Not good: The number of available job openings in April showed the biggest drop in nearly 4 years.
And you thought Obamacare was about healthcare: The IRS’s budget has grown by almost a billion dollars due to Obamacare.
The day of reckoning looms: The debt of the federal government is projected to be nearly twice the size of the U.S. economy by 2037, the Congressional Budget Office announced Tuesday.
This CBO report actually supposed to be encouraging, as it indicates that the day of doom has been pushed back a whopping two years! Yowza! Let’s pop the corks on the champagne bottles and start celebrating!
Sadly, the article also has this ridiculous quote:
CBO’s latest prediction is similar to its 2011 report despite the $2.1 trillion in budget cuts enacted in last August’s debt-ceiling deal between the White House and Congress.
Nothing was cut by that deal. All they did was trim the rate of growth. For any journalist to continue to participate in this fraud is sickening.
The day of reckoning looms. Two stories:
“If you’re anxious, you sit on your hands.”
“The bad jobs report is just a very small taste of the nightmare that is coming.”
The day of reckoning looms: The head of the World Bank yesterday warned that Europe is heading for an economic “danger zone” as bad as 2008.
Are people getting nervous? The number of searches on Google for the phrase “bank run” has just hit an all-time high.
The day of reckoning looms: Using the budget balancing rules Congress imposed on private companies, the annual federal deficit turns out to be five times greater than the official but fake numbers Congress normally publishes.
The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules.
The deficit was $5 trillion last year under those rules. The official number was $1.3 trillion. Liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, according to government actuaries, but the amount was not registered on the government’s books.
The work is good if you can get it: Four Princeton physicists received over $1.5 million in lodging subsidies from the Department of Energy while on “temporary” assignment to other labs, even after living at that assignment for as much as 14 years.
The above story, from Science, takes a more sympathic view of this misuse of government funds. The Washington Post is more blunt:
Four high-ranking federal lab workers found a way to turn “per diem” funds for a temporary assignment into a steady flow of extra income — at taxpayers’ expense. The overpayments, discovered in an inspector general’s audit, boosted the annual pay of some of the employees by as much as $64,000.
The Department of Energy paid the four scientists roughly $1.8 million for daily lodging and “inconvenience” during assignments away from home. But these scientists were paid as if they were on temporary duty for up to 14 years — long after most had permanently relocated to job sites.
The problem with this story is that it isn’t an exception but the rule. Right now the wolves are guarding the chicken house, and they are raiding it routinely for as much cash as they can get. Consider for example last week’s story about the NIH study that has spent a billion dollars without even getting off the ground.
You give someone the equivalent of a blank check, and they will make no effort to do things efficiently, or even to do what you hired them for.
The speaker is a Republican, and he is talking correctly about the first four years of the Bush Jr. presidency.
Pitiful: Only 65% of the political class and only 61% of Democrats are aware that federal spending has gone up in the past ten years.
Interestingly, 85% of the general public knows this basic fact, which might explain why the intellectual elites of our country — from both parties — are continually being blindsided by the rise of the tea party movement and its continued success in elections.
Fiddling away: The Senate today rejected President Obama’s proposed budget 99-0.
Too bad Harry Reid won’t offer up a budget of his own. The only reason this got voted on at all was that the Republicans forced a vote.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government fell another several billion dollars into debt even as the vote was being taken.
Another Obama tech wonder company dies: LightSquared has filed for bankruptcy.
From the beginning engineers were saying that LightSquared’s system would interfere with GPS. The only reason the company lasted as long as it did was because it had the political backing of the Obama administration. And the reason it had that backing is because the company’s CEO was a big supporter of Obama.
The day of reckoning looms: The federal government is liable for approximately $850 billion in student loans, and the number of borrowers defaulting on these loans is on the rise.
The day of reckoning looms: A new official report released yesterday predicts that Social Security will run out of money three years earlier than previously predicted.
The day of reckoning looms: The credit rating of the United States government has been downgraded again.
