As The Debt Star Looms, The Chicken Littles Scream 'The Sequester Is Nigh!'

 

 

“Already, some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. My message to them is simple: No. I WILL VETO ANY EFFORT TO GET RID OF THOSE AUTOMATIC SPENDING CUTS TO DOMESTIC AND DEFENSE SPENDING. There will be no easy off ramps on this one.”

- President Barack Obama, 21 November 2011

 

  

 

“In the short term, the good news is that there’s going to be a forcing mechanism to deal with what is the central ideological argument in Washington right now, and that is: How much government do we have and how do we pay for it?  So when you combine the Bush tax cuts expiring, THE SEQUESTER IN PLACE, the commitment of both myself and my opponent — at least Governor Romney claims that he wants to reduce the deficit — but we’re going to be in a position where I believe in the first six months we are going to solve that big piece of business.”

- President Barack Obama, Des Moines Register, 23 October 2012

From The Washington Post:

The Pinocchio Test

No one disputes the fact that no one wanted sequestration, or that ultimately a bipartisan vote in Congress led to passage of the Budget Control Act. But the president categorically said that sequestration was “something that Congress has proposed.”

Woodward’s detailed account of meetings during the crisis, clearly based on interviews with key participants and contemporaneous notes, make it clear that sequestration was a proposal advanced and promoted by the White House.

In sum: Gene Sperling brought up the idea of a sequester, while Jack Lew sold Harry Reid on the idea and then decided to use the Gramm-Hollings-Rudman language (which he knew from his days of working for Tip O’Neill) as a template for sequester. The proposal was so unusual for Republicans that staffers had to work through the night to understand it.

Oddly, Lew in Tampa on Thursday, publicly asserted the opposite: “There was an insistence on the part of Republicans in Congress for there to be some automatic trigger…. [It] was very much rooted in the Republican congressional insistence that there be an automatic measure at the end.”

This prompted Woodward to go over his notes and interviews once again, to make sure he had gotten it right.

“After reviewing all the interviews and the extensive material I have on this issue, it looks like President Obama told a whopper,” Woodward said. “Based on what Jack Lew said in Florida today, I have asked the White House to correct the record.”

We had been wavering between Three and Four Pinocchios. But in light’s of Lew’s decision to doubledown on Obama’s claim, we agree it’s a whopper. 

Four Pinocchios

  

'I was for SequesterSquatch before I was against it!' 

- President Barack Obama

 

In FY2001, the government spent $1.8629 trillion. In FY2012, the Federal government spent $3.7956 trillion. 

That’s a 103.74684631% increase in Federal spending since FY2001!

Pension Spending By The Feds:

2001:    $475.1 billion
2002:   $497.0 billion
2003:   $510.5 billion
2004:   $530.8 billion
2005:   $557.7 billion
2006:   $586.0 billion
2007:   $628.3 billion
2008:   $659.8 billion
2009:   $730.4 billion
2010:    $749.6 billion
2011:     $775.6 billion
2012:    $819.7 billion

That’s a 72.5320985% increase in pension expenses since 2001.

  

Healthcare Spending By the Feds:

2001:    $389.6 billion
2002:   $427.4 billion
2003:   $469.0 billion
2004:   $509.5 billion
2005:   $549.2 billion
2006:   $582.6 billion
2007:   $641.8 billion
2008:   $67.14 billion
2009:   $764.4 billion
2010:    $820.7 billion
2011:     $858.2 billion
2012:    $846.1 billion

That’s a 117.1714579% increase in healthcare expenditures since 2001.

 

Education Spending By The Feds:

2001:    $63.6 billion
2002:   $77.8 billion
2003:   $90.5 billion
2004:   $96.4 billion
2005:   $106.4 billion
2006:   $127.6 billion
2007:   $100.8 billion
2008:   $100.9 billion
2009:   $89.8 billion
2010:    $139.4 billion
2011:     $113.7 billion
2012:    $153.1 billion

 The Feds have increased spending on education by 140.72327044% since 2001.

  

Defence Spending By The Feds (keep in mind that the Iraq War is over):

2001:    $366.2 billion  
2002:   $421.7 billion
2003:   $482.9 billion
2004:   $542.4 billion
2005:   $600.0 billion
2006:   $621.1 billion
2007:   $652.6 billion
2008:   $729.6 billion
2009:   $794.0 billion  
2010:    $847.2 billion  
2011:     $878.5 billion
2012:    $902.0 billion

That’s a 146.31348989% increase in defence spending since 2001.

  

 

Welfare Spending By The Feds:

2001:     $188.8 billion
2002:    $229.4 billion
2003:    $249.5 billion
2004:    $244.4 billion
2005:    $252.5 billion
2006:    $254.2 billion
2007:    $262.1 billion
2008:    $322.3 billion
2009:    $415.1 billion
2010:     $502.3 billion
2011:      $472.9 billion
2012:     $451.9 billion

In the past 12 years, the Feds have spent $3.8454 trillion on welfare or $320.5 billion on average each year.  

The Feds have increased overall welfare spending by 139.35381355% since 2001.

 

 
 

Fed’s Spending on “Protection”:

2001:    $30.2 billion
2002:   $35.1 billion
2003:   $35.3 billion
2004:   $45.6 billion
2005:   $40.0 billion
2006:   $41.0 billion
2007:   $42.4 billion
2008:   $48.1 billion
2009:   $52.6 billion
2010:    $54.4 billion
2011:     $56.1 billion
2012:    $62.0 billion

The Feds have increased overall “protection” spending by 105.29801324% since 2001.

 

Transportation Spending By The Feds:

2001:    $54.4 billion
2002:   $61.8 billion
2003:   $67.1 billion
2004:   $64.6 billion
2005:   $67.9 billion
2006:   $70.2 billion
2007:   $72.9 billion
2008:   $77.6 billion
2009:   $84.3 billion
2010:    $92.0 billion
2011:     $93.0 billion
2012:    $102.6 billion

That’s a 88.60294117% increase in transportation spending since 2001.

  

General Government Spending:

2001:    $16.1 billion
2002:   $17.8 billion
2003:   $24.9 billion
2004:   $23.4 billion
2005:   $19.8 billion
2006:   $19.5 billion
2007:   $19.8 billion
2008:   $20.8 billion
2009:   $23.0 billion
2010:    $24.7 billion
2011:     $29.0 billion
2012:    $33.6 billion

 The Feds have increased overall general government spending by 108.69565217% since 2001.

"Other" Spending:

2001:    $72.6 billion
2002:   $72.1 billion
2003:   $77.1 billion
2004:   $75.5 billion
2005:   $94.4 billion
2006:   $126.2 billion
2007:   $71.0 billion
2008:   $99.3 billion
2009:   $377.1 billion
2010:    $29.7 billion
2011:     $96.3 billion
2012:    $199.6 billion

$1.3909 trillion was spent on "other spending" in 12 years or $115.91 billion per year.  

"Other spending" expenditures have increased by 174.93112947% in the last dozen years.

Interest Spending:

2001:     $206.2 billion
2002:    $170.9 billion
2003:    $153.1 billion
2004:    $160.2 billion
2005:    $184.0 billion
2006:    $226.6 billion
2007:    $237.1 billion
2008:    $252.8 billion
2009:    $186.9 billion
2010:     $196.2 billion
2011:      $230.0 billion
2012:     $224.8 billion

We've spent  $2.4288 TRILLION on debt service in the last 12 years or an average of $202.4 billion a year...and, that's been during  a period of historically-low interest rates!

Deficit:

2001:     $17.91 billion
2002:    $157.8 billion
2003:    $377.6 billion 
2004:    $412.7 billion
2005:    $318.4 billion
2006:    $248.2 billion
2007:    $160.7 billion
2008:    $458.6 billion
2009:    $1,412.7 billion
2010:     $1,293.5 billion
2011:      $1,299.6 billion
2012:     $1,327.0 billion

Our deficit has increased by 7309.26856504% in a dozen years!!!

