The CLASS Act: Repeal Now, or Face Permanent Taxpayer Bailout Later Five Ways to Tackle Spending and Deficits White House Confirms Continued Trillion-Dollar Budget Deficits
By Brian Riedl
The White House released its updated federal budget projectionsrecently. By releasing the report late on a Friday afternoon—a longtime Washington tradition for stories that politicians want to bury—the Obama Administration is effectively admitting that its budget numbers will not be well-received.
The "Mid-Session Budget Review" projects that this year's budget deficit will reach $1.471 trillion, or 10 percent of the economy. In nominal dollars, it's the largest deficit in American history. As a percentage of the economy, it's the largest deficit since World War II.
This will be the second consecutive year of trillion-dollar deficits that approach 10 percent of the economy. By comparison, the previous post–World War II record was 6 percent of the economy in 1983. Under President George W. Bush, deficits typically ranged between $160 billion and $400 billion (around 3 percent of the economy).
And the Obama Administration concedes that these large deficits are here to stay. It projects another $1.4 trillion deficit in 2011, followed by sustained deficits that never fall below $698 billion. The national debt held by the public—$5.8 trillion at the end of 2008—would soar to $18.5 trillion by the end of this decade.
These future deficits are driven almost exclusively by rising spending. President Obama's budget would push inflation-adjusted federal spending past $36,000 per household by 2020—$12,000 above the level that prevailed under President Bush. Even President Obama's enormous and anti-growth $3 trillion tax increase proposal won't stop this spending spree from pushing the national debt to economically dangerous levels.
>> Click here to read Brian Riedl's full report
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Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Fwd: Budget Bulletin: White House Confirms Continued Trillion-Dollar Budget Deficits
Fwd: Morning Bell: 100 Days Later, Obama Still Failing the Gulf
07/28/2010
100 Days Later, Obama Still Failing the Gulf
Over the last four weeks, The Heritage Foundation sent multiple teams of respected energy, environment, homeland security and response experts to the Gulf to study the federal response to the oil spill. These three delegations, with more to come, have traversed the areas hit hardest by the crisis, talking to response workers, affected oil crews, fishermen, elected leaders and BP representatives. What we found is simple: President Obama's administration has turned a crisis into a disaster, and someone needs to be held accountable.
Accountability is in short supply in Washington these days. Fingers are pointed in every direction for our nation's economic woes. President Obama's favorite target of choice is the past administration for nearly every problem he faces. Yet, the oil spill has only two central characters: BP and the Obama administration. BP is (very) slowly taking accountability for its creation of this crisis. Tony Hayward was finally dismissed as CEO, and they have promised full financial restitution for direct and indirect victims. On Day 100 of the spill, it's time the Obama administration followed suit.
And what exactly does the administration have to be held accountable for? An environmental disaster made worse by federal incompetence. An unnecessary drilling moratorium that has pulled the plug on a Gulf economy already on life support. A claims process that was negotiated in secret, leaving few answers to why claims aren't being processed and transparency is lost. A slow response that wasted clean weather days as hurricane season fast approaches, and a decision-making structure led by politics rather than duty.
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