Author Topic: Government programs & regulations, spending, deficit, and budget process  (Read 525177 times)


DougMacG

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Government programs, reckless spending
« Reply #1551 on: May 01, 2024, 07:35:02 AM »
"Somalian-Americans" pulled off the greatest fraud known so far of all the Covid free money:  70 defendants, almost all Somalian, $250 million stolen.  Fed millions of meals to starving children - except they didn't.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/04/feeding-our-fraud-goes-to-trial.php
-------------------
This happened right under the nose of MN AG Keith Ellison who was too busy suing government to set climate policy to notice no meals were served by this historic fraud.
« Last Edit: May 01, 2024, 09:46:01 AM by DougMacG »

ccp

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" They are almost all Somali, I am sorry to say. By the same token, I believe that one of my Somali friends helped expose the fraud and assist in the investigation."

if considered a whistleblower then I believe entitled to something like 15% of recovered funds.

" Under the FCA, whistleblowers are typically entitled to between 15% and 30% of the amount the government recovers based on the information they provide. For 2022, the DOJ reported $2.2 billion in FCA judgments and settlements, of which $1.9 billion resulted from whistleblower complaints."


DougMacG

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Government programs, Spending IS the campaign
« Reply #1554 on: May 08, 2024, 07:16:16 AM »


Body-by-Guinness

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Biden Takes a Hit on Unemployment
« Reply #1556 on: May 09, 2024, 02:49:15 PM »
What’s that you say? Bidenomics doesn’t work and you have the stats to prove it?

https://www.westernjournal.com/weekly-jobless-claims-unexpectedly-shoot-worrisome-level/

Perhaps it’s time for an employment thread?

Body-by-Guinness

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National Debt Becoming the Largest Budget Line Item
« Reply #1557 on: May 09, 2024, 03:25:03 PM »
2nd post. Jeepers, if you spend more than you earn by a significant margin, at some point your interest payment subsumes all. Who knew, besides everyone with a modicum of fiscal integrity.

https://blog.independent.org/2024/04/16/interest-on-national-debt/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=interest-on-national-debt

Crafty_Dog

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No need for a new thread:  "Political Economics" will do nicely.  :-)

DougMacG

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Re: The Fed: Enablers of Budget Overspending & Associated Idiocy
« Reply #1559 on: May 10, 2024, 04:17:57 AM »
"The title sez it all"


  - Fed Chair J. Powell said, paraphrasing, we can't criticize Congress, they're our boss.

What a crock.  How can they give an honest, accurate assessment of what's happening without attacking excess spending?  It IS the problem.


DougMacG

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"There's nothing to cut from this budget" ??
« Reply #1561 on: May 16, 2024, 08:20:01 AM »
The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion has resulted in a massive increase in federal Medicaid improper payments, which soared from an estimated $14.4 billion in 2013 to $98.7 billion in 2021 as shown in this week’s Paragon Pic. The primary reason for the increase: millions of people were enrolled in Medicaid without proper eligibility reviews.

A poorly run Medicaid program harms the truly vulnerable by misallocating resources. Because of the ACA, Washington pays a much greater share of expenses for non-disabled, working-age enrollees than traditional Medicaid enrollees like low-income children, pregnant women, seniors, and individuals with disabilities. This ACA expansion elevated rate creates a large incentive for states to enroll people under the expansion criteria.

https://paragoninstitute.org/paragon-pic/the-affordable-care-acts-medicaid-expansion-caused-improper-payments-to-soar/

Body-by-Guinness

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Underwriting Permanent Dependency
« Reply #1562 on: May 21, 2024, 06:45:56 PM »
Homeless spending grows, so does the size of the homeless population. Only government program managers can’t see there’s something wrong with this set of circumstances:

Why Are Both Homelessness and Homelessness Spending Growing?
May 17, 2024
By CHRISTOPHER J. CALTON

Also published in The Orange County Register Fri. May 17, 2024   Show More »
Over the past decade, homelessness in California has been rising at alarming rates. California already topped the national list in 2014 when it had a homeless population of 114,000, but according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2023 Homelessness Assessment Report count, that number has grown to more than 180,000—nearly a 60 percent increase—and an astonishing two-thirds of these individuals are entirely unsheltered. In fact, with a total unsheltered population of 123,423, California is shamefully only about 10,000 shy of the other 49 states combined.

Yet California has spent a record $24 billion fighting homelessness over the past five years, according to a state audit published last month. In other words, the homeless population and homelessness spending have grown in tandem. How is this even possible?

The sad reality is that the current homelessness policy, known as Housing First, virtually guarantees an ever-ballooning homelessness budget, regardless of how effective it is in reducing the homeless population. This is because the measure of success under Housing First is not independent self-sufficiency, but in homeless persons becoming de facto wards of the state.

In 2013, the federal government adopted Housing First as its approach to homelessness, and California followed in 2016. This means that both state and federal homelessness grants are reserved exclusively for providers who comply with Housing First principles.

The Housing First philosophy contends that the most effective way to address homelessness is to offer people immediate, no-strings-attached housing. Service providers forfeit their grants if they make housing conditional on, say, sobriety or participation in treatment programs. In theory, supportive services are voluntary, but in practice they are almost non-existent.

Instead, California’s approach to Housing First entails little more than warehousing people in permanent-supportive housing (PSH) units. PSH residents are not classified as “homeless” for official counts, but they remain dependent on taxpayer support, which is paid out of the homelessness budget.

We did not always treat permanent dependency as the best-case scenario for homeless individuals. When the Clinton administration first established the continuum of care system for homelessness services in 1994, the Department of Housing and Urban Development explicitly stated that “the goal of the comprehensive homeless service system is to ensure that homeless individuals and families move from homelessness to self-sufficiency, housing, and independent living.”

When Sam Tsemberis, a clinical psychologist, conducted the first Housing First experiment in New York City, he altered the measure of success to “housing stability,” achieved not through self-sufficiency, but through perpetual subsidies. Tsemberis found that 88% of his clients remained stably housed, compared to 47% of patients in treatment-oriented programs. However, Tsemberis worked exclusively with people suffering from severe mental illnesses—those who would have been institutionalized in an earlier era—so it is reasonable that perpetually subsidized housing may have been the best possible outcome for this particular subset of the homeless population.

But should permanent dependency be the goal for all homeless persons? In FY 2022-2023, California spent $116 million on permanent-supportive housing for homeless youth. A policy that functionally treats homeless and at-risk children as lost causes is not only financially unsustainable, it’s downright inhumane.

A significant portion of homeless individuals suffer not from incurable mental illness, but from untreated substance-use disorder, and the overdose mortality rate of PSH residents is disturbingly high. But studies of crack-addicted homeless persons in drug-abstinent housing, work therapy, and day treatment programs found that upon completion, roughly half of the participants remained sober, housed and stably employed. Yes, “housing stability” was lower than Housing First experiments, but independent self-sufficiency is an unquestionably better outcome for those capable of achieving it.
We can accept that there will always be people who require permanent assistance, but state policy should not treat this assumption as universal. Even if we could end homelessness by permanently warehousing people, we should strive to do better.