Total Spending:

2001:     $1.8629 trillion
2002:    $2.0109 trillion
2003:    $2.1599 trillion
2004:    $2.2928 trillion
2005:    $2.4720 trillion
2006:    $2.6551 trillion
2007:    $2.7287 trillion
2008:    $2.9825 trillion
2009:    $3.5177 trillion
2010:     $3.4562 trillion
2011:      $3.6031 trillion
2012:     $3.7956 trillion

That’s a 103.74684631% increase in Federal spending in 12 years!

  

 

Gross Public Debt:

2001:     $5.7699 trillion 
2002:    $6.1984 trillion
2003:    $6.7600 trillion
2004:    $7.3547 trillion
2005:    $7.9053 trillion
2006:    $8.4514 trillion
2007:    $8.9508 trillion
2008:    $9.9861 trillion
2009:    $11.8759 trillion
2010:     $13.5288 trillion
2011:      $14.6742 trillion
2012:     $16.3509 trillion

That's a 183.3827276% increase in the Federal Government's Gross Public Debt in 12 years!

"The U.S. fiscal gap, calculated (by us) using the Congressional Budget Office’s realistic long-term budget forecast -- the Alternative Fiscal Scenario -- is now $222 trillion. Last year, it was $211 trillion. The $11 trillion difference -- this year’s true federal deficit -- is 10 times larger than the official deficit and roughly as large as the entire stock of official debt in public hands.

This fantastic and dangerous growth in the fiscal gap is not new. In 2003 and 2004, the economists Alan Auerbach and William Gale extended the CBO’s short-term forecast and measured fiscal gaps of $60 trillion and $86 trillion, respectively. In 2007, the first year the CBO produced the Alternative Fiscal Scenario, the gap, by our reckoning, stood at $175 trillion. By 2009, when the CBO began reporting the AFS annually, the gap was $184 trillion. In 2010, it was $202 trillion, followed by $211 trillion in 2011 and $222 trillion in 2012.

When fully retired, 78 million baby boomers will collect, on average, more than 85 percent of per-capita gross domestic product ($40,000 in today’s dollars) in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. Each passing year brings these outlays one year closer, which raises their present value.

Governments, like households, can’t indefinitely spend beyond their means. They have to satisfy what economists call their “intertemporal budget constraint.” The fiscal gap simply measures the extent to which this constraint is violated and tells us what is needed to balance the government’s intertemporal budget.

The answer for the U.S. isn’t pretty. Closing the gap using taxes requires an immediate and permanent 64 percent increase in all federal taxes. Alternatively, the U.S. needs to cut, immediately and permanently, all federal purchases and transfer payments, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, by 40 percent. Or it can mix these terrible fiscal medicines with honey, namely radical fiscal reforms that make the economy much fairer and far stronger. What the government can’t do is pay its bills by spending more and taxing less. America’s children, whose futures are being rapidly destroyed, are smart enough to tell us this."

- Laurence Koklikoff and Scott Burns, Blink! U.S. Debt Just Grew by $11 Trillion, Bloomberg,  8 August 2012

" To restrain the U.S.’s future budget crisis, the federal government must raise taxes by at least 35% and cut entitlements such as health care and Social Security by 35%, according to International Monetary Fund economists."

- Economists at The International Monetary Fund

"Eventually we do have a problem. The population is getting older, health care costs are rising ... . Something is going to have to give.  We won't be able to pay for the kind of society we want without some increases in taxes and surely in the end it will require some middle-class taxes as well, maybe a value added tax.  That's not all. We're also going to have to ... really make decisions about health care, (and) not pay for health care that has no demonstrated medical benefits.  Death panels and sales taxes is how we do this."

 
- Paul Krugman, speech at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C, January 2013

"Somebody has to tell the middle class that either your taxes are going to go up or your programs are going to get cut or else we're going to go into financial oblivion, and nobody really wants to tell them that.”

- Howard Dean, February 2013

I've been trying to tell you, LoInFo dolts, that you cannot have this massive welfare state and expect only the wealthy to pay for it.

Big Government Robs The Middle Class Because That's Where The Money Is! (25 August 2011)

 

"It's not my fault!  It's Bush's Republican's fault!"

http://tinyurl.com/ahcsfnz