As many on this blog know, I have long been a critic of our sprawling national debt and reckless budgets. I admit to being adverse to our long history of kicking the can down the road with new taxes and higher budgets. Well, we are about to push our kids further into debt with an obscene $1.3 trillion budget bill. The White House and Congress yielded to virtually every temptation in adding to our national debt at a time of tremendous economic uncertainties. We have added $1 trillion to our debt in just the last six months.
The 2,232-page tax bill is bursting with massive benefits for favorable projects, including huge increase in the military budget. Speaker Paul Ryan admitted “No bill of this size is perfect.” I would call a $1.3 trillion pretty far from perfect.
The national debt is now rising 36 percent faster than the economy. What trend will not end well as we watch other countries around the world thrown into political and social chaos from years of running away spending and debt accrual. We constantly speak of our love for our children and future generations but we are leaving them with crippling debt and government bonds held by foreign powers like China.
We start this trend when we abandoned the commitment to balancing budgets and found excuses for debt accrual on promises of increased productivity or economic expansion. Politicians are always quick to find a reason why they do not have to make difficult choices in favor of spending more and more money on a leveraged debt.
Even projects removed from the budget are expected to still be funded. For example, President Trump made a big deal about cutting the rail tunnel under the Hudson River – a priority of his political rival DemocraticSenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. However, Schumer’s staff said that more than half of the $900 million is likely to still be secured this year.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul registered his frustration with a biting tweet: “It’s a good thing we have Republican control of Congress or the Democrats might bust the budget caps, fund planned parenthood and Obamacare, and sneak gun control without due process into an Omni … wait, what?”
Good! The sooner the country “hits the wall” on debt, the better. I hope it is a Greater Depression, and last about 10 or 15 years. I hope it gets sooo bad the upper 25% or so of the country can no longer pay their mortgages.
I hope it gets so bad that we finally realize importing millions of low skilled illegal aliens into the country to prop up the Democratic Party was a really bad idea, and we start deporting them, by the millions. I hope it gets so bad that we finally question the concept of paying black women to produce b*st*rd kids, once again to prop up the Democratic Party, and cut back the social welfare programs to Food Stamps and Medicaid alone. No more housing vouchers, and no extra Food Stamps beyond the first illegitimate kid.
I hope it gets so bad that we actually enforce 100 year old anti-trust and anti-consumer rip off laws against the Medical Industry. See here for the impact of this and other issues:
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3419181
I hope it gets so bad that we reform our bankruptcy laws so that anybody can file a Chapter 7, and wipe out their debts, and not be forced into a Chapter 13. And that exemptions are increased. I hope it gets so bad that people can no longer afford fast food, and start cooking their own meals again. I hope it gets so bad that retail stores flop, and people stop shopping as a feel-good mechanism. I hope it gets so bad that sky high rents end,
I hope it gets so bad that States can longer afford $500,000 and up college deans, and bloated administrative staffs. I hope it gets so bad that colleges reduce useless courses and fluff courses. I hope it gets so bad that most of the country can’t even afford college, and white people have to start working with their hands again, instead of playing with themselves behind a desk, while they watch porn. And that K-12 actually begin to provide a decent education for the average person, and the average job.
I hope it gets so bad that people cut off their cable, and their NYTs subscription. And Atlantic and Salon. I hope it gets so bad that people start going back to church, and stop buying into all the Gay Propaganda and Women’s Rights silliness. I hope it gets so bad that women decide they do need a husband. I hope it gets so bad that people start planting gardens and fruit trees in their yards.
I hope it gets so bad that we can no longer afford a military presence all over the world, and have to restrict ourselves to a few places we are actually needed.
I hope it gets so bad that we scrap the Federal Reserve system, and directly print our money into existence, which is what the future holds anyway, Greater Depression or not. I hope it gets so bad that we start rebelling against high sales taxes, and high property taxes, and simply cut back on governments at the local level. And end the practice of foreclosing on homes for property taxes.
I hope it gets so bad that we all have to live in the real world, because we will no longer have the option of throwing money at problems. That we will end the million dollar costs of executing criminals, and cut that short. One expedited appeal, and then it’s noose or bullet time. I hope it gets so bad that we end the “rap sheet as long as your arm world, and after the third felony, its capital punishment time.
I hope it gets so bad that even the little heathen black kids realize they had better take care to get a good education, because nobody is going to have any sympathy for them.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
It must have already been fairly bad in whatever shithole place raised you. (BTW: if the fat Dotard can use the word “shithole”, then so can I). Rarely do we hear such racist rantings these days, not because it’s politically incorrect, but because most white people no longer think like you do. Black people are “heathens”? This is truly ignoramus talk.
Most rational people realize that the cost of not allowing for bankruptcy protection is greater than the cost of debt relief. When they couldn’t pay their bills, people used to commit suicide, leaving women widowed and children without parents who became wards of the state and who grew up to become criminals. Because of usurious interest rates and massive cumulate “late fees”, people could literally never live long enough to get out of debt if they got sick or lost their job. Only truly ignorant people believe that personal bankruptcy is due to personal irresponsibility or poor choices. The majority (something like 90%) of personal bankruptcies are due to one or more of the following: illness or injury leading to inability to work or otherwise losing a job, unpaid medical bills, divorce or a combination of all 3. Illness, leading to loss of job, medical and other bills pile up, mortgage foreclosure gets filed, then the spouse takes off–a common scenario. While we’re on the topic of bankruptcies, what about the orange Dotard, who took business BK seven times?
As to the illegals, who employs them?–Democrats? Do Democrats mostly own hotels, restaurants, landscaping, roofing, nonunion construction businesses or employ nannies? If the wealthy Republicans running huge hotel chains, nonunion construction and roofing businesses and who use nannies and landscapers didn’t hire illegals, they wouldn’t come here. It’s the jobs that bring them and keep them, not the Democrats.
Who is the “we” you are referring to that pays (only) black women to produce illegitimate children? Do you think that black people don’t work or pay taxes? In Shitholeville, where you come from, is this the case? While you’re on a rant about how much colleges pay their administrative staff, why not riff on how much they pay their athletic directors? You speak of “fluff” college courses. Come on, admit it. You never attended college, now did you? It really shows. You wouldn’t know fluff from stuff.
So people should only read publications that you, the mayor of Shitholeville thinks is appropriate, like what, for instance? Also people shouldn’t have cable television. This was actually the plot of a Twilight Zone episode. What makes you think people don’t grow vegetables or fruit trees? I’ve done so my entire life. I also cook, sew and do my own house cleaning, have black and foreign friends, but then, I don’t live in Shitholeville.
So, only women “should decide” to marry, because things are so bad? It’s somehow wrong for a woman not to want to get married? Women having equal rights to men is “propaganda’, and ditto for gay people? I could go on and on, but what would be the point? I do find it amazing that there are still people like you out there. It’s not amazing that you are a passionate Trump supporter though.
You’re right, Squeeky. Much of what you say would be a major improvement to our lives.
(Try to ignore the knee-jerk “that’s so raaacciiissstttt” comments.)
Oh, I do. The Natachas of the world are unable to think. Plus, they live in a bubble. I just hope the bubble pops, sooner rather than late.
I have a younger relative who had to go to Idaho on business a few weeks ago. He lives in Baton Rouge, and he said it was sooo wonderful, and such a change to be in a place with so few blacks. He said he had polite white wait staff at the restaurants, and not rude, surly Negroes, and everything was sooo clean. There wasn’t trash everywhere, or black people out begging. People seemed to take pride in their city, and in their work. He said he actually felt safe.
I imagine this is what Liberal Whites who live in white enclaves feel. Because they are not around massive numbers of black kids, who I am being charitable in only calling them heathens. They are much worse. I don’t think the Natacha-types live around large numbers of blacks, so of course I come off looking like a racist, Though I am not exactly sure what a racist is anymore.
