38 Replies to “$16 trillion”

  4. As bad As the us real debt is, it is dwarfed by the unfunded entitlement liabilities – north of 65 trillion if I recall. That is the real legacy of the influence of the democratic party since FDR.

  5. Yes, but NOW!,NOW!, President Obama’s gonna do the “hope and change” thing,and he’s gonna FIX America good!
    You just wait. Keep the faith. Re-elect the President and in 2016, you’ll see the numbers are WAY different!
    Probably 32 trillion.

  6. Sorry no link , I don’t remember where I saw it. The fed just had a partial audit of emergency funds and surprise another 16 trillion the federal government owes.

  8. Here’s an excellent post from the thread that should be required reading for the left.
    The day the Democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, it was actually January 3rd 2007,the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress.
    The Democratic Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995. For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is “Bush’s Fault”, think about this: January 3rd, 2007, the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress: The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77 The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5% The Unemployment rate was 4.6% George Bush’s Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!
    Remember that day… January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee. The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy? BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES! THANK YOU DEMOCRATS (especially Barney ) for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment…to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES! (BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie -starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy). Barneyblocked it and called it a “Chicken Little Philosophy” (and the sky did fall!) And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? OBAMA and the Democrat Congress, especiallyBARNEY!!!!
    So when someone tries to blame Bush… REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007…. THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!” Bush may have been in the car but the Democrats were in charge of the gas pedal and steering wheel they were driving the economy into the ditch. Budgets do not come from the White House.. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party. Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 & 2011. In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.
    For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budget. And where was Barack Obama during this time?He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009. Let’s remember what the deficits looked like during that period: If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.
    If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself. In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is “I inherited a deficit that I voted for, and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.”

  10. If you ask me its been the last 3 presidents that have destroyed a Nation. The Party was in the 90’s, the hangover from 2000 till now. America has woken up from its stupor to the fact they gambled their home, business, & car away on Obama’s Vegas casino of socialism.
    It took 3 presidents to get there , but the last was the bankruptcy King.

  11. Noticed on the sidebar a story about bedbugs at the DNC hotels.Why is that a surprise?
    And gord tulk is right.What are the parasites going to do when they want their pensions,healthcare,houses,vacations,etc? $65 trillion ain’t peanuts.

  12. I agree Gord, it’s the “Elephant in the room”. There are some very enlightening pictorial graphs that demonstrate the grave situation you mention. The GOP should be using these.
    With the debt now crossing the 16T mark; NOW is the time to blitz the media and remind Americans that Joe Biden said this…
    “Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’. The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”
    IMO the aforementioned quote/belief, if correctly used, is absolutely DEVESTATING to the Obama campaign. Let’s see if the Romney campaign agrees.

  14. Gee, only $16 trillion squandered and they haven’t figured out the law of diminishing returns yet?
    The United States of Austerity, coming to a country near you soon.

  15. If the Republicans were smart they would have bought ad time on all the major networks that are broadcasting the DNC and just show the debt clock running with a narrator saying ‘brought to you by Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.
    The question I ask myself is can anyone turn the situation around? Currently, one half of Americans die with less than $10,000 in assets, one third of them believe they will not be able to retire and most of the middle class has no savings for retirement, they are depending on Social Security, which is an IOU from the US Treasury to itself. The unfunded liabilities of the US government are (depending on who is doing the calculation) either 114 Trillion or 135 Trillion. Granted the US economy is still the biggest in the world but is the inertia so great that there is no way to stop and engage reverse gear before the cliff?

  16. Paul Martin for president! SERIOUSLY.
    Uh Dave, it’s true that the Dems took both chambers but Bush still spent money that didn’t exist. He had a veto pen he seldom wielded. This is totally his fault as much as Obama. Maybe more, since Bush actually increased spending by more than Obama.

  20. About 30 percent of the gross debt is intergovernmental transfers,
    such as borrowing from Social Security’s trust fund.
    that stood at $11.273 trillion as of Friday. That’s a jump of nearly $60 billion in one day.
    –
    Ha.
    We are too big to fail,
    we spend more money in one day than Canada spends in a year.
    Screw John Gault.

  21. Off topic. The dnc just released a video that stated “the government is the only thing we all belong to.” Hot Air and Drudge have it. I do not belong to the borg, or the collective or the government. Clint had it right they are suppose to work for us.

  22. “maybe more, since Bush actually increased spending by more than Obama.
    Posted by: LAS at September 4, 2012 7:02 PM
    losers are stupid….links please.