But after following the Housing First playbook for nearly a decade, the results are clear: the more money we spend on this strategy, the faster the homelessness crisis grows.

 
CHRISTOPHER J. CALTON is the Research Fellow in Housing and Homelessness at the Independent Institute.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14931

DougMacG

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Biden Regulations Cost Americans $1.6 Trillion
« Reply #1563 on: May 31, 2024, 04:47:54 AM »
https://dailycaller.com/2024/05/30/report-details-regulations-biden-cost-average-americans/

Convicting your opponent of 34 pseudo felonies does make that fact go aeay.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2024, 04:58:24 AM by DougMacG »

ccp

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right!

"twice impeached"
"felon"
"threat to Democracy"
"evil"
"prince of darkness"

My response:

https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/middle-finger

As Trump just said our country is in "big trouble".

The resistance to the Democrat party is in full swing.
I only wish I was a billionaire.  I would flood the lower races with cash to counter the Left wing billionaires.

Crafty_Dog

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National Debt, public health threat
« Reply #1565 on: June 01, 2024, 04:14:59 AM »
HT BBG
===============
Keep spending money you don’t have and soon you have to use money you do have to pay the interest on the money you didn’t have and hence borrowed. Keep on borrowing and eventually the money you do have services interest, elbowing aside other needs, like the health care you’ve promised to provide retirees et al:

The National Debt Is Becoming a Public Health Threat
The Beacon / by Craig Eyermann / May 31, 2024 at 5:23 PM
Over the past three years, the amount of interest the U.S. government has to pay on the national debt has become the fastest-growing category of government spending. It was already the second-largest government expenditure in 2024 and will soon become the largest.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimates that the growing burden of the interest paid on the national debt will account for 21% of the total expected growth in government spending over the next ten years.

The cost of paying interest on the national debt is not the only contributor to the growth of future government spending. The CFRB also projects that Medicare and other healthcare spending will account for 35% of the increase in the U.S. government’s spending growth. Social Security will account for another 28% of the anticipated increase. “Everything else” accounts for 16% of the projected government spending growth.

A public health problem

The very rapid growth of how much the U.S. government pays to borrow money to support its spending imposes more than a fiscal burden on Americans. It threatens their health.

In a recent article, the American Council on Science and Health’s Alex Berezow makes that argument, calling the U.S. national debt a “public health threat.” Here’s the crux of how he arrived at that position:

Though the national debt feels like an abstract academic concept, it isn’t. The debt itself can wreak economic havoc, a phenomenon known as “crowding out.” When the government needs to borrow money, it often gets that money from investors (in the form of government bonds like 10-year Treasury notes). But investor money is not unlimited. Other entities, like established businesses and startups, also need investor money. Competition for this money drives up the cost of borrowing that money—the interest rate. So, the more the government borrows, the higher the interest rate for everyone.

Simultaneously, every dollar invested in government debt is a dollar that cannot be invested elsewhere. That means businesses that need to borrow substantial amounts of money to finance major projects like expansion or research cannot do so because the borrowing costs are too high.

And that is precisely why the national debt is a public health threat. Biotech companies and the venture capitalists who invest in them are having difficulty raising money, and layoffs are plaguing the industry. Even large pharmaceutical companies, which many assume are swimming in cash, are cutting back. Bristol Myers Squibb is set to lay off about 6% of its workforce, some 2200 people.

To be sure, the national debt affects all industries, and the troubles facing the biotech and pharma industries cannot solely or even largely be blamed on the national debt. It is simply one factor among many. But it is a factor that the government can control—but chooses not to.

Over the next decade, 84% of the growth in federal government spending will be due to healthcare, Social Security, and interest payments. Without serious reform, the government will need to borrow yet more money to pay for these increased costs, exacerbating the aforementioned issues. Combined, this threatens to underfund basic services like Medicare as well as health innovation in America. Money problems inevitably lead to health problems.

A more direct way that burden will be imposed is through cuts to big government health care programs, like Medicare Advantage. The Biden administration is pushing through cuts to the popular program’s benefits that half of American seniors use for their health care. Those Americans will now face higher out-of-pocket costs because the government can’t afford to pay both public health benefits and the interest it owes to its creditors.

It’s important to recognize that politicians and bureaucrats have absolute control over how much money the U.S. government spends. Politicians are responsible for approving excessive spending that adds to the national debt. Bureaucrats are responsible for managing that spending, and their failure to do so prudently adds to the burden of the national debt.

Since the government can’t skip paying its creditors without defaulting on the national debt, more cuts to public health programs can be expected. What the Biden administration is doing with its cuts to Medicare is just the beginning.

The post The National Debt Is Becoming a Public Health Threat appeared first on The Beacon.

https://blog.independent.org/2024/05/31/national-debt-public-health-threat/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=national-debt-public-health-threat

DougMacG

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Re: Government programs & regulations, spending, deficit, and budget process
« Reply #1566 on: June 01, 2024, 11:46:00 PM »
Misread your question.  Interest costs passed a trillion last year;
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-07/us-debt-bill-rockets-past-a-cool-1-trillion-a-year?embedded-checkout=true

AND rising rapidly with new debt replacing old and continuing deficits still way into the trillions.

One figure for revenues was $4.44 T.

So it looks like roughly 1 in 4 dollars of tax revenue, 25%, go straight to interest,

But from there it will get worse.
« Last Edit: June 02, 2024, 07:26:54 AM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Government programs & regulations, spending, deficit, and budget process
« Reply #1567 on: June 02, 2024, 04:45:18 AM »
FK , , ,

DougMacG

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Re: Government programs & regulations, spending, deficit, and budget process
« Reply #1568 on: June 02, 2024, 07:38:44 AM »
Politicians used to talk about balancing the budget by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. And now we have interest costs over a trillion a year. Wouldn't this count as all three, waste, fraud and abuse?

When Janet Yellen went from Fed chair to treasury secretary the separation of Federal Reserve and political Administration disappeared. Current Fed chair Jerome Powell said on 60 minutes, it is not his job to tell his bosses in the other branches how to do their job, meaning stop all this deficit spending. Fine, but how is he supposed to manage the monetary system when the fiscal budget is so out of whack?

Over a few decades it became clear that our government was intentionally devaluing our currency so that it would devalue our debt. They thought they were getting free money, they thought. They targeted 2% inflation, which to me is criminal, and then they had 3% and 4% and 9 1/2% inflation. There's too many examples to mention of simple things that we cannot comprehend with the cost today compared to such a short time ago.

We warned for years right here that this would all come back to bite us and now look at it!

If they couldn't balance the budget when interest costs were negligible, how are they going to do it when they surpassed a trillion in interest costs a year, soon to surpass 2 trillion in interest cost per year?