I have friends who have moved here from predominantly White areas, up North, and one in particular who was just convinced that we were all a bunch of racists down here. Within 6 months she changed her tune, and became of the “I never knew what you had to face down here” crowd.
The really bad part is, I don’t see it getting any better. The illegitimate birth rate is going up, and the family structure is going down. Soon, we will be the Congo down here.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky,…
– After ROSEEN V. IDAHO and my own personal Roseen-type “welcome to Idaho” pretext traffic stops, I bypass that state,
I don’t mind checkpoints, and have dealt with them near border areas, Hoover Dam, highways that pass thru military installations, etc.
But I can do without the hassle of some idiot on a fishing expedition tearing out after me because I have license plates from the “wrong” state.
Squeeky,..
– If you ever do visit Idaho, do not mention the band “Nickel Back”.😉😄
Rand Paul 2020
Poor Rand was sucker punched by a militant leftist neighbor all over a gardening skirmish?
I never thought much of Sen Paul but since his neighbor inflicted bodily injury on him, I became more sympathetic with the Senator and if he were to run in 2020….perhaps
Whatever became of his assailant, the anesthesiologist neighbor?
Now there is an interesting criteria for public office: the pity vote for someone who’s been wronged. I have to admit, a hell of a lot of Republicans AND Democrats, if truth were told and people could hear, wouldn’t have a prayer in the world (or even on Mars) for re-election to so much as dog-catcher unless the pity vote were the only game in town.
Johnny U.,
Rand Paul actually has some common ground with Sen. Wyden.
They’re political polar opposites in many respects, but they’ve been largely on the page when it comes to issues government massive surveillance, mega-data gathering, etc.
It is interesting that only a few people object to (or even know about) the shiny new bases we are putting in Syria. It’s weird that the MOAR was some kind of necessity. The surveillance state is necessary. Drone murder is necessary. Military contractors are a necessity. Bank bailouts are a necessity. Tax cuts for the rich are a necessity. These types of things are all going unquestioned yet they harm our society and violate the rule of law and further result in the deaths of many.
Clearly choices are being made. These choices are made by the few and for the few. We the people are paying dearly for all these oligarchs and their murder and mayhem. I don’t know why these types of things are taken at face value. I think scaring people about terrorism has been an effective stategy for the merchants of death. Fear mongering has stopped people from even questioning the giving away of our rights and our dollars on behalf of a very small group who wishes only the worst for this world and it’s peoples.
This empire is collapsing as we speak. In my lifetime, I have never seen such greedy short sighted would be masters of the universe. Though highly “educated” they certainly are stupid. Bezos paid no personal income tax. An elderly couple in their 80s owes $600.00. Tell me how that works? Tell me how that will keep working because it simply won’t.
Excellent comment Jill!
I apologize for not being around lately.
I was in Chinatown shopping for my wife’s birthday 🎂. I’m back now. So, what have I missed?
They want to do what? Without my lawyers? Yeah right.
I’ve lost how much for my shareholders? Ouch!
Populism at its finest.
http://fortune.com/2018/03/19/jared-kushner-real-estate-company-filed-false-documents/
Come to think of it, Hillary is looking like George Soros more and more
https://m.imgur.com/gallery/JTqbaWQ
Ah, yes, those damn democrats and Obama! The trump, GOP budget crushes the Obama budgets and substantially increases the debt while the economy is temporarily humming along. Amazing…. Those ‘financially responsible’ republicans show their true stripes again. During their 2018 campaigns GOP will blame democrats for any problems and say they need to cut safety net programs to balance the budget. Republican voters will chug another jug of kool aid and vote for ‘financially responsible’ republicans. SAD!
