Thursday, January 6, 2011
An Australian Observes Our Congress
This is how our clownish Congress looks down under. Note that the writer is a comedian. Sorry to say, his story ain't funny!
05 January 2011
The US Senate is a complete joke (and what to do about it)
Chas Licciardello
Paul Keating once referred to the Australian Senate as “unrepresentative swill”.
But for an equivalent description of the US Senate you’d have to pass Keating and go directly to Kevin ‘Bloody’ Wilson. And then give him Tourettes.
Because the US Senate is a massive joke - and not a witty, urbane Oscar Wilde kind of joke. More like a painful, soul-destroying Little Fockers kind of joke. To explain why, let’s take a step back…
What is the Senate supposed to do?
Like the Australian Senate, the primary purpose of the US Senate is as a house of review. The House of Representatives passes a bill laden with pork. The Senate adds more pork. And then everyone leans over the president’s shoulder grinning like idiot stalkers while he/she signs it into law.
However, unlike the Australian Senate, it doesn’t stop there. The US Senate is also responsible for confirming many of the president’s nominees for federal positions. These include everything from the Federal Reserve Board through to the principal deputy under secretary for personnel and readiness. (And yes, that position does exist. I checked.) Not to mention the approximately 900 judgeships they also have to confirm, including those for the Supreme Court. The complete list is here. Enjoy.
Two-thirds of sitting senators are also required to ratify international treaties negotiated by the president.
And finally, the Senate is required to be old, rich, white and largely male. Unfortunately, that entirely fictional responsibility is the only one they actually perform well.
So that’s the theory. By contrast, what The Senate actually does do, is almost nothing. And here’s why:
The filibuster/hold situation
A filibuster essentially allows any group of Senators to block a bill unless three-fifths of the Senate over-ride them. Thus it effectively creates a 60 (out of 100) vote requirement for any piece of legislation to pass. A filibuster isn’t just a vote against the bill. It stops the bill even being voted upon.
Some people believe that those oh-so-wise Founding Fathers created the filibuster in order to encourage thorough, constructive debate in the Senate. Those people are wrong. Senators need more opportunities to speak like the cricket needs more ads for KFC.
In fact the filibuster was invented accidentally by a loophole that was opened up in 1805 (details here). It took years for anyone to even notice that the loophole existed.
There is a misconception, largely popularised by the classic movie Mr Smith Goes to Washington, that holding a filibuster forces senators to talk until they either collapse in exhaustion, or become Jimmy Stewart. However in reality holding a filibuster simply requires a senator to announce that they are filibustering, leaving most Americans either confused, frustrated or more likely completely ignorant. Or in the case of Sarah Palin supporters, all three simultaneously.
But just in case the filibuster isn’t enough to grind the Senate to a halt, some clever geezer also invented “holds”. Thankfully, like most old-time senators, he was probably shot in a duel.
Holds are similar to filibusters but even more frustrating. While filibusters tend to feature significant proportions of the Minority blocking a bill, holds only involve a single senator refusing to allow the bill to proceed to a vote. (More here.) Any fruitcake can do it for any reason. And they can do it anonymously too. Not that you’d ever find a fruitcake being elected to The Senate, of course.
Why does the Senate need fixing
Amazingly, this ludicrous system has worked in the past because until recently Senators placed a premium on comity and bipartisanship. Realising that they have more in common with each other than they do with the rest of the human race, senators only turned to filibusters or holds as an absolute last resort.
But over the last 30 years or so, American politics has become increasingly partisan. We’ve now gotten to a point where the number one priority of Oppositions is to defeat the president. If you don’t believe me, ask the Republican leader in the Senate Mitch McConnell. And when a Minority Leader’s number one priority is to defeat the president, and he has the power to thwart the president with filibusters, then minorities start blocking everything - and you start seeing graphs like this:
(Thanks to TPM for this graph that they kindly didn’t know I stole.)
There is a lot going on here, but the blue line is the number of filibusters the Majority tried to break. And the yellow line is the number of filibusters actually broken. This is not a good graph. Unless you hate America. And then it’s a very good graph. It tells you that there have been more filibusters broken in the last two years than there were between 1919 and 1982.
People might point to the enormous achievements passed by the Senate in the last two years despite the filibuster - financial reform, health reform, and the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ to name but a few. But this was a Senate where the Democrats held between 58 and 60 seats. The last time one party dominated the Senate this completely was after Watergate. Should America need a Richard Nixon or George W Bush-style disaster in order to get anything done? Oliver Stone might think so, but bugger him.
Also, take another look at that graph to see how many filibusters the Majority still couldn’t break, even with a supposedly filibuster-proof majority (climate change legislation and immigration reform are two glaring examples). Finally, note that the graph is only moving in one direction. Whether the Minority is held by Democrats or Republicans, filibusters are fast becoming the Pringles of being a legislative dick.