What are the campaign slogans this year amidst this crisis? 'Jail your opponent' and 'more of the same'.

ccp

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The experts chimed in in 2020 whe debt "only" 26.7 trill
« Reply #1569 on: June 02, 2024, 09:00:36 AM »
Economists who sound like all other crats they twist the logic all around to fit their agenda.
like democrats who twist the law:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/21/national-debt-krugman-reich-booth-duflo-oneill-spriggs-moyo-el-erian.html

and some replies to the article

https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/olkxm1/heres_why_top_economists_are_not_worried_about/?rdt=41736

I Like this one :

"This statement assumes that people holding debt will be happy that the Fed is printing with reckless abandon.

All money is a confidence game. Once that confidence is gone, all the printing in the world won't fix the currency."

DougMacG

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Re: Government programs & regulations, spending, deficit, and budget process
« Reply #1570 on: June 03, 2024, 12:02:04 PM »


Scroll right if you can't see it all.
Stephen Moore <steve@committeetounleashprosperity.com>

DougMacG

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Yellen $Trillion Interest, "Debt Load is Reasonable"
« Reply #1571 on: June 13, 2024, 06:10:08 AM »
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/13/treasury-secretary-yellen-says-us-debt-load-is-in-reasonable-place-if-it-remains-at-this-level.html

Reelect US and we'll give you even more.

The "experts are smarter than us?  A random name picked from a random phone book likely knows more than this Treasury Secretary former Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

She can't really be this stupid but she is this dishonest.

Question remains, why do they want to destroy our country, and why are nearly half of the people going along with it?
« Last Edit: June 13, 2024, 07:06:03 AM by DougMacG »

DougMacG

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Government programs, the next Solyndra
« Reply #1572 on: June 17, 2024, 08:12:49 AM »

Body-by-Guinness

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Yet Another Warning DC Will Let Go Unheeded
« Reply #1573 on: June 18, 2024, 11:30:02 PM »
Ten trillion here, ten trillion there, and soon you may have a wee problem on your hands:

Another CBO Report Warns of Debt Surging, As a Fiscal Crisis Brews

Cato @ Liberty / by Romina Boccia / Jun 18, 2024 at 5:19 PM

Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett

A man and whirlpool.
On the heels of a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that highlights the need for Congress and the White House to get serious about reining in federal spending and debt, it’s critical to understand that high debt levels are not just numbers on a page; they have real‐​world consequences. As debt grows and interest costs rise, irresponsible spending by Congress and the White House is taking a larger toll on American workers, reducing economic opportunity and their take‐​home incomes significantly. It also puts our nation at greater risk of a sudden fiscal crisis.

The High Price of High Debt

Under highly optimistic assumptions that do not reflect already anticipated congressional moves to adjust tax and spending policies, the CBO projects that debt will reach 122 percent of GDP by 2034, as interest on that debt will exceed spending on defense this fiscal year. A previous CBO report illustrated how rising debt would make Americans poorer, reducing per‐​person income by $14,500 in the year 2054, based on CBO projections that assume the debt will rise to nearly three times the size of the US economy. Excessive government debt drags down the economy by crowding out more productive investments that improve American living standards.

Additionally, as debt grows unabated, there is the risk of a sudden loss of confidence in bond markets, with investors demanding much higher interest rates that could trigger a debt doom loop and broader fiscal crisis. The 2009 Greek debt crisis and the UK’s 2022 bond market turmoil demonstrate how a relatively small catalyst can disrupt financial markets and lead to a rapid surge in interest rates that forces severe austerity measures, from sudden spending cuts to ill‐​conceived tax increases.

Congress and the Biden administration should cut spending now while the economy is growing and conditions are favorable for deficit reduction, alleviating pressure on interest rates and the federal debt to grow, and before a fiscal crisis forces their hands. US legislators should learn lessons from what happened in the UK and Greece where a sudden change in investor perceptions triggered crises, instead of repeating their mistakes.

Beware of Entering a Debt Doom Loop

If Congress and the White House continue to spend with reckless abandon, high and rising US debt may trigger a debt doom loop, which might play out like this: Something could trigger investors to determine that the risk of holding US government debt has increased, whether that’s a change in perception about a higher risk of default, greater inflation, or some other economic or political event. At that point, investors would demand higher bond yields to continue lending to the US government. Higher bond yields can then create a feedback loop by increasing the cost of servicing the national debt, which then leads to more borrowing just to pay the additional interest on the debt. Should a bond yield surge be sudden, large, and unmitigated, this self‐​perpetuating cycle can quickly escalate into a fiscal crisis.

The classic example of this doom loop dynamic is the 2009 Greek debt crisis. As Cato’s Ryan Bourne explains:

“Greece was able to borrow relatively cheaply until suddenly it wasn’t (Figure 7). There, the trigger for the crisis was the newly elected government’s revelation that in 2009 the country was running a mammoth deficit of almost 12.5 percent of GDP, much higher than the previous government had estimated.24 That shifted perceptions about the country’s fiscal sustainability and creditworthiness, leading to its 10‐​year bond yield jumping from 6.5 percent to 29.2 percent within two years. This was a precursor to a severe dose of enforced austerity alongside three international bailouts.”

Of course, the US has many advantages that set it apart from Greece, including providing the world’s primary reserve currency, strong financial institutions, transparent government fiscal reporting, a large economy, and debt that is primarily held by domestic institutions and investors. This limits US exposure to a Greek‐​like debt doom loop, but it doesn’t insulate it from doom loop dynamics completely.

Over the long run, an expectation that the US might come to rely on money‐​printing to inflate away its unsustainable debt obligations may result in sudden shifts in investor sentiment with potentially dire economic consequences. To better understand how poor fiscal governance can rock the boat, it’s worth considering recent occurrences in the UK, which offers a much better comparison with the US.

In late September 2022, the UK government unveiled a mini‐​budget that included energy subsidies (with large, unbounded costs), unfunded tax cuts, and increased borrowing. The announcement led to a sharp sell‐​off in the UK’s sovereign bonds (gilts), and investors demanded higher yields to compensate for the perceived increase in risk. The pound dropped to a 37‐​year historic low, and mortgage rates surged. The Bank of England stepped in, temporarily expanding its balance sheet by purchasing £19.3 billion of gilts. The government also walked back its irresponsible deficit spending plans, contributing to a subsequent decline in 30‐​year gilt yields.

One key takeaway from these incidents is that a sudden bond crisis can propagate from a single catalyst in unanticipated ways. Fiscal crises can often be difficult to predict, even if they appear obvious in hindsight, and can cause unforeseen financial disruption. In the UK, for example, the bond yield surge exposed over‐​leveraged pension funds, threatening the UK’s retirement system. In Greece, the fiscal crisis and the following austerity resulted in social unrest and economic stagnation. The key takeaway lesson for the US should be to err on the side of caution by addressing the unsustainable growth in the US debt before bond markets force corrective action.

