Why the debt ceiling "compromise" should have been opposed

This deal does nothing to fix the overreaches of both parties over the past few years: Obamacare, TARP, trillion-dollar wars, runaway entitlement spending. They are all cemented into place with this deal, and their legacy will be trillions of dollars in new debt.

The deal:

• Adds at least $7 trillion to our debt over the next 10 years. The deal purports to "cut" $2.1 trillion, but the "cut" is from a baseline that adds $10 trillion to the debt. This deal, even if all targets are met and the Super Committee wields its mandate - results in a BEST case scenario of still adding more than $7 trillion more in debt over the next 10 years. That is sickening.
• Never, ever balances.
• The Super Committee's mandate is to add $7 trillion in new debt. Let's be clear: $2.1 trillion in reductions off a nearly $10 trillion,10-year debt is still more than $7 trillion in debt. The Super Committee limits the constitutional check of the filibuster by expediting passage of bills with a simple majority. The Super Committee is not precluded from any issue, therefore the filibuster could be rendered moot. In addition, the plan harms the possible passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment. Since the goal is never to balance, having the BBA as a "trigger" ensures that the committee will simply report its $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan and never move to a BBA vote.
• It cuts too slowly. Even if you believe cutting $2.1 trillion out of $10 trillion is a good compromise, surely we can start cutting quickly, say $200 billion-$300 billion per year, right? Wrong. This plan so badly backloads the alleged savings that the cuts are simply meaningless. Why do we believe that the goal of $2.5 trillion over 10 years (that's an average of $250 billion per year) will EVER be met if the first two years cuts are $20 billion and $50 billion. There is simply no path in this bill even to the meager savings they are alleging will take place.

Betrayed Again

The Tea Party has been maligned, abused, falsely accused, mocked and derided for standing for freedom and fiscal responsibility. 22 stood against Boehner’s suicidal plan that was nothing more than cover for a revisit to the McConnell/Reid monstrosity. We will remember these heroes and what they stand for.

So what do Republicans do? Why they come up with pointless plans that in reality are no different from the Democrats. Don’t talk to me about a Balanced Budget Amendment. They aren’t serious, they only put in a provision to get a chance to vote on it. It will never materialize that way. It’s another lie. And the cuts are a joke – they will not happen. Forget about capping spending – the Cloward and Piven frenzy of spending continues its suicidal dance, capering gleefully toward the chasm’s edge.

And some of those we believed to be true Tea Party patriots have been seduced by the dark side. They caved at the first opportunity and turned away from those who helped elect them. Spines we thought were forged from steel morphed into slinkies in record time.

“If ye love wealth better than liberty,
the tranquility of servitude
better than the animating contest of freedom,
go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains set lightly upon you,
and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”

Samuel Adams

Congress is still deadlocked on the budget. God help us if the horrific McConnell/Reidplan goes through empowering a Super Congress, raising the debt ceiling by 3 Trillion with staggered cuts that will almost assuredly never materialize. But if it does not go through, I believe Obama will opt for an Executive Order, using the 14th Amendment as cover, ushering us into a dictatorship with an iron grip on America’s throat and jackboots dancing an evil jig on the Constitution. Boehner and all the other RINOs are complicit. We are watching what you do, not what you say.

As Boehner and McConnell strike a deal with the devil, the clock ticks on towards the Tuesday deadline. As for me, I take the conservative stand come hell or high water. Patriots prepare. Progressives be damned.

Peter Schiff - straight talker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t01xdDphC4

14 minutes of valuable information - if you don't have time to listen to it all, fast forward to the last 3 minutes

Mt. Debtmore

The entire US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 2010 was $14.62 Trillion. The US debt ceiling currently stands at $14.294 Trillion, which was exceeded in May of 2011. Obama and Congress will be raising the debt ceiling well above our US GDP. Does this make America economically stronger or weaker? To say that our government is simply spending more than it takes in is an understatement when it comes to the out-of-control spending we’ve experienced under President Obama; what he’s doing is dangerous. He has spent about $12.2 Trillion in just 3 years; that’s $5.15 Trillion more than the approximate $7.05 Trillion that was given to him by taxpayers. Let’s look at it another way… It took roughly 220 years for our nation to accumulate $5.181 Trillion in debt which occurred in 1996. From 1996 to the end of 2008 (12 years), another $4.473 Trillion was added to our national debt, which is why we screamed for Bush to stop spending. Obama is adding $5.15 Trillion in just 3 years.

Cloward-Piven Paradise?

Combine class warfare, demonizing the rich, getting as many people onto the welfare rolls as possible, and pushing the economic system to collapse and you have a flawless formula for Cloward-Piven 2.0 -- and a vehicle that ensures Obama remains in power. The premise of the Cloward-Piven collective/anti-capitalist gospel decried "individual mobility and achievement," celebrated organized labor, fostered the principle that "if each finally found himself in the same relative economic relationship to his fellows ... all were infinitely better off."

The duo taught that if you flooded the welfare rolls and bankrupted the cities and ultimately the nation, it would foster economic collapse, which would lead to political turmoil so severe that socialism would be accepted as a fix to an out-of-control set of circumstances.