  23. Maybe more, since Bush actually increased spending by more than Obama.
    —said LAS
    well that is just as true as the fact the moon is six times larger than planet earth
    Any other truths you want to share?

  24. dave at September 4, 2012 5:24 PM
    I’m not clear on who wrote that?
    where did you find it?
    I have to show it to a few people, hopefully make them snap out of their delusional state

  25. As you can see, from 2000 to 2008, under President Bush, Federal spending rose by $1.3 trillion, from $1.9 trillion a year to $3.2 trillion a year.
    From 2009 to 2011, meanwhile, under President Obama, federal spending has risen by $600 billion, from $3.2 trillion a year to $3.8 trillion a year. It has also now begun to decline.
    In other words, federal government spending under President Bush increased 2X as much as it has under President Obama.
    Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-11/news/29984054_1_federal-president-obama-debt#ixzz25YW7f5Gn
    http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-11/news/29984054_1_federal-president-obama-debt
    Let the tears flow.

  26. there would be tears if what you said mattered
    but it does not
    one area where Bush spent more is irrelevant since the bottom line is that Obama is outspending all other presidents before him
    if you cherry pick we could argue for 3 days and 3 nights
    but I only look at the bottom line as that is the only thing that matters
    and Obama is FAR worse than ANY other president
    did you click on the link?
    Debt has risen at a meteoric pace under Mr. Obama — in less than four years in office he has already eclipsed President George W. Bush’s eight years.

    what part of “eclipsed President George W. Bush’s eight years.” do you not understand???

  27. Hey, LAS,
    The AP, “Fact Check: Obama’s thrifty spending claim uses some creative accounting”
    http://tinyurl.com/cqt5xhw
    Per the CBO: The federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2012 (which ends on September 30) will total $1.1 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates, marking the fourth year in a row with a deficit of more than $1 trillion. That projection is down slightly from the $1.2 trillion deficit that CBO projected in March.1 At 7.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), this year’s deficit will be three-quarters as large as the deficit in 2009 when measured relative to the size of the economy. Federal debt held by the public will reach 73 percent of GDP by the end of this fiscal year—the highest level since 1950 and about twice the 36 percent of GDP that it measured at the end of 2007, before the financial crisis and recent recession.

  28. Al_in_Ottawa: the question you ask is interesting. The situation will be resolved either by action taken by the US government or by letting nature take its course.
    Simply cutting spending might balance the operating budget, but it won’t get close to dealing with the unfunded liabilities. The size of the unfunded liabilities are so large that the only way to contain them is to restrict entitlements. If not restricted, then the liabilities will sooner or later bankrupt the country all by themselves irrespective of what happens to the operating budget.
    So, when the US government goes bust several things can happen. First, it no longer honours its liabilities, meaning that veterans and civil servants no longer get their pension cheques. Or, given the huge oversupply of US dollars in circulation, those dollars hyper-inflate into meaninglessness. This results in a decades long depression making the 1930s look like a picnic. Spain in the 17th and 18th Centuries offers a good illustration.
    There are two kinds of delusions operating here. The Republican delusion is that it can manage its finances without new revenues. For the past two decades, more and more wage earners have been vanishing off the tax rolls because of reductions in income tax at the low end. This has to stop. The US cannot simply cut its way to operating balance; it needs to restore some revenues.
    And it has to restore some revenues because, like all of the Western nations, the years of 6+% average annual economic growth are gone for the foreseeable future.
    The second and even worse delusion is the Democrat one that this can be fixed by increasing taxes on the high end of the income spectrum. There are a host of problems with the Democrat delusion, but probably the most obvious one is that all this money is relatively mobile. Just like Sweden and Britain, it will flee to friendlier climates.
    So, the US needs to do two things:
    1. introduce a VAT of about 5%. That will generate tax revenue from those that now pay none at all.
    2. Curtail the unfunded liabilities to what the US government can afford.
    Both will be painful. Both will unquestionably result in an election loss for the administration that introduces them. And both will produce recessionary effects. But until you see the US discussing both of these proposals, you know they are not serious about their financial cliff.

  29. Lou and CF miss my point which was that Bush increased spending at a faster rate than Obama. Obama spent more in total and racked up more debt to be sure.
    The only good tax is a consumption tax. Let the GST reign.