It’s worth noting that the Bank of England’s intervention was compelled by the government’s tone‐​deaf fiscal policy. Legislators should pay closer attention to the interactions between fiscal policy and monetary policy, especially if they are serious about getting interest rates under control. With above‐​target US inflation that has only recently slowed down, the Biden administration and Congress would be wise to put forth credible deficit‐​reduction plans sooner rather than later to signal to investors that the US is getting its fiscal house in order and to reduce interest rates and inflation in a proactive manner.

Stabilize the Debt

Now is not the time to be sanguine about high debt and deficits. With interest rates unlikely to dip back to the lows seen in the 2010s as federal debt expands, government borrowing costs will rise. Legislators should be more wary of the risk of a debt doom loop, where a sudden loss of investor confidence can cause a feedback loop of surging bond yields, interest spending, and borrowing that leaves policy‐​making decisions between a rock and a hard place. The UK and Greece offer cautious tales about how economic conditions can suddenly turn sour in response to changing investor sentiments about a country’s fiscal stability.

US legislators should take measures today to stabilize the US debt‐​to‐​GDP ratio at no higher than 100 percent of GDP, putting downward pressure on interest rates by reducing spending and addressing unfunded entitlement program obligations. A fiscal commission offers the most promising pathway to overcome the political barriers to reform and avoid a sudden fiscal crisis and economic decline.

https://www.cato.org/blog/another-cbo-report-warns-debt-surging-fiscal-crisis-brews

Body-by-Guinness

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$42.5 Billion Committed & Nothing to Show for It
« Reply #1574 on: June 19, 2024, 05:44:25 PM »
2nd post. $42.5 billion earmarked by Biden admin to bring network connectivity to underserved communities but … not a single home connected due to red tape, union labor requirements, poor execution, et al:

https://instapundit.com/654098/

DougMacG

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Government Jobs pay 40% more than private sector
« Reply #1575 on: June 21, 2024, 11:31:48 AM »


Source:  BLS

ccp

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fed gov. vs private sector
« Reply #1576 on: June 21, 2024, 02:32:39 PM »
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2024-04/59970-Compensation.pdf

for those with college degree or less the compensation is higher

for those with master's or college or advanced degrees it is somewhat less.

Though when all benefits added it may not be

I seem to be unclear as to the bottom line.

DougMacG

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Government programs, spending, deficit, budget, deep state: CTUP solution
« Reply #1577 on: July 08, 2024, 09:14:24 AM »
"Fire roughly one-third of federal employees immediately. Reduce the federal workforce through attrition. Impose a hiring freeze until the budget is balanced. Sell federal buildings that are less than one-half occupied."

   - Steve Moore, 'Committee to Unleash Prosperity  (CTUP)

[Doug]  This is NOT an outlandish proposal.  Any big company in anything close to this predicament would do far more drastic cutting.  The real problem is that this doesn't even get at the real spending problem, government writing checks (sending wire transfers?) to individuals.

Do more than that, move entire, real functions of government out of Washington DC.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2024, 09:16:52 AM by DougMacG »

Body-by-Guinness

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Three years and six, count ‘em, six customers. Whoever handled the business plan and marketing oughta be axed:

No Customers, No Success: The Postal Banking Failure Exposed
Cato @ Liberty / by Nicholas Anthony / Jul 11, 2024 at 11:24 AM
Nicholas Anthony

It has been three years since the postal banking pilot program made headlines in 2021, but it hasn’t had a single customer in at least two years (Table 1). It is long past time to put this idea to rest.

For those who missed the news when it originally made headlines, the US Postal Service (USPS) launched the program in September 2021. By taking advantage of a loose reading of the law, the program allows customers to transfer business and payroll checks up to $500 to gift cards for a flat fee of $5.95 at locations in Virginia, Maryland, New York, and Washington, DC.

To say the pilot program has been a failure may be an understatement. At its peak, the pilot program had only six sales. In fact, the project has only garnered seven sales across its entire three years of existence.

Shortly before the program’s September 13 launch, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D‑NY) said, “This is a great first step toward creating a postal bank. [The] pilot program will demonstrate the value to these communities, and show that the USPS can effectively service underbanked urban and rural communities.”

After three years, it’s safe to say the postal banking pilot program has done no such thing. It has failed to deliver value to communities, and it has failed to show that “the USPS can effectively service underbanked urban and rural communities.” It’s time to put the idea of postal banking to rest. Congress should shut down the program and close the postal banking loophole.

https://www.cato.org/blog/no-customers-no-success-postal-banking-failure-exposed

Body-by-Guinness

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Modeling Good Budget Practices
« Reply #1579 on: July 19, 2024, 01:00:47 PM »
State budget deficits, surpluses, bond issued, etc. vary state by state. Cato has a crazy notion: have the feds emulate the states that have their budgets in order:

https://www.cato.org/blog/government-debt-varies-widely-state

ccp

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Crafty_Dog

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WT: Japanese about to do big sale of Treasuries?!?
« Reply #1581 on: July 25, 2024, 07:34:25 AM »
I have posted here previously of big tensions between the dollar and the yen.  I asked Scott Grannis about it and he was more sanguine than the article in quesiton which I shared with him as well as posting it here (and no, I don't remember what it was called haha)

Anyway, the article in question may have been rather prescient.  Witness this:

Will a Japanese fire sale crash U.S. debt?

Profligate government spending has institutionalized multitrillion- dollar annual deficits, which have driven up interest rates and left Treasury markets teetering on the edge. Now Japan is on the verge of a $400 billion fire sale of U.S. debt. This could break the back of the Treasury market and devastate Americans’ finances.

The source of Japan’s sudden need for liquidity is the state-owned Government Pension Investment Fund, which holds the social security reserves of nearly every Japanese worker. Because the government wants to prop up the plunging yen, it intends to sell the American assets and buy Japanese ones.

The amounts here aren’t trivial: The fund is more than $1.5 trillion, of which $400 billion is U.S. Treasurys. This conversion from dollar-denominated assets to yen-denominated ones means dumping a quantity of Treasurys on the market equal to about 20% of the federal government’s net annual borrowing.

A 20% increase in the supply of Treasurys is huge when yields are already around 5% and poised to go higher. Higher yields increase how much interest must be paid to service our $35 trillion federal debt.

Last month, the Treasury Department spent a record $140 billion just on interest to keep its debt scheme going. For perspective, that amounts to more than three-quarters of personal income tax revenue collected in June.

For interest alone. If Japan starts unloading its U.S. Treasurys, that exacerbates the problem: Increasing the supply of Treasurys makes it harder for the U.S. government to sell new ones and finance the massive budget deficit. The only way to entice more people to buy Treasurys will be to offer higher interest rates, which will cause the interest on the debt to climb even faster, heading to $2 trillion annually and beyond.

Many countries, such as Russia, have already sold off all their Treasurys. China, the second-largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, is selling them hand-over-fist, having sold one-third in the past five years. If the largest holder, Japan, has a fire sale in this environment, it would be the equivalent of a margin call on the U.S. Treasury Department — the moment the bank tells you to cough up more cash or they cut you off.

People the world over are losing confidence in the federal government’s ability to repay its debts and no longer see the dollar as a secure asset. In just 3½ years, the dollar has lost one-fifth of its value, wiping out trillions of dollars of bondholders’ wealth around the world.

This kind of backdoor default is why some Japanese banks have already begun liquidating their Treasury holdings, including the country’s fifth-largest bank, Norinchukin, selling $63 billion in Treasurys.

The even larger Japan Post Bank has more than $550 billion, mostly U.S. bonds, which could also soon head to the auction block.

The fire sale doesn’t end there. Because Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund influences all other pensions in Japan, another $800 billion in U.S. assets also might be looking for a new financial home.

Even as almost every Treasury buyer is selling, including the Federal Reserve, the federal government is ramping up borrowing to cover ballooning deficits. Financial markets are staring down the barrel of soaring interest rates and a massive liquidity drain.

If the Treasury gets backed into this corner and is forced to pony up higher yields, then things will unravel fast. We’ll look back fondly at 8% mortgage rates and the limited bank failures of spring 2023, because things will be much worse than that.

Of course, the government could short-circuit this entire collapse by simply cutting spending and getting on a path to fiscal sustainability. After all, margin calls don’t happen if investors believe the investments are still good.

Unfortunately, there’s no sign of such fiscal responsibility in our government.

DougMacG

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Government spending warning, 2011
« Reply #1582 on: July 29, 2024, 11:19:02 AM »
2011:  https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/5c2ebe54-218c-4946-b012-7b62cd1d3f19/jec-testimony---9.20.2011---statement-of-chris-edwards-director-of-tax-policy-studies-cato-institute.pdf

The Damaging Rise in Federal Spending and Debt
Statement of Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policy Studies, Cato Institute,
before the Joint Economic Committee
September 20, 2011

"High debt can also be associated with inflation crises"

"Higher interest rates push up interest costs, which is a risk that gets magnified as
federal debt grows larger."
---------------------------------------------
[Doug]  They had NO IDEA how bad it could get.

DougMacG

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Biden Harris DOUBLED Interest Expenses
« Reply #1583 on: August 04, 2024, 09:56:29 AM »
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A091RC1Q027SBEA

Of course it's much worse than that.  The set spending on a higher course and interest rates on a higher course.  Not all the lower interest debt has been replaced yet.  It will get worse.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Government programs & regulations, spending, deficit, and budget process
« Reply #1584 on: August 04, 2024, 03:28:04 PM »
"Not all the lower interest debt has been replaced yet.  It will get worse."

Yup.

DougMacG

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Intel job cuts after receiving fed money
« Reply #1585 on: August 16, 2024, 08:11:18 PM »
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/intels-massive-job-cuts-after-receiving-taxpayer-money

Intel’s massive job cuts come after it's expected to receive $8.5 billion in taxpayer money
« Last Edit: August 17, 2024, 09:35:37 AM by Crafty_Dog »

DougMacG

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IMF tells the US how to budget
« Reply #1586 on: August 20, 2024, 12:19:07 PM »
[Doug]  I DON'T approve this message.  They are right, we need to close the deficit.  The way they would do it doesn't work.  They mostly think higher taxes is the answer.  Static thinking.  Sure we could have a WAY better tax system, but it wouldn't be with higher tax rates.  It's the spending stupid.

The worst debt to GDP ratio was when the economy was closed, not a relevant point.  Today is worse.

Ending stepped up basis would end wealth creation.  Bleeping stupid idea, all part of my ongoing rant against taxing inflation.  Same for destroying the housing market by ending the homestead exemption.

Repeal the corporate tax rate cut that drove up real incomes?  Dumb.  We want real incomes up if we are going to even try to handle our debt burden, and we want USA made to be competitive.

There are a lot better voices out there than this Bulgarian, but we do need to address this.
---------------------------------------------------------
News Items by John Ellis newsitems@substack.com

The Debt Pile.
Profligacy on steroids.
Mary Walsh
Aug 20, 2024

Here’s what they didn’t talk about at The Republican National Convention. And here’s what they won’t talk about at The Democratic National Convention. As Mary puts it, “we’re all Argentines now.” — JE

Something happened on June 27 that was promptly forgotten in the uproar about Joe Biden’s debate performance that night, and all the fast-moving election news since. But it merits attention, for the light it may shed on our country’s future as a world leader, no matter who ends up in the White House.

Just hours before the Biden-Trump debate, the head of the International Monetary Fund held a news conference in Washington to unveil the Fund’s new country report on the United States. We tend to think of the IMF as the overseer of debt pariahs, but in fact it also monitors the world’s wealthy nations, because the missteps of the rich can unintentionally hurt the others.

The news conference went much as you’d expect, keeping in mind that the United States is the IMF’s biggest capital contributor and has by far the most votes. In any institution it’s going to be awkward when the staff has to criticize the chairman of the board. Managing director Kristalina Georgieva, a Bulgarian national, was at pains to let the good U.S. indicators offset the bad ones. Yes, U.S. poverty was up, but inflation was down. Yes, the U.S. banking system still had weak spots, but the market for Treasuries was getting stronger. Last year’s alarming flood of illegal immigrants had a silver lining; it expanded the U.S. labor supply.

But there was no ignoring the elephant in the room: Rampant U.S. government spending, financed by debt, was getting out of hand. The United States was deeply indebted even before the pandemic, and its response to the pandemic drove it much deeper. Now, four years later, the fiscal stimulus was over and the debt should be shrinking. But it was still growing.

“When there is a strong economy, it is time to arrest and reverse this trend,” Georgieva said, with a smile that seemed to say, “We all know perfectly well that’s not going to happen.”

How bad is this?

First, some definitions: The federal debt is the accumulation over time of each year’s deficit spending. The United States has a budget deficit almost every year. It gets cash to cover the deficit by issuing Treasury securities. If you want to know how big the U.S. debt is, you look at the value of all the Treasuries outstanding. This summer the pile is worth $35.12 trillion, the most ever in dollars and the highest of any country in the world by amount. That’s causing consternation. But big numbers like $35.12 trillion aren’t meaningful out of context, so economists usually express both the deficit and the debt as percentages of GDP. That allows better comparisons across the years and between countries.

Measured that way, the federal debt isn’t America’s biggest ever, but it’s close. The highest ever was in 2020, when the government rushed forward with massive, costly fiscal-stimulus programs, to tide the economy through unprecedented business shutdowns. Without those federal programs, U.S. unemployment threatened to hit 1930s levels. The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio shot to 132 percent that year. Until then, the all-time high was in 1946, when the ratio was 118.9 percent.

