65%. The Top 50% pay 96% while the bottom 50% of tax payers pay less than 3% of the taxes collected through income tax. http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

So what does this all mean? It means trillion dollar deficits are here to stay. That's right. 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and so on and so on. Today as it stands 20% goes to pensions, 23% goes to health Care, 13 % goes to welfare and 25% to defense. Where did all this spending come from? Was it always here? Most of our Federal Tax dollars, 81%, goes to the big programs (including policing the world) that are not even specifically outlined in the United States Constitution. (The 10th Amendment says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.")

It has taken decades of conditioning to get us to the point we are at right now. That is that "IF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOES NOT DO IT, WELL THEN, IT WONT GET DONE!"

And really all it is, plane and simple, is a Ponzie Scheme which is on the verge of collapse. The basic way a Ponzie scheme works is that those that come in early in the game benefit while those that come in late, when the money is so far spread out, end up losing.

So what is beginning to happen? We are buying time by borrowing and printing more money. We have, for decades, been living recklessly beyond our means. For every 1 dollar grandma and grandpa have put into the money pool they end up actually getting back about $1.50 to $2.00 for a few simple reasons. Our grandparents are now living longer! And to make sure they live as long as they can, we have more things such as greater medical advances to pay for. These advances help to make sure they live as long as they can even up until the last minute! Make sense? To make matters worse, as of about the mid 1970's, obesity among Americans has sky rocketed, which now makes us all the more unhealthy as a collective society, which in turn makes our medical bills even more expensive.

So just how long will it take before most of America is onto the fact that the system is unsustainable? It's now 2011 and I'm guessing we can do maybe one more trillion dollar deficit (2012) maybe two at most (2013) before the scheme really collapses, meaning we face up to the fact that something is terribly, terribly wrong. When that happens, people like David Letterman won't be scratching their head anymore on live TV and saying stupid things to their audience like he did on the night Rand Paul appeared on his show when he said, "You know, I think he’s wrong about some of these things. I just can’t tell you why.”

Watch the Full Interview on Youtube with Rand Paul and David Letterman

House GOP budget to call for big changes to Medicare, Medicaid

Washington (CNN) -- House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, will unveil a highly anticipated 2012 Republican budget next week that proposes dramatic changes to political lightning rods: entitlements.

The plan, to be released Tuesday, calls for a controversial overhaul of Medicare, the health care program for seniors, and imposes deep cuts in Medicaid, which provides health benefits to low-income Americans, according to House Republican sources with knowledge of the proposal.

Starting 10 years from now, in 2021, Americans would no longer enroll in the Medicare program, but instead receive vouchers for private insurance, according to the GOP sources, who stressed anyone 55 or older now would not be affected by the change.

The plan is modeled after one Ryan proposed last year with Alice Rivlin, budget director under President Bill Clinton. Full Story.

President Obama Apologizes to President Bush (by Larry Elder)

The White House

Dear George,

The Gulf oil spill opened my eyes.

As with Hurricane Katrina, it happened suddenly. I barked out orders. I pounded my desk. But the oil kept flowing. Worse, the nation watched it all on television and said: "Why doesn't the President do something? Doesn't he care?" From then on, I fully understood both the expectations and the limitations of this job.

read the full article

WOW! I guess discussion is a thing of the past...Holy SMOKES!

"We don’t make decisions about questions like intervention based on consistency or precedent. We make them based on how we can best advance our interests in the region" President Barack Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough Mar. 28, 2011 --- ........

Pimco's Gross dumps U.S. debt

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Pimco's Total Return Fund (PTTRX), the world's biggest bond fund, slashed its exposure to U.S. government debt to zero last month.

It's the second month in a row that well-known fund manager Bill Gross has drastically reduced Pimco's exposure to U.S. government debt.

read the article here

Taxpayers to make up for CalPERS' losses (Sorry, you were lied to)