America's Fiscal Reality
A friend of mine in Texas republished some recent financial numbers:Now...does that make things a little easie to understand? Or...to put them in Mr. Surber's words:
U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt: $1,650,000,000,000
National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cut: $38,500,000,000
Most people glaze over such numbers so he then equated it in simpler terms:
Annual family income: $21,700
Money the family spent: $38,200
New debt on the credit card: $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
Total budget cuts: $385
Finally, he wrote: "This is an impossible way for a family to survive. Bankruptcy is the only way out. This family is headed for complete failure."
P.S. Keep in mind that anyone who "dares" suggest that much more should be done to get America's fiscal house in order: is mentally unstable, wants to destroy their country, is a terrorist, and/or is a right-wing extremist. So says Obama's foot soldiers in government and in the MSM.
What I don't understand is how our current political elite can justify continuing spending at this rate? Are they stupid? Retarded? Do they think that the bills just won't come due? They're coming due at a rapid rate...and we just can't continue spending like this. The GOP & Democratic leadership had better understand, that the time for insane spending is over.If anyone is wondering why we are in financial straits as a nation, consider that the president we elected in 2008 spent more money than anyone has ever spent in any election anywhere — 50% more more than John McCain — just to finish 6 points ahead on Election Day. President Obama is not exactly a penny-pincher or even a Benjamin-pincher. A Democratic Congress gave Obama a boxload of blank checks. The amount of misspending by this administration is nearly impossible to comprehend for most of humanity, and so Kate at Small Dead Animals put federal spending in terms of a family’s spending, but the numbers she described were rather lowball.She gave the annual income of this family as $21,700. But the median household income in 2009 (the point where half earn less and half earn more) was $50,277. So I will adjust her figures accordingly.Family income: $50,277.
Family spending: $88,506.
Added to the credit card: $38,229.
Outstanding credit card debt: $330,646.
Proposed cuts: $829.That $829 cut means we will borrow another $37,400 next year.But some will say it is a mortgage not a credit card. If so, we just took out a home equity loan of $38,229 last year on a house that is already underwater.Barack Obama may do things this way. But not the rest of us.
AN interesting read that's for sure, no matter what your political...and we entrust these several thousand legislative buffoons with our hard earned treasure...
affiliation.
1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart every hour of every day.
2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!
3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.
4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.
5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people, is the world's largest private employer, and most speak English.
6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.
7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger and Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only fifteen years.
8. During this same period, 31 big supermarket chains sought bankruptcy.
9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.
10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had five years ago.
11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at Wal-Mart stores. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 Billion.)
12. 90% of all Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart.
You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy.
This should be read and understood by all Americans Democrats, Republicans, EVERYONE!! To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature, It is now official that the majority of you are corrupt morons:
A. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
B. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
C. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke. (...and corrrupt former politicians who ran it in the last 20 broke the US and world economies...)
D. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.
e. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
f. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
g. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars.
By the way; since the Eisenhower era there have been over 200 taxes added to our taxpaying citizens so during the times of government run agency’s failures they had more tax money income that ever.
And you took over the Mustang Ranch in Nevada because they didn't pay their taxes, and now it is closed. You could not even run a house of prostitution.
AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM ??
I know what's wrong. We have lost our minds to "Political Correctness"
Someone please tell me what the HELL's wrong with all the people that run this country!!!!!!
We're "broke" & can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless etc.,???????????
In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti , Chile , and Turkey .. And now Pakistan .....home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!
Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income' receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government pours Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$$'s and Tons of Food to Foreign Countries! We have hundreds of adoptable children who are shoved aside to make room for the adoption of foreign orphans.
AMERICA: a country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed hungry, elderly going without 'needed' meds, and mentally ill without treatment -etc,etc.
YET......................They have a 'Benefit' for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations, ships and planes lining up with food, water, tents clothes, bedding, doctors and medical supplies. Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to other countries. Sad isn't it?
