Senate rejects House funding bill; shutdown looms

Senate rejects House funding bill; shutdown looms.

While we chatter about superficial election debates and a falling satellite, the federal budget continues to crash and burn. What I find disturbing about the events in the Senate is this quote:

Democrats in the Senate, who are in the majority, oppose Republican efforts to roll back “green” energy programs to pay for aid for victims of Hurricane Irene and other disasters. They say disaster aid, usually a bipartisan issue, should not require cuts elsewhere — especially to programs creating green jobs — as the GOP majority in the House now demands. [emphasis mine]

So how do the Democrats expect to pay for this disaster aid? Will the money grow on trees?

New California law will require workers’ compensation benefits, rest and meal breaks and paid vacation time for…babysitters

Why no one should want to live in California: A new proposed law there would require workers’ compensation benefits, rest and meal breaks and paid vacation time for babysitters.

Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers’ compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck.

Budget Office: this year’s deficit to hit $1.28 Trillion

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this year’s deficit will be about $1.28 trillion, the third highest deficit in history, exceeded only by the previous two budgets of the Obama administration.

Note also that any cuts mentioned in the above article are not cuts, merely reductions in the overall growth of government. (Another example of a journalist lying for the government.) All told, the federal government will still continue to grow in the next few years at a pace that far exceeds inflation, the economy, or anything you can imagine in the real world.

Federal payments required by Obamacare understate the cost by as much as $50 billion

Finding out what’s in it: Federal payments required by Obamacare actually understate the cost by as much as $50 billion, according to a new study.

In May a congressional committee set the accounting rules that determine who will qualify for federal health care subsidies under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. When the committee handed down the rules to the Congressional Budget Office, its formula excluded the health care costs of millions of workers’ spouses and children. The result was a final estimate for 2010 that hides those costs.

Treasury Adds Another $20 Billion In Debt Overnight, Just $160 Billion Below Revised Ceiling

Get ready for another battle in Congress: The U.S. Treasury added another $20 billion in debt last night, putting it just $160 billion below the newly passed debt ceiling.

The total US treasury balance (subject to the ceiling) is $14.54 trillion (and $14.58 trillion for total), an increase of $20 billion overnight, the Treasury will hit its latest ceiling no later than the end of September. . . . The debt ceiling now is $14.694 trillion: a number which Tim Geithner will hit in about a month.

According to the bill that raised the debt ceiling, the ceiling is only raised in stages. The next stage of $500 billion requires Obama to request it and Congress to okay it.

The shocking true size of our nation’s debt

The day of reckoning beckons: The shocking true size of our nation’s debt.

Add it all up, and total US debt actually exceeds 900% of GDP. That’s somewhere in excess of $120 trillion. We are beginning to talk real money here.

The Congressional Budget Office [CBO] also contains bad news for those who believe that we can fix this problem simply by cutting “fraud, waste and abuse.” As CBO points out, the projected growth in the debt “is attributable entirely to increases in spending on several large mandatory programs: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and (to a lesser extent) insurance subsidies that will be provided through [Obamacare].” There is simply no way to deal with our debt problems without reforming those entitlement programs.

Finally, the CBO report makes it clear that we have a debt problem because spending is too high, not because taxes are too low. In fact, even though taxes are currently at a near historic low as a proportion of the economy, that is largely a result of the recession. If the economy returns to normal growth rates (a big “if”), federal revenues will not only rise, but will actually be higher than the postwar average percentage of GDP by the end of the decade. In fact, this will happen even if the Bush tax cuts are extended and the Alternative Minimum Tax AMT continues to be patched.

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