Easy way to save $13 mil. of taxpayer money per year- fire DeVos, eliminating a $1 mil. per month security detail for the most hated cabinet member (Erik Prince’s sister). Tell Mnuchin to fly commercial. He can implement the Koch economy where labor gets the lowest share of national income, just as easily without military aircraft travel. (8 trips between spring and fall of 2017 cost taxpayers $1 mil.)
That’s a tiny start, but you got the right idea. Just abolish the whole department of education. It makes people more stupider. My father had a ninth grade education in a one-room school house in rural PA during the depression. Yet, he regularly helped me with algebra in high school while I was growing up. And I don’t think he learned that in two months in Paris after he was finished working on the bridge at Remagen.
Last I looked the House of Representatives where ALL spending bills must originate has passed 11 budget packages back last year.
The Senate does not speak for congress and this particular package is an authorized spending bill it is a ROGUE bill and means nothing.
As for the pending government ‘slowdown” BFD nothing critical is affected it adds up to about 30% layoff of unecessary government employees who go on a paid later vacation
There is no Shutdown and has never been a shutdown and say didn’t they pass the package for the militry the last go round?
So what’s the big deal?
Shut it down and keep it shut down which is really not a shutdown and we balance the budget as long as we don’t call those laid off back.
Come to think of it EO political appointees as a group from the former administrations and there would be money to balance the budget, pay on the debt, build the wall, start on the infrastructure and most importantly
Trade something of no value for something of value.
Plenty of money for the merchants of death and nothing for us on Main Street.
All da money goes to oligarchs and MIC in da T rump budget. Main Street gets nothin.
Main Street gets less than nothin’.
The Koch’s NFIB and ALEC, serve big business. Big business avoids taxes and takes revenue out of communities, delivering the bulk of it to the richest 0.1%.
One huge fleecing of neighborhoods, is the forced privatization of public schools by the corporate-owned state legislatures.
jo pac
Does JT support cutting the military budget – or requiring the folks who profit from it to pay higher taxes to pay for our “defense” budget?
If you ignore that almost $1 trillion will be paid to Social Security beneficiaries; that $600 billion will be paid to Medicare beneficiaries; $400 billion to Medicaid; and $600 billion in other transfer payment programs like SNAP (what we used to call “food stamps”), Supplemental Security Income, unemployment compensation and so forth, then your comment is brilliant. Excluding all of that, there is nothing at all for Main Street.
SSI is not an entitlement, it is paid for by payroll withholdings. All others small potatoes when compared to MIC welfare.
Chop, chop. Going to take time though. People don’t take to chopping very well. Have to chop anyway.
Chop.
Reblogged this on sdbast.
A dire situation as a result from that incompetent Congress !
Funny how tax cuts for corporations and billionaires barely get a mention. We can give billions in tax cuts and then let the corporate welfare flow and fund an already bloated military budget but that’s ok. is going to their “big donors”.
One way to address deficits is to stop the obscene concentration of wealth which strangles economic growth. The economic multiplier effect doesn’t work well when 6 heirs to the Walton fortune have wealth equivalent to 40% of Americans combined nor, when labor receives the lowest share of national income in U.S. recorded history.
Turley is aboard the Pete Peterson train to eliminate Social Security and Medicare which will exacerbate the deficit problem because there will be less spent to fuel the economy, when the middle class is further squeezed out from getting the money they earned to pay for retirement and healthcare.
The net worth of the Walton family heirs has decreased by about $30 Billion, or c.20%, within the last 6 weeks.
I’m not sure what, if any, impact this will have on the U.S. budget.
Or if that drop will in some way improve the lot of “the 40% of Americans”.
But maybe another another 20% drop in their net worth will bring about more “balance” in the wealth gap. 😉😊
When stock prices rose, Allan described it as Trump’s success. Are the Walton paper losses, Trump’s failures?
The Koch’s boasted about their recent 5- year success (an anemic average 2.2% growth in GDP).
When talking to prospective donors asking them to to add to the $400,000,000 Koch commitment for 2018 elections, Charles didn’t boast about the nation’s polarization – their most profound effect.