Iceman, the Dems are not blind, or stupid. They just want job security: their own. Carville says in his book that the Dems will rule for 40 years. The Dems have been the dominant party since 1930. Here's some facts on that since 1930:What Democrats are truly afraid of is that "the little people" will finally figure out that the vast majority of US debt stems from Democratic party policies that were passed and larded upon through their control of Congress...and that they will be blamed, rightly, for what we are now going through.
The Democrats controlled the House:
1930-46
1948-52
1954-94
2006-present
R-16 years, D=60 years
The Democrats controlled the Senate:
1932-46
1948-52
1954-80
1986-94
2000 (a week)
2001-02
2006-present
R-21 years, D=55 years
The Democrats controlled the Presidency
1932-52
1960-68
1976-80
1992-00
2008-present
R-36 years, D-40 years.
There has been Democratic control over both houses of Congress and the Presidency:
2008 to present
1992-94
1976-80
1960-68
1948-52
1932-46.
That is, 28 years in the lifetime of most Americans.
There has been Republican control over both houses of Congress and the Presidency:
1952-54
Jan. 20-June 6, 2001
2002-06.
See what I mean. And don't forget, Congress makes the budget, not the President. If it wasn't for Brown's election, followed by the November 2010's election, this Country would be closer to bankruptcy than it is now, the Constitution would be a memory, and our Democratic government would take care of everyone, via taxes, and the beginning of our new socialist form of living, like eastern Europe.
Don't think the Dems are blind, or stupid. They know what they're doing
“The numbers, they are awful.”Then toss in this graphic that shows that the recovery from the current recession is the slowest-worst in modern times:
9.2% — unemployment rate for June.
0.1% — increase since May.
16.2% — underemployment rate for June.
0.4% — increase since May.
8% — conventional wisdom for the maximum allowable unemployment rate to win reelection.
15 — remaining BLS reporting months before Election Day.
255,000 — net jobs that must be created each and every month to reach 8%.
18,000 — net jobs created last month.
44,000 — downward revision to April and May job creation.
3,825,000 — total net jobs needed before Election Day.
2,100,000 — jobs created in the last fifteen months.
11.2% — unemployment rate if the labor participation rate was as high as it was in January, 2009.
290,000 — best monthly net jobs gain during Obama administration.
231,000 — real best gain, minus temporary Census hiring.
14 — months since best monthly gain.
1% — decrease in DJIA in the opening minute of trading, day that jobs figures released.
$1,200,000,000,000 — cost of ARRA “stimulus,” with interest.
1,900,000 — net jobs lost since ARRA was signed.
2 — quantitative easing programs since 2008.
~$2,000,000,000,000 — total of first QE program during Great Recession.
$600,000,000,000 — total of second QE program, just ended.
40% — increase in federal debt since January, 2009.
30% — increase in annual federal spending since January, 2009.
20% — decrease in federal revenues since January, 2009.
12% — decline in value of US dollar since January, 2009.
37% — increase in number of Americans on food stamps since January, 2009.
62% — increase in Misery index since January, 2009.
800 — days since the Senate passed a budget.
1.9% — last quarterly GDP increase.
2.5% — consensus projection for last quarterly GPD increase.
2.7% — official White House projection.
3.0% or better — GDP growth needed to dent unemployment.
3.6% — official White House GDP growth projection for 2012.
2.7% — IMF GDP growth projection for 2012.
30% — federal debt held by public as percentage of GDP, 2005.
60% — federal debt held by public as percentage of GDP, 2010.
180% — federal debt held by public as percentage of GDP, CBO estimate, 2035.
0% — odds of current path being sustainable.
This is too true to be funny. The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the politicians spending YOUR tax money.Yet, the Democratic Party would have you believe that merely returning spending levels to pre-2007 (when they took control of Congress) would be the biggest spending reduction in history. What they're not saying is that they set in motion the largest, non-war related, spending increase in history. One that only excellerated when Mr. Obama was elected president in 2008. They have managed to double our national debt in FIVE YEARS!!!!