The idea was that if people were starving and the only way to eat was to accept government cheese, rather than starve, the masses would agree to what they would otherwise reject.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/cloward-piven_paradise_now.html

Truthful Accounting and the Debt Ceiling Debate

The debate over raising the $14.3-trillion debt ceiling to some higher number is what Congress will discuss and the media will report over the next 30 days. What will be missing, however, is debate about the nation's real debt burden. Our calculations show it's more than $76 trillion, consisting of Treasury securities recognized under the debt ceiling and the unfunded promises we've made to our seniors, military veterans, and federal workers. Add to that the federal guarantees for everything from coastal flood insurance to expected bailouts for Fannie, Freddie, and the too-big-to-fails, and the nation's total obligations may exceed $100 trillion.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/truthful_accounting_should_be_the_first_objective_of_any_debt_ceiling_compromise.html

News from the Daily Reckoning

US federal spending

Fiscal year 2010 (in billions of US dollars)

• Discretionary $660
• Other mandatory $416
• Net interest $197
• Medicare and Medicaid $793
• Social Security $701
• Defense Department $689

TOTAL: $3.456-trillion

Now compare that to...

US tax receipts

Fiscal year 2010 (in billions of US dollars)

• Social Security/Social insurance $865
• Corporate income $191
• Other $140
• Excise $67
• Individual income $899

TOTAL: $2.162-trillion

As you can see, there's a bit of a discrepancy there. For every dollar the government spent in 2010, it was only able to steal roughly 62 cents through taxes. The rest came from the kindness of strangers with last names like Wong and Kim. Now, why would a Wong bother lending money to the US, you ask? A better question might be for how long will Wong lend? And what happens when Wong's kindness runs out?

Thus far, the United States has incurred an impressive $14.3 trillion in public debt, "subject to limit," as they say. Put another way, that's about $46K per citizen, or $130K per taxpayer. At current rates, those figures will jump to $22.9 trillion by 2015; $70K per citizen, or almost $190k per taxpayer.

In 2007, for example, that debt stood at about 36% of America's GDP. Today, that same little monster has grown to reach 70% of GDP. All that in four years; one Olympiad! They grow up so quickly, don't they? Even so, that's some pretty gnarly spending, even by politicians' own standards.

And what do these geniuses have to show for all of their greasy- mitted stimulus spending, for their various bailout programs and phony-baloney make-work schemes? What, in other words, does a few trillion dollars worth of other people's money – some stolen, the rest begged and borrowed – buy you these days? More jobs? A rebound in the housing market? A new suit and tie? Any measure of honest, good-for-something growth? A – dare we even say the word – "recovery"?

STOP THE SPENDING NOW CONGRESS!!!!!!!!!

The efficiency of the incandescent light bulb

Filaments in [incandescent] electric lamps are not as hot as the surface of the sun, yet the light they emit is very similar. Each one emits light in the entire wavelength range visible to the human eye . . . .

Incandescent lamps are notoriously inefficient, emitting less than 10% of the input power as visible light. The problem with more efficient sources like fluorescent lamps is that their light is not a continuous spectrum, but rather a handful of individual wavelengths. The effect is to distort colors of objects illuminated by the light.

Note that this “inefficiency” of incandescent light bulbs is the source of their scorn by the environmentalist left and their effective ban by the federal government. Energy Secretary Steven Chu reveals the mentality behind the ban when he says, smugly, of a law preventing individuals from buying the light bulbs they want: “We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.”

What is Chu ignoring when he calls the choice to buy regular bulbs a “waste”?

Well, for one thing, he’s ignoring the fact that while incandescent light bulbs are not efficient in the sense of producing as much light per unit of energy as possible, they are incredibly efficient in the sense of producing the most desirable light for our money (including our energy). There is a rarely-consulted passage of a rarely-consulted document that champions “the pursuit of happiness.” When I choose to buy an incandescent light bulb, I do so because that gets me the best light for my money—with “best” emphatically including the quality of illumination I will enjoy as I read books, talk to friends, work in the evening, etc. To our government, such considerations are irrelevant; as long as I can fit neatly into government statistics that say I’m emitting less CO2 but I’m still alive and have access to illumination, why should it matter whether I enjoy my life more or less?

The ultimate standard of efficiency (be it energy efficiency, economic efficiency, or any other form) is the individual’s life and happiness. If anyone ever tells you that something you love is “inefficient,” and the cure is to shove something you hate down your throat, then “efficiency” has become a mere rationalization for tyranny.

Political Accounting

Since most politicians—simply by their career choice—indicate a desire for power, any measure that increases power will be considered a success. If a policy increases the number of people beholden to them, then it is good as an end in itself. The ultimate conflict of interest that subverts paternalism is that government officials want power and citizens want freedom.

There is no reason to expect contemporary Leviathans to become significantly more efficient in the future. The only way to fix most government programs is to repeal the underlying law and abolish the government agency. Anything less will be little more than a future full-employment program for investigative journalists.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/political-accounting/

Worse than Reported by the MSM

Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 143%. America’s is officially 97%. But the $14.3 trillion national debt, stacked up against a $14.7 trillion economy, doesn’t tell the whole story.

• $14.3 trillion: “Official” national debt
• $5 trillion: Amount Uncle Sam is on the hook for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
• $62 trillion: Total liabilities and unfunded obligations for Social Security and Medicare

That’s more than $81 trillion... or a debt-to-GDP ratio of 553%.

We know how much the Federal Reserve doled out in emergency loans: $16.1 trillion between Dec. 1, 2007, and July 21, 2010. We know that because yesterday the Government Accountability Office completed its first-ever audit of the Fed, made possible largely through the persistence of Rep. Ron Paul making that audit, however incomplete, the law.

What we don’t know is how much of that has been paid back. “We have literally injected about $5.3 trillion,” said Dr. Paul last week during his questioning of Fed chief Ben Bernanke, “and I don’t think we got very much for it. The national debt went up $5.1 trillion.”

Bernanke did not challenge those figures.