I didn’t know that the Kochs had been in charge of the American economy, and therefore responsible for the 2.2% GDP Growth for the past 5 years.
I don’t track the “net worth” figure estimates for the richest Americans very closely, but it looks like Jeff Bezos’ net worth is now greater than that of the entire Walton family.
Just thought I’d mention it in case you wanted to use another name beside Koch, Walton, or Gates for the sake of variety.
I know you wouldn’t want to risk sounding monotonous.😒
Is Bezos spending $1 bil. on public policy, like the Waltons and Gates are, to fleece Americans of the money they intended for their kids’ education i.e. privatization of public schools? Does Bezos commit villainthropy, while getting tax deductions for it?
Villainthropists, Gates and Z-berg, are investors in the largest for-profit seller of schools-in-a-box.
I’ll add another name, N.C’s, Art Pope.
You tell me…you seem to know details from the tax returns of Bezos, the Waltons, and Gates.
Do you have a list of your favorite “oligarchs”?
You were railing against “the oligarchs, the top ,1%”, for a long time.
Bemoaning the wealth gap.
When it is expedient, the extreme wealth of certain people doesn’t seem to bother you unless you have objections political/ policy positions.
Thomas Picketty’s unassailable research documents that concentrated wealth strangles economic growth.
The second issue is governance by oligarchs. Business that directs government, especially when they are monopolistic or oligopolistic, destroy the America, for which so many have sacrificed so much (none of those sacrifices made by the current usurpers from the richest 0.1% “who eat the bread” that they stole “from those who toiled for it”- Lincoln).
Why do you think Bezos bought the Washington Post?
Bezos owns the Washington Post so you betcha his influence on public policy is yuuge. He also has a 6 mil contract with the CIA so he’s in with the Deep State. I won’t even start on his treatment of workers
Ralph Peters, former Fox analyst, “(Fox) uses scaremongering with lurid details of a ‘deep state’ “
“When stock prices rose, Allan described it as… ”
It sounds as if Linda cheers when the stock prices fall and considers falling stock prices a success. As crazy as it seems Linda thinks we would all be better off if the Waltons, Jobs, Koch’s, etc. never existed. She must have fallen on her head at an early age.
Da oligarchs and da defense companies are getting rewarded by T rump Ryan and old turtle McConnell.
Awesome news. Lets build the “WALL”.
Turquoise Linda is a catfish.
https://twitter.com/RWPUSA/status/976479291335725057
As the ancient Romans did it…bread and circuses to keep the masses distracted and quiescent.
Very little bread in this budget. In fact the GOP has already slashed the programs that provide food, heating and medical support to the poor.
Now the billionaires are getting the circuses with the billions in tax cuts and of course so are the chicken hawks with the mikitarynoarades and all.
The U.S. annual spending budget has been at about $4 Trillion in the past few years.
Annual deficits probably bottomed out at c.$450 Billion for the current fiscal year.
Those annual deficits had exceeded $1 Trillion for a few years in the Obama administration, and we’ll probably get back to annual deficits of that One$Trillion$mark within a year or two.
I’ve done a quick read of maybe 8-10 articles mentioning this “$1.3 Trillion Budget”; not one has explained the annual projected spending budget for a FULL FISCAL YEAR, projected receipts for a full F.year, and the projected deficit (spending-revenue).
Does amyone know what the “$1.3 Trillion budget is? Is this a short-term stopgap budget extension?
Maybe someone here can clarify what every article I’ve seen have muddled.
And like so many repugthuglicans that went before, the fascist wants to wage war, or continue to wage unfunded unending wars after a huge tax scam that gives even more money to the rich and corporation who haven’t paid their fair share since the ronnie ray guns days. Another crash is coming and it won’t be a recession this time. Of course the fools will still continue to lie and blame Obama.
It’s good to see you back on the blog, sgtsabai.
