Is America really broke? Michael Moore (and others) tells us that there are oceans of cash being hoarded by the wealthy. But Iowahawk (iowahawk.typepad.com) did a little addition, and armed with these statistics Bill and the 'Hawk blow a hole in the "hoarding" lie big enough to fit a documentary filmmaker through.
Please list all of your residences inside and outside of the United States starting with your birth until the present.
Please list all of your current and former places of employment in the United States and abroad.
Please list all schools that you attended inside and outside of the United States.
Please describe the circumstances of your birth including the names (as well as address and phone number, if available) of persons present or in attendance at your birth.
Was there any religious or institutional recording of your birth or event occuring around the time of birth? (Example: baptism, circumcision, confirmation or other religious ceremony. Please provide details including the name, location of the institution, and date.)
The uppermost line shows outlays under the official budget submitted by Mr. Obama to Congress on Feb. 14. The lowest line shows the House Budget Resolution submitted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan on April 5, while the third line shows year-by-year outlays I estimated from the 12-year totals in the new budget proposed by the president on April 13.
The chart clearly reveals a number of important facts that are not coming up in town hall meetings. Most obvious is the huge bulge in spending in the past few years. In 2000 spending was 18.2% of GDP. In 2007 it was 19.6%. But in the three years since 2009 it's jumped to an average of 24.4%.
There isn’t enough wealth in the wealthiest Americans to tax and support our government spending.
- Larry Van Horn, associate professor of health care management and the Executive Director of Health Affairs at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management.
The individual income tax brought in 7.8% of GDP from 1952 to 1979 when the top tax rate ranged from 70% to 92%, 8% of GDP from 1993 to 1996 when the top tax rate was 39.6%, and 8.1% from 1988 to 1990 when the highest individual income tax rate was 28%. Mr. Obama's hope that raising only the highest tax rates could keep individual tax receipts well above 9% of GDP has been repeatedly tested for more than six decades. It has always failed.
Federal revenue from the individual income tax exceeded 9% of GDP only eight times in U.S. history—during World War II (9.4% in 1944), the recessions of 1969-70, 1981-82 and 1991-92, and the tech-stock boom-bust of 1998-2001. Revenues were a high share of GDP during the three recessions because GDP fell.
- Alan Reynolds, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and was formerly Director of Economic Research at the Hudson Institute.
I rise today to talk about America's debt problem....
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on....
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America's priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans--a debt tax that Washington doesn't want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.
Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.(emphasis added)
Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.
Obama "thinks it was a mistake," presidential spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. "He realizes now that raising the debt ceiling is so important to the health of this economy and the global economy that it is not a vote that, even when you are protesting an administration's policies, you can play around with."
Department of Defense and Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 - Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2011 - Appropriates funds for FY2011 for the Department of Defense (DOD) for: (1) military personnel; (2) operation and maintenance, including for the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, environmental restoration, overseas humanitarian, disaster, and civic aid, former Soviet Union cooperative threat reduction, and the Department of Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund; (3) procurement, including for aircraft, missile, weapons and tracked combat vehicles, ammunition, shipbuilding and conversion, and purchases under the Defense Production Act of 1950; (4) research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E); (5) Defense Working Capital Funds and the National Defense Sealift Fund; (6) the Defense Health Program; (7) chemical agents and munitions destruction; (8) drug interdiction and counter-drug activities; (9) the Office of the Inspector General; (10) the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System Fund; and (11) the Intelligence Community Management Account.our military may not get paid, but Congress and the President won't miss a meal...
Appropriates funds for deployments and other activities in support of overseas contingency operations, including for: (1) regular, reserve, and National Guard personnel; (2) operation and maintenance; (3) the Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund; (4) the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund; (5) the Iraq Security Forces Fund; (6) procurement; (7) National Guard and reserve equipment; (8) the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle Fund; (9) RDT&E; (10) Defense Working Capital Funds; (11) the Defense Health Program; (12) drug interdiction and counter-drug activities; (13) the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Fund; and (14) the Office of the Inspector General.
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.Anyway, The Paradoxical Commandments - Do It Anyway - Kent M. Keith, Silent Revolution
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.often, wise words are pearls thrown to swine; trampled underfoot, just as often being turned against you, rending flesh from bone... but it's also amazing what those pearls can teach you... teach you about the world; history; mankind; yourself.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow