Spending Us Right Off the Cliff

Every single day I'm more and more flabbergasted at the current administration's ability to spend money we don't have. The national debt is set to skyrocket over the next decade, which is strange considering Obama railed against President Bush and the amount of debt he racked up. I don't see how you can say X amount of debt is bad, but quadrupling it is good. What's more amazing is how they spin it back on the Bush administration. But a simple examination of the past 60 days shows just how frail that argument really is. I think we can thank the stimulus bill, the omnibus spending bill, and pending spending for abyss we are heading into at lightning speed.

In no way do I mean this in a good way, but the Bush administration left Washington with a roughly $450 billion deficit. USA Today had it lower at only $410 billion and the ultra-liberal Huffington Post put it at $482 billion, so I think $450 billion is a good middle ground. Either way you look at it that is a lot of money. Note that the $482 billion number was an estimated number for FY2009.

Next, let's look at the updated projected deficit for fiscal year 2009 since the new administration took over. The Congressional Budget Office just released a study that estimates FY2009's deficit at closer to $1.8 trillion!!! Even more scary, the CBO predicts that the Obama spending spree will land us with a $9.3 trillion deficit by 2019. Did you catch that? That is nearly 22 times worse than the Bush deficit. That number is a little more than $2 trillion worse than the current administration was predicting. I thought this interview with Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, was interesting. It points out why the difference exists in Obama's numbers and the CBO's. Ultimately it looks like the administrations forecasts are extremely optimistic. The Wall Street Journal has a more detailed analysis as well.

And while we are on the topic of how Obama is running us off the economic cliff, let's discuss how he's going to tax us all to death. Just a few weeks ago he announced his plans for a cap-and-trade plan that would tax our energy producers. The estimate from the White House is that it would raise $646 billion of revenue. But that money has to come from somewhere. When your local electric compnay all of sudden has to pay for these carbon credits they are not going to eat the loss. They are going to pass those costs right on to you. Same with the oil, natural gas, and coal companies. The cost of energy is going to go through the roof. But here's the problem, the $646 billion has been upgraded to $2 trillion. That's three times worse than originally estimated.

Atleast they aren't underestimating anything else. Oh, wait, I guess they did it with the health care overhaul as well. Obama originally said it was $634 billion, but its gonna be more like $1.5 trillion.

This is pure madness. When are the American people going to stand up and revolt?