And World War II was over, the economy was booming, and the debt ratio started falling the very next year. It continued to fall until 1981, when it bottomed out at 31.8 percent.

Measured that way, We the People are now carrying roughly four times the federal debt that we did when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.

What’s bothering the IMF now is that the pandemic has ended, and the fiscal stimulus is over, but the federal debt keeps growing. It waned at first, in 2021 and in 2022, but then it turned back up. It’s piling up faster because the federal government is spending more, especially on entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, and on the interest on the outstanding debt, thanks to higher interest rates.

The IMF measures the U.S. debt at 123.2 percent of GDP this year, still less than the 2020 record, but not for long. It’s on track to be 134 percent of GDP in 2028 — a new record — and will hit 140 percent in 2032. That should be interesting. It’s just a couple of years before the Social Security program is due to exhaust its resources and give all retirees a 25 percent haircut.

The new IMF report on the United States calls the trend “a growing risk to the U.S. and global economy,” and “a significant and persistent policy misalignment that needs to be urgently addressed.”

It’s strange to hearing the IMF scold the United States about economic mismanagement. When an IMF team talks to, say, Kenya, it’s dealing with a country that’s been shut out of the capital markets but urgently needs more money. It turns to the IMF as the world’s lender of last resort. The IMF arranges a bailout, with a program of fiscal reforms, designed to ensure the money will be paid back. Then the IMF can use it to rescue somebody else.

In Kenya’s case, the IMF rescue came in 2021, when Kenya’s debt-to-GDP ratio was 68 percent. As part of the fiscal reform, the government reduced fuel subsidies. Gasoline prices shot up. Then the government levied a new 3 percent tax on all workers and employers, and raised income taxes on high earners. Needing still more revenue this spring, lawmakers pushed through a 16 percent consumption tax on bread, plus an “eco” tax on commonplace things like disposable diapers and plastic that harm the environment. People took to the streets. The police cracked down. Dozens were killed. A chastened President William Ruto fired all but one member of his cabinet and said he would start listening to his people.

Fiscal reforms soured this summer in Bangladesh, too. The country had just qualified for another $1.1 billion tranche of its $4.7 billion rescue loan in June when protests broke out over reinstatement of an old quota system for government jobs. In July things got worse when the government tried to make public university faculty contribute more to a national pension fund. The faculty walked out. The students joined them. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina suggested the students were “razakars,” a rude word meaning “collaborators.” The armed wing of the ruling party — yes, it has an armed wing — began attacking the students with live ammunition. Police and paramilitary forces joined in. An estimated 266 people were killed, including 32 children. The protests continued and earlier this month the prime minister fled the country.

For most Americans, violent civil unrest fueled by fiscal reforms is totally unthinkable. Even with a debt ratio of 123.2 percent — close to twice that of Kenya — the United States can still borrow money whenever it needs to. Even after a couple of downgrades, investors still call U.S. Treasuries “risk free.” Why worry about austerity?

Georgieva is the first IMF chief whose country has been through an IMF rescue, and she seems determined to make Americans see that debt can have consequences. She sees the upcoming expiration of the 2017 tax cuts as “an opportunity to engage in a broader societal discussion about tax reform and the need for additional sources of revenue.”

The new IMF report even makes it possible to see what it would be like if an IMF austerity plan were imposed on the United States. Not a very tough one. Just enough for the United States to reduce its debt to an acceptable level. It’s not enforceable, because the U.S. isn’t broke. But Georgieva said the IMF and the U.S. Treasury recently had “a very robust discussion” about it. 

Here’s how it would work: The IMF plan calls for the United States to reduce its budget deficit in each of the coming years. Every year, some of the outstanding Treasury debt will mature and be paid off. If the U.S. government can keep its budget deficit small enough, it won’t add enough new debt to the pile to replace the old debt that matures. Little by little, the debt pile will shrink.

“We’re recommending a fairly long period of time,” to do this, Georgieva said. “We’re talking about this decade, not next year.” 

How much of a deficit reduction are we talking about? 

The U.S. deficit is currently running at about 3.8 percent of GDP. The IMF’s plan calls for the United States to cut spending and raise taxes enough to turn that 3.8 percent deficit into a 1 percent surplus every year. To make the numbers work, the U.S. has to find some combination of spending cuts and tax increases equal to 4.8 percent of GDP. (In dollars, that would be about $1.4 trillion this year.)

“Staff views this adjustment as feasible,” said the IMF report.

And it really isn’t that onerous. If the United States can stick with the program, its debt would fall back to where it was before the pandemic, a mere 108.1 percent of GDP. No one’s ordering the United States to go back to the halcyon days of 2008, before the bank bailouts and everything else, when the federal debt was just 67.5 percent of GDP — close, coincidentally, to what Kenya defaulted on. But the IMF isn’t pushing that. It just notes that if that were the goal, it would take a much tougher austerity program.

The IMF report has a helpful list of nips and tucks the United States could take to get those 4.8 little percentage points. Some examples:

–Double the Tax on Gasoline and Diesel: These taxes have been stuck at 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline, and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel, since 1993. The resulting revenue has lost about half its purchasing power since then, so the IMF thinks the United States could double each tax. That would raise revenue by a princely 0.15 percent of GDP.

–Raise the Corporate Tax Rate: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 cut the U.S. corporate tax rate to 21 percent from the previous 35 percent. The corporate rate won’t sunset in 2025. It’s going to stay at 21 percent. The IMF suggests raising it to 26 percent. That would yield revenue of around 0.3 percent of GDP per year.

–Raise the Social Security cap on taxable income: Currently, the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax is withheld from each worker’s income up to $168,600. The IMF suggests taxing up to $250,000 instead. That would yield 0.4 percent of GDP per year.

–Update Social Security’s inflation index: Social Security increases retirees’ benefits for inflation, but it uses an inflation measure from 1975. More realistic ones have been devised since then. One, Chained CPI, takes human behavior into account and calculates the inflation rate just a shade lower than the 1975 calculation. If Social Security switched rates, retirees would still get their annual increases, but they would be a little smaller. The IMF says this would save about 0.1 percent of GDP per year.

–Phase in a Federal Consumption Tax: Many countries have both an income tax and a consumption tax, usually a Value Added Tax. The United States doesn’t, and the IMF suggests phasing one in. A broadly based 10 percent Value Added Tax would yield about 2 percent of GDP per year.

–Drug Price Negotiations: Medicare currently negotiates the prices of a small number of prescription drugs. The IMF says that if the list were expanded, the Treasury could save about 0.1 percent of GDP per year.

–End Four Tax Expenditures: Tax expenditures are subsidies in which the government doesn’t dish out money, but rather, declines to tax certain things. There’s a lot of money in certain tax expenditures. The IMF suggests scrapping these four:

++The $250,000 capital-gains exclusion on the profit from selling your house ($500,000 for married couples); which is around a $42 billion annual subsidy.