You see, the beauty of the filibuster is you can use it to hold up anything - every bill, every vote, every amendment, even the very act of debating a bill (they call this “filibustering the motion to proceed”). And if you do have 60 votes, it still takes three days to override each filibuster. So if a Minority knows what they’re doing they can hold up a piece of legislation for weeks, even if the Majority does have 60 votes. It’s like trying to negotiate with the world’s most annoying little brother.
But as dysfunctional as filibusters have become, holds have become even worse. These are just some of the highlights:
* Obama’s pick for the Federal Reserve Board has been blocked by Republican Senator Richard Shelby for over six months for being “unqualified”. Oh, did I mention he just won the Nobel Prize for Economics?
* Shelby also blocked over 70 of Obama’s appointees because he wanted a $40 billion defence contract to go to his state.
* Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu blocked Obama’s budget director nominee for months in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And why? Because she wanted Obama to reverse the moratorium on deepwater oil drilling that he placed after the BP spill.
* We have gotten to a point where Republican-appointed judges are writing their colleagues letters asking them to stop blocking Obama’s judicial picks because it is jeopardising the judicial system.
To describe this situation as “out of control” would be to describe Mel Gibson as “testy”.
How do you fix it?
Simple. Eradicate the filibuster and holds. But that solution might as well be “Buy me a unicorn!” if the bill to repeal filibusters and holds would be subject to filibusters and holds. Unfortunately, the Senate rulebook is of such brain-busting complexity that no-one seems to be sure if that’s the case. It’s a paradox worthy of a science fiction aficionado or a stoned philosophy student - often the same people. (For the record, this political scientist appears to believe the bill would be filibuster-proof. Then again, it’s tough to know - he writes in KevinRuddese.)
Thankfully, there is one day when everyone agrees you can begin the process to change the Senate rules with 51 votes - the first day of a new Congress. And that day happens to be tomorrow.
So what’s happening tomorrow?
Just before the Christmas break every returning Democrat Senator signed a letter calling for filibuster reform, so something’s going to happen, although it may take weeks to fully play out. There are many proposals being circulated, but the most prominent is by Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley. He proposes to make the Mr Smith Goes To Washington non-stop talkfest filibuster a reality. He also proposes to make it so you can only filibuster a bill once - directly before a vote (i.e. no more filibustering amendments or the “motion to proceed”).
Other proposals include banning holds altogether and removing filibusters on the confirmation of presidential appointments. You’ll note that no-one is proposing to flat-out ban the filibuster. Getting Senators to give up all their petty powers cold turkey would require a Trainspotting-style intervention.
But even these very moderate reform efforts could be moderated further if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid makes a deal with the Republican leader Mitch McConnell. It’s not clear if such a deal will happen, or what it would entail. But it is certain that it would leave everybody dissatisfied. Mmm… watered-down versions of watered-down bills? Tastes like The Senate!
Chas Licciardello is a comedian and member of The Chaser comedy team.
05 January 2011
The US Senate is a complete joke (and what to do about it)
Chas Licciardello
Paul Keating once referred to the Australian Senate as “unrepresentative swill”.
But for an equivalent description of the US Senate you’d have to pass Keating and go directly to Kevin ‘Bloody’ Wilson. And then give him Tourettes.
Because the US Senate is a massive joke - and not a witty, urbane Oscar Wilde kind of joke. More like a painful, soul-destroying Little Fockers kind of joke. To explain why, let’s take a step back…
What is the Senate supposed to do?
Like the Australian Senate, the primary purpose of the US Senate is as a house of review. The House of Representatives passes a bill laden with pork. The Senate adds more pork. And then everyone leans over the president’s shoulder grinning like idiot stalkers while he/she signs it into law.
However, unlike the Australian Senate, it doesn’t stop there. The US Senate is also responsible for confirming many of the president’s nominees for federal positions. These include everything from the Federal Reserve Board through to the principal deputy under secretary for personnel and readiness. (And yes, that position does exist. I checked.) Not to mention the approximately 900 judgeships they also have to confirm, including those for the Supreme Court. The complete list is here. Enjoy.
Two-thirds of sitting senators are also required to ratify international treaties negotiated by the president.
And finally, the Senate is required to be old, rich, white and largely male. Unfortunately, that entirely fictional responsibility is the only one they actually perform well.
So that’s the theory. By contrast, what The Senate actually does do, is almost nothing. And here’s why:
The filibuster/hold situation
A filibuster essentially allows any group of Senators to block a bill unless three-fifths of the Senate over-ride them. Thus it effectively creates a 60 (out of 100) vote requirement for any piece of legislation to pass. A filibuster isn’t just a vote against the bill. It stops the bill even being voted upon.
Some people believe that those oh-so-wise Founding Fathers created the filibuster in order to encourage thorough, constructive debate in the Senate. Those people are wrong. Senators need more opportunities to speak like the cricket needs more ads for KFC.
In fact the filibuster was invented accidentally by a loophole that was opened up in 1805 (details here). It took years for anyone to even notice that the loophole existed.
There is a misconception, largely popularised by the classic movie Mr Smith Goes to Washington, that holding a filibuster forces senators to talk until they either collapse in exhaustion, or become Jimmy Stewart. However in reality holding a filibuster simply requires a senator to announce that they are filibustering, leaving most Americans either confused, frustrated or more likely completely ignorant. Or in the case of Sarah Palin supporters, all three simultaneously.
But just in case the filibuster isn’t enough to grind the Senate to a halt, some clever geezer also invented “holds”. Thankfully, like most old-time senators, he was probably shot in a duel.
Holds are similar to filibusters but even more frustrating. While filibusters tend to feature significant proportions of the Minority blocking a bill, holds only involve a single senator refusing to allow the bill to proceed to a vote. (More here.) Any fruitcake can do it for any reason. And they can do it anonymously too. Not that you’d ever find a fruitcake being elected to The Senate, of course.
Why does the Senate need fixing
Amazingly, this ludicrous system has worked in the past because until recently Senators placed a premium on comity and bipartisanship. Realising that they have more in common with each other than they do with the rest of the human race, senators only turned to filibusters or holds as an absolute last resort.
But over the last 30 years or so, American politics has become increasingly partisan. We’ve now gotten to a point where the number one priority of Oppositions is to defeat the president. If you don’t believe me, ask the Republican leader in the Senate Mitch McConnell. And when a Minority Leader’s number one priority is to defeat the president, and he has the power to thwart the president with filibusters, then minorities start blocking everything - and you start seeing graphs like this:
(Thanks to TPM for this graph that they kindly didn’t know I stole.)
There is a lot going on here, but the blue line is the number of filibusters the Majority tried to break. And the yellow line is the number of filibusters actually broken. This is not a good graph. Unless you hate America. And then it’s a very good graph. It tells you that there have been more filibusters broken in the last two years than there were between 1919 and 1982.
People might point to the enormous achievements passed by the Senate in the last two years despite the filibuster - financial reform, health reform, and the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ to name but a few. But this was a Senate where the Democrats held between 58 and 60 seats. The last time one party dominated the Senate this completely was after Watergate. Should America need a Richard Nixon or George W Bush-style disaster in order to get anything done? Oliver Stone might think so, but bugger him.
Also, take another look at that graph to see how many filibusters the Majority still couldn’t break, even with a supposedly filibuster-proof majority (climate change legislation and immigration reform are two glaring examples). Finally, note that the graph is only moving in one direction. Whether the Minority is held by Democrats or Republicans, filibusters are fast becoming the Pringles of being a legislative dick.
You see, the beauty of the filibuster is you can use it to hold up anything - every bill, every vote, every amendment, even the very act of debating a bill (they call this “filibustering the motion to proceed”). And if you do have 60 votes, it still takes three days to override each filibuster. So if a Minority knows what they’re doing they can hold up a piece of legislation for weeks, even if the Majority does have 60 votes. It’s like trying to negotiate with the world’s most annoying little brother.
But as dysfunctional as filibusters have become, holds have become even worse. These are just some of the highlights:
* Obama’s pick for the Federal Reserve Board has been blocked by Republican Senator Richard Shelby for over six months for being “unqualified”. Oh, did I mention he just won the Nobel Prize for Economics?
* Shelby also blocked over 70 of Obama’s appointees because he wanted a $40 billion defence contract to go to his state.
* Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu blocked Obama’s budget director nominee for months in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And why? Because she wanted Obama to reverse the moratorium on deepwater oil drilling that he placed after the BP spill.
* We have gotten to a point where Republican-appointed judges are writing their colleagues letters asking them to stop blocking Obama’s judicial picks because it is jeopardising the judicial system.
To describe this situation as “out of control” would be to describe Mel Gibson as “testy”.
How do you fix it?
Simple. Eradicate the filibuster and holds. But that solution might as well be “Buy me a unicorn!” if the bill to repeal filibusters and holds would be subject to filibusters and holds. Unfortunately, the Senate rulebook is of such brain-busting complexity that no-one seems to be sure if that’s the case. It’s a paradox worthy of a science fiction aficionado or a stoned philosophy student - often the same people. (For the record, this political scientist appears to believe the bill would be filibuster-proof. Then again, it’s tough to know - he writes in KevinRuddese.)