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of it's releases.
- a billion seconds ago it was 1959.
- a billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
- A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
- A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
- A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.
While this thought is still fresh in our brain...let's take a look at New Orleans ...It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.
Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (Dem) is presently asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number... What does it mean? Well ..
- If you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, and child) You each get $516,528.
- If you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets$1,329,787..
- Or... If you are a family of four....Your family gets$2,066,012.
Washington , D. C ...Are all your calculators broken??
Here's a list of taxes that didn't exist 100 years ago:
- Building Permit Tax
- CDL License Tax
- Cigarette Tax
- Corporate Income Tax
- Dog License Tax
- Federal Income Tax (Fed)
- Federal Unemployment Tax (FU TA)
- Fishing License Tax
- Food License Tax
- Fuel Permit Tax
- Gasoline Tax
- Hunting License Tax
- Inheritance Tax
- Inventory Tax
- IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
- IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
- Liquor Tax
- Luxury Tax
- Marriage License Tax
- Medicare Tax
- Property Tax
- Real Estate Tax
- Service charge taxes
- Social Security Tax
- Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
- Sales Taxes
- Recreational Vehicle Tax
- School Tax
- State Income Tax
- State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
- Telephone Federal Excise Tax
- Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
- Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
- Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
- Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
- Telephone State and Local Tax
- Telephone Usage Charge Tax
- Utility Tax
- Vehicle License Registration Tax
- Vehicle Sales Tax
- Watercraft Registration Tax
- Well Permit Tax
- Workers Compensation Tax
(And to think, we left British Rule to avoid so many taxes)
Honestly, do you really think this is funny? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago.....
- And our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
- We had absolutely no national debt....
- We had the largest middle class in the world.....
- And Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What happened? Can you spell: 'POLITICIANS!' And I still have to Press '1' For English.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have $49.00 today!Doesn't it though?
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you would have $33.00 today. If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you would have $0.00 today.
But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for the recycling refund, you would have received $214.00.
Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-Keg.
And as a bonus;
A recent study found that the average American walks about 900 miles a year. Another study found that on average Americans drink 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means that the average American gets about 41 miles to the gallon!
Makes you damned proud to be an American!!!
Democrats still searching for a silver lining to the waxing they took last Tuesday can cheer up a bit. According to a new poll, the public may already be experiencing a bit of buyer’s remorse about the choices they’ve made,I submit that there was far more "remorse" prior to the election due to the suicidal spending policies of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama. Basically voters chose the GOP because the suck just a little bit less than the alternative...an alternative that in four years has added more than 1/3 to the national debt, much of that within the past 2 years. Here's my comment:
Your Submitted Commentcomments?
Display Name Rich Vail
Location Pikesville, MD
Comment
I think the common fallacy here is that the country \"trusts\" the GOP more than the democrats. What it really is that the GOP sucks a little less than the Democrats. That's it pure and simple. Under the GOP when they controlled Congress, last in 2006, the largest deficit was \"only\" $485 billion dollars. That number has been dwarfed by the last to Congresses controlled by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid...who have added $5,000,000,000,000.00 to the debt, that's more than 1/3 of the cumulative national debt of $13 trillion dollars.
That along with a tone deaf White House who pushed a health care seizure that the country doesn't want, led by a Speaker who said \"we have to pass the bill to find out what's in it...\" has led the country to repudiate that agenda. America, whether you like it or not here in the NY Times echo chamber, is a centre/right country. The Democratic Party refused over the past two years to listen to what the voters wanted.