++The deduction for mortgage interest on your house, in effect a $30 billion subsidy.

++The deduction for state and local taxes paid. It was costing the U.S. Treasury $100 million a  year until it was capped at $10,000 in the 2017 tax package. The cap is set to expire next year, and Treasury’s annual losses would resume. The IMF says the cap should stay.

++The subsidy for employer health plans. This is obscure, but it’s big. If you get health benefits at work, your employer most likely takes money from your pay, pre-tax, to cover the cost of your premiums. Pre-tax money buys more, so you get more health coverage at a lower cost. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that this year, this practice is subsidizing workers’ healthcare to the tune of $200 billion. The IMF suggests ending it.

The IMF says that if all four of these tax expenditures were cut, the Treasury would gain 1.4 percent of GDP.

Remember, the IMF plan calls for reforms that would capture 4.8 percent of GDP. What’s striking about these suggestions is how hard they would be to legislate, yet how little they would move the needle. Even if all of the IMF’s suggestions listed above were put in place, they’d only produce 4.5 of the 4.8 percent of GDP that the IMF wants us to find.

Don’t worry. The IMF has a couple more ideas:

–End the Tax Break for Masters of the Universe: Ooh, yes, let’s choose that one! Currently the “carried interest” provision lets private investment firms’ partners pay a 23.8 percent tax on their gains, rather than the 37 percent top marginal rate. The IMF doesn’t estimate how much this would yield, probably because the revenue would be volatile from year to year.

–End the “Step Up Basis” for Capital Gains: Currently, the value of inherited assets is reset at the date of a benefactor’s death, so that the capital gains accrued during that person’s life are never taxed. The IMF suggests ending this practice but doesn’t estimate how much more revenue this would yield. But imagine the outcry from people who stand to inherit appreciated assets in the coming years.

What’s also striking about this list is how totally oblivious the presidential candidates are to the ideas, or apparently to the very notion of sustainability as Election Day approaches. It’s reminiscent of the last election in Argentina, where the incumbent gave away so many tax cuts that only one-fifth of the One Percent were left to pay any income tax at all.

Kamala Harris likes to talk in generalities, about supporting women and small business, helping the working poor and middle-class families, promoting paid family leave and affordable child care.

“Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,” she said. “Because we here know when our middle class is strong, America is strong.”

Well, so much for Harris tinkering with Social Security indexation or employer health benefits, or — God forbid! — establishing a Value Added Tax. (The proposed 16 percent bread tax that triggered riots in Kenya would have been a Value Added Tax.)

Like President Biden, Harris has promised not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 a year. The IMF report does say several times that this promise will have to be broken in a true fiscal reform — some of those people are going to have to pay more.

Donald Trump isn’t any better. He says he’ll make the 2017 tax cuts permanent. (The IMF warns that would add about 1.7 percent of GDP to the federal deficit.) On a campaign trip to Nevada, a swing state where hotels, restaurants and casinos dominate the economy, he promised to liberate hospitality workers from having to pay taxes on tip income.

In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, he spoke of lowering the corporate tax rate to 20 percent. But why stop there? He later said that as president he’d push for 15 percent. After that, he started calling for an end to the tax on Social Security benefits. The only people whose Social Security benefits are taxed are well-to-do retirees with other resources to draw on. The roughly 60 percent of older Americans who receive small Social Security benefits and haven’t saved much for retirement savings — the ones who really need every penny of their Social Security payments — are not taxed and would not benefit from Trump’s largesse.

The Congressional Budget Office says that ending the taxation of Social Security benefits could cost $1.8 trillion over the next ten years. If this giveaway happens, somebody will have to pay for it. If you’re still working and paying taxes, that somebody is going to be you.

“We’re all Keynesians now,” Richard Nixon said ruefully in 1971, as he gave Congress a budget plan with an $11.6 billion deficit. But we’ve gone way past that point. Take a look at us through the IMF’s eyes. We may all be Argentines now.

DougMacG

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HERE's $10 Trillion we can cut, Return spending to pre-pandemic levels
« Reply #1587 on: August 26, 2024, 10:27:40 AM »
Steve Moore reporting on Rand Paul idea:

Stephen Moore steve@committeetounleashprosperity.com

We Can Cut $1 Trillion a Year from the Budget with Our Eyes Closed
It is remarkable that Biden and Harris have proposed $4.6 trillion in taxes over the next decade and at least $2 trillion in new spending – but have NO spending cuts that we can find. Zero.

Our brother-in-arms Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has an eminently sound plan to save trillions of dollars by simply returning to the PRE-Covid spending levels.

It's a layup. A picture is worth a thousand words, so we reproduce here a great graphic from financial analyst Richard Salsman.



As usual, scroll right to see the rest...

He shows that just returning to the pre-pandemic baseline saves about $1.2 trillion a year over the next decade.  That's $10 TRILLION off the debt.

It's so simple.

DougMacG

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Biden-Harris Regulations Cost the Average Family $47,000
« Reply #1588 on: August 27, 2024, 04:18:45 PM »
Biden-Harris Regulations Cost the Average Family Almost $50,000

Study by Casey B. Mulligan, Ph.D.
Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago
Senior Fellow at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity
Former Chief Economist of the White House Council of Economic Advisers

https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/240724_CTUP_BidenHarrisRegulations_Doc.pdf

President Trump’s first term reduced regulatory costs by $11,000 per family
-------------------------------------------

Luckily we all had an extra 50k lying around to comply.

We were low on federal regulations when they took office.  We only had 72,000 pages to comply with at the start of 2021...

https://ballotpedia.org/Administrative_state
« Last Edit: August 27, 2024, 04:54:30 PM by DougMacG »

ccp

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So exactly what is going on at Federal agencies?
« Reply #1589 on: September 02, 2024, 09:26:40 AM »
From Epoch Times author Jeffrey Tucker:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/what-is-really-going-on-at-federal-agencies-5714418

The non governmental watchdog for Fed agencies:

https://www.openthebooks.com/

I think the salaries of employees has been blocked at the above site

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Government programs & regulations, spending, deficit, and budget process
« Reply #1590 on: September 03, 2024, 06:30:28 PM »
When I was an attorney in DC, one of our main clients was the Puerto Rican Maritime Shipping Agency.   After my Spanish was put to the test by the Puerto Rican partner for whom PRMSA was a client by translating a decision an administrtive judge out of Puerto Rico into English,  I sometimes was sent over to the Federal Maritime Commission as part of our work for PRMSA. 

This article describes things very well.

DougMacG

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Interest Expense on the Debt now over $3 Billion per day
« Reply #1591 on: September 04, 2024, 08:06:56 AM »
More than double what it was under Trump.



As usual, scroll right to see.

Based on latest Treasury Department data.

DougMacG

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Here's another failed government program, land ownership
« Reply #1592 on: September 04, 2024, 08:10:44 AM »


Scroll right.