Without military spending, how can Blackwater’s Erik Prince afford to throw party fundraisers for Russophile Rep. Rohrbacher, featuring the Koch’s Rep. Garrett (Va.) and Ollie North?
How can Halliburton afford to move its headquarters to the Middle East?
How can Trump afford his military parade?
Linda,
It sounds like you may not know this but Erik Prince had mil contracts with Obama and Hillary’s State dept. (see Jeremy Scahill). As to all the Russia stuff, I think it’s time we bombed the UK, CA, Israel and FB, not Russia! Apparently, those were the major players in interferring with “our” elections, (along with Hillary and the DNC stealing the primary from Sanders!).
Halliburton runs no matter which party is in power. Doesn’t that ever make you wonder how that could be?
And yes, I agree. A military parade is a complete waste of money not to mention it shows who is really running things in the US.
Inconvenient fact-Trump wanted to emulate Putin by having his own parade. What next Jill, you going to defend Trump’s murder of the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, while Trump claims the guy had a heart attack in the trunk of his car?
Jillinski – wasting your time with brainless bot “Linda” =) The delusional who still cling to Dems good/Repubs bad or vice versa are being played. In the meantime the banks and corporations are having a ball.
No good rethuglicans but a few progressive dems that stand up to T rump’s pollution war machine. Now he has da very worst warmonger in da whole country workin for him. Pompeo, Bolton and the torturing CIA lady are da worst deep staters there are.
T rump and Goldman Showers Mnuchin deregulated da banks.
Autumn’s solution- Putin, President of the USA with the Koch cabinet housed in a palace while Americans spend 50% of their incomes on food, like the Russians do.
Ryan and McConnell used to be against the debt when Obama was president but once the bankruptcy King T rump took over they jumped on board da bankruptcy train. Some say they can grow their way out of it. I say with new tariffs and higher interest rates we get stagflation. Just sayin.
We can and will grow out of it. What we need is for you to grow da hex up. Please.
Linda,…
To avoid confusion, you may to add modify your username.
“Linda the Sane” might work, and everyone would know off the bat which Linda it is, and whether to read your posts or scroll past in most cases.
“add to/ modify”
Tom,
Your “sharp as a tack” ideological comrades resorting to the sophomoric?
It’s reminiscent of the ditto heads who were told that calling other people, “snowflakes”, annoyed them. Giving the conservative dimwits, the shiny object to say, led to fixation and proof of their mental defect. It’s not surprising that the conservative training manual has to be reduced to just a few simple tactics and replies, any change-ups lead to failure.
You mean sophmoric as in “touqoise catfish”?
There is a limit to people’s patience when you keep repeating the same words/ phrases hundreds of times.
As if your pet themes are somehow going to get more convincing by boring the hell out of people with senseless drivel.
That’s why some of the blunt comments to you get less and less polite or tactful…it’s bound to happen when you insist on endlessly parading your ignorance.
“less tactful or polite”, as a description for your comrades, is that one of those falsehoods demanded by the Weyrich-attributed training manual? (rhetorical and sarcastic)
Tom, there is a subset of humans that like the repetition of same words/ same phrases. That subset buys a parrot. Just consider Linda a parrot and everything makes sense.
All you have to do is feed her a few seeds and she will scream “OLIGARCH” over and over again. The problem with parrots is that they also poop making a mess of things.
Allan,
– One observation repeatedly made about her is that she is not capable of answering even the most basic queation.
But it appears that she may have the ability to answer her own”rhetorical” questions.
Debatable, but she may have that basic capacity.
“Allan, – One observation repeatedly made about her is that she is not capable of answering even the most basic queation.”
She’s a parrot.
Turqoise Linda is a catfish.
Amazing how our military is slipping behind and oh-so-broken yet it receives many hundreds of billions of dollars each and every year, far more than our adversaries combined.
It’s too bad we don’t have a businessperson running the country, who wouldn’t continue to throw more and more money at this apparent problem.