Posts tagged Barack Obama
Obama Budget: Spend More To Reduce The Deficit
Feb 2nd
When I hear the term “spending freeze” I think no more additional spending, but apparently there is a different definition used by Obama. To him it means no additional funding to certain projects, but other programs may continue to spend.
I just don’t see how increasing spending by over $3 trillion will help cut the national debt. To me spending more money means you go deeper in debt. Does the government have a different set of mathematical rules?
The Obama Budget: Higher Taxes, Higher Spending and More Debt
President Barack Obama will submit a $3.8 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2011 to Congress today. One might hope that given last year’s $1.4 trillion budget deficit was an all-time high and the President promised a spending “freeze” in last week’s State of the Union, this budget might signal a change in direction from the White House. No such luck. President Obama’s new budget is full of billions of dollars in new spending for failed government programs, higher taxes on American families and businesses, and deficit spending for as far as the eye can see.
At the very least, the budget document President Obama is submitting today exposes his spending “freeze” promise for the fraud that it is. As outlined last week, the administration would halt spending increases for only a $447 billion sliver of our total budget, with a total of $15 billion to be saved. That is less than half a percent off of last year’s spending. Worse, this isn’t even an across-the-board spending freeze; it is an aggregate one. So “spending cuts” in parts of the budget are immediately channeled to others. For example, even though the federal government does not need any money for the Census next year, President Obama counts the $5 billion spent this year as a “spending cut” that can be immediately spent on other government programs, such as a16% increase in Department of Education funding, a 6.8% increase in Department of Energy funding, and increases for ineffective Health and Human Services programs like Head Start and sex education.
Given the best case scenario, the most the White House hopes to save from this supposed spending “freeze” is$15 billion. And that is easily dwarfed by just the $100 billion President Obama wants for his Economic Stimulus II plan. Then there are the tax hikes, including higher taxes on families earning more than $250,000 and a brand new tax on financial institutions to pay for the failed automobile union bailout.
And what is the end result of all of President Obama’s new taxes and spending? A record national debt. According to the White House Office of Management and Budget, the United States will post a $1.556 trillion deficit in fiscal 2010, which the Obama administration claims will be reduced to $1.267 trillion in fiscal 2011, thanks to their budget. Given this administration’s budget forecasting record, however, expect that final deficit number to go up. The Obama administration now forecasts $5.08 trillion in debt over the next five years; that is 35% more debt than they forecast just 12 months ago.
A common sense budget would move our country in a much different direction. For starters, the remaining TARP and stimulus funds should both be rescinded. Next, instead of the President’s fungible “aggregate” spending freeze, tough hard spending caps should be enacted. Finally, Congress should disclose the massive unfunded obligations of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; put those programs on long-term budgets; and enact the necessary entitlement and programmatic reforms that can keep government within those limits. –more
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Proposal Set to Limit Success in Banking
Jan 21st
Now I am confused. The Democrats lose a Senate seat to the Republicans so Obama takes it out on Wall Street by bringing back laws similar to those from the depression. The banks will be losing all of the most profitable practices and be cut down to holding deposits and giving loans. No more investing, etc.
This seems odd to me. The banks and large financial institutions made a lot of money and took advantage of government programs and risky investments. They should have been allowed to fail, but instead the government taught them that if they need more money they can get it from the government.
Now the government wants to make laws to limit the successfulness of a bank.
If we were to look at how the government has spent money then the people should be allowed to step in and fire the management, the politicians. Non-essential programs would be cut, which would be most of them.
Instead the government is set to raise the deficit to over $14 Trillion and has voted to spend $40,000,000+ on land in the Virgin Islands.
That is how the government plans to solve our its economic problems?
Proposal Set to Curb Bank Giants
President Barack Obama on Thursday is expected to propose new limits on the size and risk taken by the country’s biggest banks, marking the administration’s latest assault on Wall Street in what could mark a return, at least in spirit, to some of the curbs on finance put in place during the Great Depression, according to congressional sources and administration officials.
The past decade saw widespread consolidation among large financial institutions to create huge banking titans. If Congress approves the proposal, the White House plan could permanently impose government constraints on the size and nature of banking.
Mr. Obama’s proposal is expected to include new scale restrictions on the size of the country’s largest financial institutions. The goal would be to deter banks from becoming so large they put the broader economy at risk and to also prevent banks from becoming so large they distort normal competitive forces. It couldn’t be learned what precise limits the White House will endorse, or whether Mr. Obama will spell out the exact limits on Thursday.
Mr. Obama is also expected to endorse, for the first time publicly, measures pushed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, which would place restrictions on the proprietary trading done by commercial banks, essentially limiting the way banks bet with their own capital. Administration officials say they want to place “firewalls” between different divisions of financial companies to ensure banks don’t indirectly subsidize “speculative” trading through other subsidiaries that hold federally insured deposits. –more
CASTLE NUGENT NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE .
(a) Establishment- There is established as a unit of the National Park System the Castle Nugent National Historic Site on the Island of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, in order to preserve, protect, and interpret, for the benefit of present and future generations, a Caribbean cultural landscape that spans more than 300 years of agricultural use, significant archeological resources, mangrove forests, endangered sea turtle nesting beaches, an extensive barrier coral reef system, and other outstanding natural features.
(b) Boundaries- The historic site consists of the approximately 2,900 acres of land extending from Lowrys Hill and Laprey Valley to the Caribbean Sea and from Manchenil Bay to Great Pond, along with associated submerged lands to the three-mile territorial limit, as generally depicted on the map titled `Castle Nugent National Historic Site Proposed Boundary Map’, numbered T22/100,447, and dated October 2009.
(c) Map Availability- The map referred to in subsection (b) shall be on file and available for public inspection in the appropriate offices of the National Park Service, Department of the Interior.
(d) Acquisition of Land-
(1) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in paragraph (2), the Secretary is authorized to acquire lands and interests in lands within the boundaries of the historic site by donation, purchase with donated or appropriated funds, or exchange.
(2) U.S. VIRGIN ISLAND LANDS- The Secretary is authorized to acquire lands and interests in lands owned by the U.S. Virgin Islands or any political subdivision thereof only by donation or exchange. –more
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