  32. LAS
    your point is moot
    you may as well tell me my cheeseburger and coke was more fattening than your three cheeseburger and your two fries because you drank a diet soda
    if you only look at the sodas yes you saved a few calories
    but it would be ridiculous to do that
    the bottom line is Obama is spending MORE than any other president before him

  34. Obama, where did the money go? After all, $5 trillion is an awful lot of money. I don’t here Soros a-bitchin’

  35. As far as who grew their spending more, Obama or Bush, who cares. The US economy was overburdened with debt which is part of the reason Bush got fired. Obama has greatly exacerbated this problem and his now clearly government centric view of leadership has been a disaster, so he must now be fired. Maybe I’m deluding myself, but don’t the Dems seem really tired and desperate?
    The VAT debate is way more interesting IMO.
    Obviously a pure VAT (no exemptions) is the most efficient form of tax. Even the Keynseians should love this tax, as governments can accumulate fat surpluses in boom times and use fiscal policy to stimulate the economy in recession.
    A pure VAT doesn’t tax investment and saving, at all. The more people consume the more they pay; simple enough right. Oh wait it a minute it isn’t “progressive” (graduated rates) so the rich swine get to have a good time and PAY NO INCOME TAX AT ALL, those racist, honky, clearly white human haters. It’s soooooo regressive, even though, like present tax systems, they pay much more than the poor. No we must make the rich poorer for the sake of social justice.
    Unless they’re really cool like athletes, performers and actors, except Clint Eastwood.
    Seriously, the problem with a VAT is structure and implementation. I know of no pure VAT; they’ve simply replaced other sales taxes and have been raised (as in the obscene BC example). Most importantly, they are paid for with after income tax dollars which destroys their economic efficiency.
    All other taxes must be eliminated for a VAT to work; it fails miserably as an adjunct to income tax.
    This of course leads to the problem of implementation. When nearly 50% of your population doesn’t pay income tax, a VAT will be very unpopular. Additionally some groups like seniors who, having paid piles of income tax are now faced with a something like 20% HST, when they have finally minimized income tax exposure.
    Yes, any party that introduced a pure VAT policy, with zero adjustment, would get slaughtered in a election, and would deserve their fate. Governments must be courageous, not suicidal when they introduce VAT. It must be accompanied by massive income, investment tax cuts, with a time-bounded plan for their complete elimination. Yes, the casualties must be treated (a temporary VAT credit system) while the economy invigorates itself with investment freed from taxation.
    That courage does not yet exist. The closest was the Mulroney administration that had developed VAT models of the economy while studying the idea before being scared off by the GST brouhaha. Again, their error was thinking income taxes and VATs could work together. They can’t because income tax exhausted consumers are infuriated with a value added tax.

  36. Sorry, it was just Bush’s admimistration/GOP who got fired. McCain was just a weak candidate who couldn’t deal with the American guilt ridden catharsis of 2008.

  37. cgh at 1025pm. I see your point about the mobility of money, but I seem to remember that Bill Whittle created a video entitled ‘Eat the Rich’ where he demonstrated that if the US government seized all the assets of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and the other 400 US billionaires, all the profit of the Fortune 500 companies and taxed 100% of income over $250,000 it would not pay for the 2011 federal expenditures. I think Iowahawk is the original creator of the story.
    I am trying to learn economics, working my way slowwwly through Road to Serfdom right now. All I know for sure is that whatever happens in the USA, it’s going to hurt, and it could go Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe hyper-inflation bad if there is any more kicking the can down the road.
    There is a huge number of people in the USA who wait until the first of each month when the government direct deposits to their EBT accounts to go shopping for food, diapers etc. What happens when the welfare class goes to buy something and their magic EBT cards do not work? Or the 46 million people on FoodStamps can no longer purchase food?
    Racial and class violence are definite possibilities. When spoiled children are denied their perceived entitlements they lash out at whomever they believe is ‘cheating’ them of what they feel is their due. Rioting and looting the stores will feed them for a couple of days and then few of the surviving store owners will be able or willing to restock their shelves. Large cities depend on thousands of tons of foodstuffs coming in every day, if the tonnage decreases significantly because stores can or will not restock and/or truckers will not drive in for fear of being hijacked, there will either be a mass exodus, starvation, a huge relief effort or some combination of those three.
    That is why this election is pivotal for the USA and also for Canada. If our major trading partner goes down the drain we will be hurt too.

  38. Bush pushed the debt to 11 trillion and the Dems just added to that – the Washington spendo-o-crats are all gulty regardles of the stripes they wear.
    As for 16 trillion, that is lower than the 17.8 trillion I read about in the financial forecasts 3 years ago – seems the debt magically shrinks or balloons depending on who is using it as a political football at the time.

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