3rd Largest Single-Day Debt Increase - Let's Blame Bush

"White House officials said that big a jump is not the norm and that Mr. Obama has worked with the hand he was dealt by Mr. Bush." (from the Washington Times article linked below.)

The rhetoric is getting really tired. (If Obama didn't like to inherit what was there, he didn't have to run for presidency.)

U.S. marks 3rd-largest, single-day debt increase
(Stephen Dinan, 7/8/2010 Washington Times)

"The nation's debt leapt $166 billion in a single day last week, the third-largest increase in U.S. history, and it comes at a time when Congress is balking over higher spending and debt has become a key policy battleground.

"The one-day increase for June 30 totaled $165,931,038,264.30 - bigger than the entire annual deficit for fiscal year 2007 and larger than the $140 billion in savings the new health care bill will produce over its first 10 years. The figure works out to nearly $1,500 for every U.S. household, or more than 10 times the median daily household income.

"Daily debt calculations jump and fall, and big shifts are common. But all three of the biggest one-day debt increases have occurred under the tenure of President Obama, and all of the top six have been in the past two years - an indication of just how quickly the pace of deficit spending has risen under Mr. Obama and President George W. Bush.

""What matters is the overall trend line, and the overall trend line is shooting up," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan deficit watchdog group, who said it is one more reason for a fiscal wake-up call." [Emphasis is mine.. The article continues.]

$166 billion, by the way, is about 29% of the entire public debt of Greece.

In case you haven't noticed, there are an increasing number of pundits (analysts, court-economists) these days who basically call this aversion to government spending by the tax-paying middle class as "austerity hysteria" or "deficit hysteria" that would stifle the economic "growth" at best, and would plunge the entire world into deflationary depression at worst.

Tax-paying middle class (or what's left of it) wanting the government to stop wasting their money is "hysteria" in this new age of Obamanomics, Newspeak and Crimestop.

By the way, to avoid this "hysteria", Congressional Democrats have gone stealth. The article duly notes later:

"Fears over red ink have stalled key parts of Mr. Obama's agenda in Congress in recent weeks, including his push for another round of stimulus spending. Just last week, House Democrats had to use a tricky parliamentary tactic to pass an emergency war-spending bill, aid for teachers and new spending caps."

Yup. The Supplemental Appropriation Bill of 2010 included $25 billion to be given to the public union workers - teachers, firefighters, and policemen, who enjoy much securer job prospect in this worst recession since the GD and higher average pay than the private sector workers, and many of whom will retire as "millionaires" (as their pensions will be worth $millions, to be paid by the taxpayers as their pension funds are almost all underfunded).

May I recommend reading this article by Lew Rockwell for a start, on how to beat back Obamanomics which is the result from almost willful ignorance of economics?

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Senate Passes $1.1 Trillion Spending Bill

on Sunday. Since when have they been this hard-working?

On the 57-35 vote, the U.S. Senate approved $1.1 trillion spending bill on Sunday and sent the bill to Obama to sign.

Senate sends $1.1 trillion spending bill to Obama
(12/13/09 AP via Yahoo Finance)

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Sunday passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill with increased budgets for vast areas of the federal government, including health, education, law enforcement and veterans' programs.

"The more-than-1,000-page package, one of the last essential chores of Congress this year, passed 57-35 and now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature.

"The weekend action underlined the legislative crush faced by Congress as it tries to wind up the year. After the vote, the Senate immediately returned to the debate on health care legislation that has consumed its time and energy for weeks. Senate Democrats hope to reach a consensus in the coming days on Obama's chief domestic priority.

"The spending bill combines six of the 12 annual appropriation bills for the 2010 budget year that began Oct. 1. Obama has signed into law five others.

"The final one, a $626 billion defense bill, will be used as the base bill for another catch-all package of measures that Congress must deal with in the coming days. Those include action to raise the $12.1 trillion debt ceiling and proposals to stimulate the job market."

Here are some items in the bill I gleaned out of the article:

• $447 billion for departmental operating budgets(the departments are part of the Executive Branch of the government) - 10% increase over last year;
• $640 billion for federal benefit programs (Medicare, Medicaid);
• 2 % pay raise for federal workers.

The average pay of the federal workers is $71,206, with those workers receiving 6-figure compensations dramatically increasing. In contrast, the average pay of the private sector is $40,331. (Read this article on USA Today, on 12/11/09.) That means federal workers earn, on average, 76.6% more than private sector workers.

So, with $1.1 trillion just for federal government spending, and $626 billion defense bill still to come, the total is already $1.726 trillion. And the Congressional Democrats want to raise the debt limit by $1.8 trillion so that they can avoid an embarrassing situation of having to raise that again in the election year. Good luck with that.

Here's an interesting chart I created by changing parameters from the original chart at usgovernmentspending.com. It is a chart of the government's deficit spending as percentage of national GDP, since 1792. Notice four sharp spikes; they correspond to war-time spending - Civil War, World War I, and World War II, except the current one. The current deficit spending binge has already surpassed the Civil War level, and approaching the World War I level. It looks it would take a gargantuan effort for the President to match FDR, but never say never, particularly when he has a self-proclaimed expert on the Great Depression as the Federal Reserve chairman.



Well I guess you could say the current one is also a war-time spending. The U.S. are indeed still fighting a war in Iraq, another one in Afghanistan, another covert one in Pakistan, and may set to embark on yet another (Iran, anyone?). You could say also that the government is waging war against its own citizens by rapidly eroding what remains of civil liberty and free market.

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