You think this election was bad...just wait until the 26 GOP controlled state legislatures reapportion Congressional districts. You'll see ever more losses of House seats. Additionally, there will be some 20 seats in the Senate that now hold Democrats...more than half of which are considered to be \"vulnerable.\"
If the GOP doesn't FUBAR the next two years, you'll see even more losses in the Senate (10-15, perhaps 18) and another 30 or so in the House...think about that...Even should Mr. Obama gain reelection, the GOP would then hold a veto-proof majority in both Houses of Congress as well as a filibuster proof majority in the Senate.
Rich Vail
Pikesville, MD
http://thevailspot.blogspot.com
As I noted Thursday, Spencer Bachus has supported the majority of the most fiscally unsound, expensive and destructive pieces of legislation that have come before him in the past ten years -- including but not limited to Medicare Part D, the 2008 farm bill (a $300 billion million monstrosity that passed over President Bush's veto), and most importantly the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act that produced the $700 billion TARP.This is the crap that gave us $5,000,000,000,000.00 in new debt over the past four years. That more than 1/3 of our entire national debt. But, it gets worse,
Bachus is not just an out of control spender. He is directly implicated in the most important domestic failure of the last decade: the refusal to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the fight over the 2005 Federal Housing Finance Reform. This bill had the potential to impose tighter financial restrictions on Fannie and Freddie, turn off their direct line to taxpayer support, and allow the Federal Housing Finance Agency (then known as the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight) to take a much stronger role in regulating the GSEs. During negotiations over this bill, Bachus:His chief rival isn't much better. Ed Royce of California (now there's the home of some "fine" fiscal conservatives! That state just elected an entire slate of new "even MORE of the same" free spending politicians). Supported pretty much all of the above points.
...The rejection of these sensible restrictions on the GSEs meant that the House version of the bill ended up substantially weaker than the Senate version, and the bill never made it to reconciliation. By 2005 the housing bubble was already topping out, but three more years of mischief might have been avoided if Bachus and the House Democrats had been serious about regulating the GSEs -- both of which subsequently went bust and had to be rescued by Treasury. Fannie and Freddie continue to cost us billions of dollars every month in bailout money.
- opposed an amendment by Ron Paul that would have eliminated Fannie and Freddie's ability to borrow from the Treasury;
- opposed an amendment by Scott Garrett (R-NJ) to strike the increase in the Conforming Loan Limit for the GSEs;
- opposed an amendment by Former Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA) to strengthen the minimum capital requirements for Fannie and Freddie;
- and opposed an amendment by Ed Royce (R-California) authorizing the FHFA to limit the portfolios of Fannie and Freddie based on the systemic threat they posed.
But this is not the end of Bachus' trail of economic destruction. In February 2008, after the disinflation of American real estate had begun and the credit unwind was in full swing, Bachus decided that Fannie and Freddie (which at this point had only six months left to live) should drastically expand their portfolios of bad and doubtful mortgage debt. So he voted for the Recovery Rebates and Economic Stimulus for the American People Act -- a $117 billion pig that upped the GSEs' conforming loan limit to $729,750. Assuming a 20 percent down payment, this means the government was now redefining an average home as one costing close to a million dollars -- at a time when real estate values were two years into a decline that still shows no signs of ending.
Bloomberg, The Hill and Wall Street Journal all say deputy ranking HFSC member Randy Neugebauer (Texas) signed on, along with prospective subcommittee heads Jeb Hensarling (Texas; sucommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit), Scott Garrett (New Jersey; Capital Markets, Insurance and Government-Sponsored Enterprises), Shelly Moore Capito (West Virginia; Housing and Community Opportunity), Paul, Judy Biggert (Illinois; Oversight and Investigations) and Gary Miller (California; International Monetary Policy and Trade).Of this crew, Hensarling, Garrett, Moore Capito and Paul are to varying degrees improvements, while Miller and Biggert are stinkers.We The People need to let Mr. Boehner know that on this past Tuesday, we only voted in the GOP majority in the House because WE are serious about fiscal responsibility and reigning in the out of control spending of Congress. More of the same will not be tolerated.