Modern doublethink: The Obama administration’s treasury secretary admitted Wednesday that the federal government’s debt is “unsustainable,” but then added that solving the problem shouldn’t be a top priority, because the government still needs to “do things.”
Geithner’s refusal to confront what he admits is a looming disaster illustrates for all to see the normal operating policies of this administration.
Another wise investment of the Obama administration: The world’s largest solar power project, recipient of the second largest ever Department of Energy loan guarantee, has filed for bankruptcy.
Update and correction: It turns out that the company was offered the DOE loan guarantee, but turned it down. Read this second article. The facts it describe make the decisions of the Obama administration seem beyond foolish.
Our government at work: The chief of the General Services Administration has resigned and two of her top deputies have been fired for organizing an excessively expensive training conference at a luxury hotel.
Organizers spent $835,000 on the event, which was attended by 300 employees. The expenses included $147,000 in airfare and lodging at the hotel for six planning trips by a team of organizers. Among the other expenses were $3,200 for a mind reader; $6,300 on commemorative coin set displayed in velvet boxes and $75,000 on a training exercise to build a bicycle. [emphasis mine]
They made six separate trips to this Las Vegas hotel in order to plan a four-day conference?
The sad part is that this kind of spending abuse is actually quite normal in the federal government. I’ve seen it at multiple science conferences and press conferences. Lots of free food, fancy digs at cool locations. And all paid for by the taxpayer.
The House today passed the Republican 2013 budget, 228-191.
Ten Republicans voted no. All Democrats voted no.
Though this budget might not be perfect, at least it makes an effort to face the budget situation. Note also that the Democrats have now rejected their own President’s budget as well as the Republican budget. In addition, the Democratic leadership in the Democratically-controlled Senate has already said they won’t pass a budget this year, the fourth year in a row.
The country is sinking in debt caused by the federal government. It behooves these elected officials to deal with it. That the Democrats won’t tells us much about their lack of qualifications for office.
Breaking news! The federal debt has increased more during Obama’s three years in office than it did during Bush’s eight year presidency.
Both Presidents spent uncontrollably. Obama has just been the most uncontrollable of all, at least up to now.
New budget estimates by the Congressional Budget Office say that the proposed 2013 Obama budget will increase the federal debt by $3.5 trillion.
The day of reckoning looms: The federal government recorded its worst monthly deficit in history in February 2012.
The [Congressional Budget Office] projected the government will run a deficit of $229 billion in February, the highest monthly figure ever. The previous high was $223 billion a year ago, in February 2011. It is the 41st straight month the government has run a deficit — itself a record streak that dates back to the final months of President George W. Bush’s tenure. Before now, the longest streak on record was 11 months.
Obviously, this record-setting deficit is racist for occurring during the term of Barack Obama.
The White House chart that illustrates the irresponsible nature of Obama’s proposed budget.
Yes, that’s right, the chart is from the White House itself, which means they themselves know how useless their proposed budget is, and how little they care. More here, including video of a truly entertaining but clarifying exchange between Congressman Paul Ryan and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
From Obama’s own Treasury Secretary, describing Obama’s own budget proposal:
Even if Congress were to enact this budget we would still be left with – in the outer decades as millions of Americans retire – what are still unsustainable commitments in Medicare and Medicaid.
The day of reckoning looms.
California: Running out of other people’s money.
The bigger picture: The White House has confirmed that the Obama 2013 budget proposal to be announced on Monday will predict a $1.3 trillion deficit in 2012, and only try to shrink that to $900 billion in 2013.
Numbers like this demonstrate the need for further budget cuts, even in areas that I think are important, such as space exploration. However, these numbers also illustrate one clear fact: the Obama administration is not serious about balancing the budget. That the administration has applied the knife to the Mars planetary program while allowing other less successful NASA programs to flourish proves this administration’s poor sense of priorities in these difficult financial times.
More thoughts next week.