What's wrong with this picture??

ccp

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Feds ownh 28 % of American land
« Reply #1593 on: September 04, 2024, 10:52:47 AM »
adding to Doug's post above something I had no idea of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_lands

 :-o

DougMacG

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Re: Feds ownh 28 % of American land
« Reply #1594 on: September 04, 2024, 04:22:23 PM »
adding to Doug's post above something I had no idea of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_lands

 :-o

Begs the question, why?

They get agreement on things like Yellowstone then own more than half of the American west.

The original point being made where my map came from was that maybe you wouldn't have all the fires if private owners looked after their part of the forest.

At some point government ownership is c********.

Overcrowded in Detroit and Chicago but nobody can live on half of the west.

Add state ownership and other setasides and see how little is privately owned.

Explains why prices became unaffordable.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2024, 04:24:41 PM by DougMacG »

DougMacG

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Re: Government control of our lives
« Reply #1595 on: September 25, 2024, 09:21:28 AM »
The top three charts explain our country today better than anything I have (ever) seen.

57% of voters think government has too much control of our lives.  16% think we have too much individual freedom.  (We should be able to win elections with those niumbers.

Conversely, 55% of Ivy leaguers, think people have too much individual freedom, think 'mainstream media' and the puppetmasters behind our elected officials and the people who decide what our kids are taught, only 15% think government has too much control over our lives.

I'm apparently not educated enough to know how people could have too much individual freedom.

Scroll right, as usual, I wish I knew how to re-size these charts.



Scroll right, I wish I knew how to re-size these charts.

https://mcusercontent.com/dc8d30edd7976d2ddf9c2bf96/images/9a0f7c9c-e236-12e5-83a3-12a51ac29b7a.png
« Last Edit: September 25, 2024, 10:40:43 AM by DougMacG »

DougMacG

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Govt programs: FEMA Spent a Billion $ on programs for illegals the last 2 years
« Reply #1596 on: October 03, 2024, 10:39:09 AM »
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/10/03/fema-is-out-of-money-for-north-carolina-and-youll-never-guess-where-it-went-n4933025

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted on Wednesday that "FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.” One reason for that is that under Biden-Harris, FEMA spent $650 million this fiscal year providing services and housing to illegal aliens. And $364 million the year before that.

If you thought the Federal Emergency Management Agency was just in the business of providing relief to Americans of all creeds and colors when disaster strikes, let's just say that the Biden-Harris administration has broadened the agency's portfolio to include non-emergency aid to folks who aren't even supposed to be here.

[Doug]  They don't need or care about "priorities" because they can always print more money. (And then tax you on the inflation it causes...)

DougMacG

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https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/10/03/fema-is-out-of-money-for-north-carolina-and-youll-never-guess-where-it-went-n4933025

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted on Wednesday that "FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.” One reason for that is that under Biden-Harris, FEMA spent $650 million this fiscal year providing services and housing to illegal aliens. And $364 million the year before that.

If you thought the Federal Emergency Management Agency was just in the business of providing relief to Americans of all creeds and colors when disaster strikes, let's just say that the Biden-Harris administration has broadened the agency's portfolio to include non-emergency aid to folks who aren't even supposed to be here.

[Doug]  They don't need or care about "priorities" because they can always print more money. (And then tax you on the inflation it causes...)

Finally, Trump caught reading the forum:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/10/03/trump_biden_and_harris_took_1_billion_from_fema_for_migrants_now_theres_no_money_for_hurricane_recovery_in_nc_ga_sc_al_tn__fl.html

Body-by-Guinness

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A Billion Here, a Billion There, and Pretty Soon …
« Reply #1598 on: October 07, 2024, 03:13:14 PM »
… You’re talkin’ real money:

$607,187,000,000* - Tax Payer Money Wasted by the Harris / Biden Administration  *On the low end

Receipts below 👇
$233 - 521 Billion Wasted due to "Fraud"
The Government Accountability Office estimates the federal government loses between $233 billion to $521 billion annually to fraud.
PROOF: x.com/Blake_Hall/sta…

$175 Billion Wasted on War in Ukraine
There was a Treaty on the table between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, but Joe Biden sent Boris Johnson to Ukraine to tear up the Treaty. Because of that, the United States taxpayers are left to foot the bill for a war that should have been resolved.   
PROOF the war could have been resolved:
x.com/david_r_morgan…
PROOF of AMOUNT:
x.com/Jitmovin/statu…

$150 Billion Wasted on Illegal immigration
The Harris/Biden administration used 94 executive orders to reverse the Trump border policies that left us with the lowest illegal border crossings in recent history. If they had left the border policies in place, they could have saved American tax payers $150 Billion.
PROOF:
x.com/nypost/status/…

$42.45 Billion Wasted on Connected People to the Internet
After 1,038 days, not a single person has been connected to the internet. This was a complete waste as it was 100% solvable via the private sector according to the All-In Podcast from 9/20/24.
PROOF: x.com/DaveBondyTV/st…

$6.4 Billion Wasted on Being Overcharged to Build EV Charging Stations
Tax payers paid $7.5 Billion for only 8 EV charging stations to date. @elonmusk built more than 50K EV stations for only $1.1 Billion. If the US Government had contracted Musk to do the job, the Harris/Biden administration could have saved US tax payers $6.4 Billion, but they like wasting tax payer money.
PROOF:
x.com/Travis_4_Trump…

$320 Million Wasted on Pier in Gaza that blew away
I don't think this needs any explanation.
PROOF:
x.com/libsoftiktok/s…

$17 Million Wasted on for "alleged" sexual misconduct in Congressional offices
US Tax Payers should not be footing the bill for congress members who sexually harass or assault people. This is absolutely absurd. 
PROOF:
x.com/RepThomasMassi…

I have decided to keep a tally of all of the tax payers hard-earned money that the U.S. Government continues to flush down the toilet. If a CFO spent like this in the private sector, they would no longer have a job.

If I am missing something from this list, please post below so I can get it added.

https://x.com/usecommon_cents/status/1841894499049734627?s=61

DougMacG

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deficit
« Reply #1599 on: October 10, 2024, 09:12:49 PM »
The U.S. budget deficit topped $1.8 trillion in the latest fiscal year, driven by higher spending on interest and programs for older Americans, as the government faces a persistent gap between federal outlays and tax collections. The new data comes as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic pick Kamala Harris are both proposing new tax and spending plans that are estimated to add trillions more to the deficit over the next decade.  In all, the government collected $4.9 trillion in revenue and spent $6.75 trillion in the year that ended Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which issued its estimates ahead of the official administration tallies expected later this month.

Source:  CBO / WSJ.com
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/budget-deficit-national-debt-2024-079d8d13
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1.9T deficit spending above and beyond 4.9T revenues, we are spending 37% more than we take in.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2024, 06:54:47 AM by Crafty_Dog »