“I must confess, when I see anyone with an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool.” Allen West
Yesterday I saw a new bumper sticker in Maryland, “Obama cares.” President Obama and his administration must care a whole lot – they love to spend so much money that we are running up a projected fifth year of $1 trillion deficit spending.
The national debt clock is changing red numbers as fast I can focus, reflecting the out-of-control spending in Washington and the weak value of the dollar in conjunction with our disastrous energy policy, high unemployment rates, comatose economic growth, and the rapid rise in welfare.
The public debt today is nearing $16 trillion while U.S. tax revenues are a mere $2.3 trillion. U.S. debt interest alone in 2012 is $3.9 trillion. U.S. debt held by foreign countries is approximately $5.4 trillion.
Total national assets, including small businesses, corporations and households are $91.3 trillion. If we sold them at some unprecedented national auction, that would not be enough to cover the total U.S. unfunded liabilities (Social Security, prescription drugs, Medicare) which are fast approaching $120 trillion.
Maybe we have enough cash to pay off our national debt? The Federal Reserve (Fed) monetary base is $2.7 trillion, M2 money supply is $9.9 trillion, and Treasury securities $1.2 trillion, for a total currency and credit derivatives (created and bogus money) of $734 trillion.
Maybe we produce enough goods and services in a year (GDP) to cover our national debt and insane spending? U.S. gross domestic product is $15.3 trillion, a drop in the bucket when compared to the federal, state, and local government spending of nearly $7 trillion.
The following ratios paint a very ugly picture of our economy as well.
The ratio of spending to GDP is 44.2 percent.
The ratio of gross debt to GDP is 104.19 percent.
The ratio of revenue to GDP is 32.32 percent.
The largest budget items of the federal spending are listed below. The sad part is that, if I log onto the debt clock.org later today, the numbers would have changed very rapidly up or down, generally up.
– Medicare/Medicaid ($798 billion)
– Social Security ($740 billion)
– Defense/Wars ($673 billion)
– Income Security ($371 billion)
– Net Interest on Debt ($226 billion)
– Federal Pensions ($214 billion)
The United States has a constantly changing population of approximately 315 million, give or take a few 10-20 million illegal aliens who are either in the process of being amnestied by the Obama administration because they were brought here by “no fault of their own” and thus deserve U.S. citizenship ahead of overseas legally petitioning immigrants who have done everything according to the law but are hindered by vast oceans, and more illegal aliens who have already completed the arduous process of having jumped or crossed the southern border “undocumented” and are now benefitting from our generous welfare (income security) system, compliments of politicians who always need grateful legal or illegal voters.
The labor force is listed at 144 million although not long ago it was 156 million. These are the discouraged workers who are no longer counted and have fallen off the face of the earth. Thirteen million Americans are officially unemployed but the actual unemployment number listed is 23 million. Where did the other 10 million unemployed workers go? They must have disappeared to the same place where President Obama’s shovel ready jobs went.
Not to worry, there are 67.5 million retirees and SSI recipients and almost 46 million food stamp recipients to draw from the overabundance of the combined U.S. evil capitalist wealth which was not created by hard-working Americans but by a benevolent federal government who taxed the heck out of working Americans and then built roads and bridges to the front door of all U.S. small businesses and corporations.
Welfare spending, cash, food, housing, medical care, social services for the poor has increased seventeen times since Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in 1964. We obviously lost this war on poverty since the Obama administration plans to increase welfare spending rather than reduce it. He will need $46 trillion today and $1-2 trillion a year in the future to meet all the welfare promises made. (Heritage Foundation, Issues 2012)
TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) was a Clinton era 1996 welfare reform success story which prepared welfare recipients for work through on-the-job training, unsubsidized employment, attending high school or a GED program, vocational education, community service work, job search, and job readiness training. Recipients with children had to perform 20-30 hours a week of work in exchange for cash benefits. Welfare cases dropped by 50 percent, employment earnings increased, and child poverty rates decreased. (Amy Payne, Heritage Insider)
Unfortunately, the Obama administration circumvented Congress and announced a directive through the HHS that welfare recipients no longer have to work to fulfill the TANF requirements. “Vocational training or job search/readiness programs would count, even personal care activities, massage, motivational reading, and journaling.” “President Obama made no secret about his plans to expand the welfare state permanently,” forcing recipients into a permanent cycle of dependence on government. (Amy Payne, The End of Welfare Reform As We Know It, July 18, 2012)
Since the 1960s, the U.S. has spent $16 trillion on welfare and is projected to spend almost $11 trillion over the next ten years. About 70 welfare programs are spread over 13 federal agencies and account for $900 billion a year in expenditures. (Heritage Foundation, March 17, 2011)
We are fast becoming a nation of lazy and entitled, government dependent citizens, approaching a high percentage of our population, legal and illegal. All entitlements, food stamps, unemployment, housing assistance, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security represent more than half of total spending. At this rate of welfare extension (Obama added millions more to the welfare rolls), Social Security will be exhausted before the projected 2036 because, “in net-present-value terms, Social Security owes $9.1 trillion more in benefits than it will receive in taxes.” Spending on all entitlements “will consume all revenues within less than two generations. No revenue will be left to pay for other government spending, including constitutional functions such as defense.” Who needs national defense when Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China are flexing their military muscles all around the world? (Issues 2012 – The Candidate’s Briefing Book, p. 46, The Heritage Foundation, 2011)
As I watch again the fast changing numbers of the national debt clock.org, I am reminded that we are dismally broke and we cannot afford more welfare. Our number one threat to national security is not just the out-of-control spending that our President, with the blessing of Congress, is engaging in, but the entitlement mentality of able-bodied and healthy Americans on permanent welfare who produce more welfare dependent children at the expense of those who work, gleefully voting for corrupt politicians who promise them more welfare, locking them into perennial poverty and enslavement to a benevolent government that produces nothing.