The Federal Budget Plan 2-2-10 - February 2, 2010
FEDERAL BUDGET 2-2-10
Happy Groundhogs Day! And by that I mean, welcome to the movie – because once you read the budget plan from Obama you will feel like you are in the movie. It is just the same thing over again.
The government freezes he mentioned are lip service. The savings are miniscule and the spending proposed more grandiose than 2009 and the George Bush years. His proposed budget will hit a record 25.4% of the GNP. Record levels not seen since World War II! The President says this is not to be continued and that in a few years the budget will drop back to only 23% of GNP. HELLO… the 40 year average is 20.7% of the GNP. Last I checked 23% is still significantly higher than 23%. I guess he believes we are idiots and will think he “saved” us 2.4% and not increased 2.3% over the 40 year average. And this year his proposed budget will have the deficit at 10.6% of the GNP. In a time of high deficits, potentially increasing interest rates and limiting markets to buy our debt the proposed budget is at record spending levels with no attempts to balance the budget.
Packed into his proposed budget is a 29% increase in public assistance program and making some government entitlement programs a permanent mandatory funding expense by the government. This is intended to be a permanent part of budget from this day forward. And lets not overlook the $634 billion for a “health care reserve fund” and $250 billion for another TARP bailout for banks.
How are we going to pay for it? They have no idea. There is a proposed $2Trillion tax increase, which includes increasing capital gains from 15-20%. There is a projected $600+ billion over 8 years in “revenues” from capping green house gasses (ie: taxes to business for cap & trade – remember, that is the plan that will “necessarily skyrocket the cost of electricity” per Obama). In addition there are proposed “US International Tax Reform measures” to increase taxes on companies overseas. This was something the White House agreed not to do last year when seeking help from business to pass healthcare. Is this dropped because healthcare is dead? Absolutely not… And even these measures do not cover the proposed spending.
What is he forgetting? The elephant in the living room of course. The projected soaring costs of Medicare, Medicaid and social security as the baby boomers become eligible during this decade. I am certain he believes this “deficit neutral” healthcare plan will save the country from Medicare bankruptcy but the reality is healthcare is not deficit neutral and the Medicare crisis is upon us.
So overall, Obama is spending at a rate that far exceeds any prior administration. He is still trying to force expensive Cap & Trade and Healthcare on us- both programs with little public support. He grandiosely proposes other increases in spending in government entitlement programs. All the while ignoring a looming Medicare problem and disregarding the concept of a balanced budget to prevent further addition to the deficit (not reduce just not make worse). Welcome to Groundhogs Day take 2.
**most figures of the budget and percentages to the GNP came from the Wall Street Journal.
No tags for this post.
Leave a Reply