Thankfully, there is one day when everyone agrees you can begin the process to change the Senate rules with 51 votes - the first day of a new Congress. And that day happens to be tomorrow.
So what’s happening tomorrow?
Just before the Christmas break every returning Democrat Senator signed a letter calling for filibuster reform, so something’s going to happen, although it may take weeks to fully play out. There are many proposals being circulated, but the most prominent is by Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley. He proposes to make the Mr Smith Goes To Washington non-stop talkfest filibuster a reality. He also proposes to make it so you can only filibuster a bill once - directly before a vote (i.e. no more filibustering amendments or the “motion to proceed”).
Other proposals include banning holds altogether and removing filibusters on the confirmation of presidential appointments. You’ll note that no-one is proposing to flat-out ban the filibuster. Getting Senators to give up all their petty powers cold turkey would require a Trainspotting-style intervention.
But even these very moderate reform efforts could be moderated further if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid makes a deal with the Republican leader Mitch McConnell. It’s not clear if such a deal will happen, or what it would entail. But it is certain that it would leave everybody dissatisfied. Mmm… watered-down versions of watered-down bills? Tastes like The Senate!
Chas Licciardello is a comedian and member of The Chaser comedy team.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Nothing Ever Seems To Change
We have seen the back side of Larry Summers, a very good thing. Now Obama wants to replace him with Gene Sperling. Last year, Goldman Sachs paid Sperling $900,000 for "advice".
In case you have forgotten, we paid Goldman Sachs $800 Billion to keep them from bankruptcy. Why can't Obama connect the dots? There are thousands of economists without ties to Goldman Sachs. Why are they discredited?
This does not give me a good feeling about the next two years!!
In case you have forgotten, we paid Goldman Sachs $800 Billion to keep them from bankruptcy. Why can't Obama connect the dots? There are thousands of economists without ties to Goldman Sachs. Why are they discredited?
This does not give me a good feeling about the next two years!!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Personal Bankruptcy
In 2009, 1.4 Million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy. In 2010, another 1.5 Million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy. That means almost 3 Million families went to bankruptcy court in the last two years.
And the number one cause of personal bankruptcy is medical expenses. And there is not one damn thing in Obamacare to end this travesty. Who is kidding who here?
And the number one cause of personal bankruptcy is medical expenses. And there is not one damn thing in Obamacare to end this travesty. Who is kidding who here?
Monday, January 3, 2011
One More Comes On Board
In June, 2009, in The Great Recession Conspiracy, we pointed out that the best way to stimulate the economy and bring down the horrendous unemployment numbers was to put the TARP funds to work restoring the Interstate Highway System and repair/replace the 10,000 at risk bridges.
A couple months ago, Robert Frank,an economist at Syracuse (who read The Great Recession Conspiracy) came to the same conclusion in an Op Ed piece in the New York Times.
Then Laura Tyson, an economist at Stanford and Clinton's economic adviser, said the same thing in an Op Ed piece in the New York Times.
Now Paul Krugman comes to the same conclusion.
Deep Hole Economics
By PAUL KRUGMAN
If there’s one piece of economic wisdom I hope people will grasp this year, it’s this: Even though we may finally have stopped digging, we’re still near the bottom of a very deep hole.
Why do I need to point this out? Because I’ve noticed many people overreacting to recent good economic news. What particularly concerns me is the risk of self-denying optimism — that is, I worry that policy makers will look at a few favorable economic indicators, decide that they no longer need to promote recovery, and take steps that send us sliding right back to the bottom.
So, about that good news: various economic indicators, ranging from relatively good holiday sales to new claims for unemployment insurance (which have finally fallen below 400,000 a week), suggest that the great post-bubble retrenchment may finally be ending.
We’re not talking Morning in America here. Construction shows no sign of returning to bubble-era levels, nor are there any indications that debt-burdened families are going back to their old habits of spending all they earned. But all we needed for a modest economic rebound was for construction to stop falling and saving to stop rising — and that seems to be happening. Forecasters have been marking up their predictions; growth as high as 4 percent this year now looks possible.
Hooray! But then again, not so much. Jobs, not G.D.P. numbers, are what matter to American families. And when you start from an unemployment rate of almost 10 percent, the arithmetic of job creation — the amount of growth you need to get back to a tolerable jobs picture — is daunting.
First of all, we have to grow around 2.5 percent a year just to keep up with rising productivity and population, and hence keep unemployment from rising. That’s why the past year and a half was technically a recovery but felt like a recession: G.D.P. was growing, but not fast enough to bring unemployment down.
Growth at a rate above 2.5 percent will bring unemployment down over time. But the gains aren’t one for one: for a variety of reasons, it has historically taken about two extra points of growth over the course of a year to shave one point off the unemployment rate.
Now do the math. Suppose that the U.S. economy were to grow at 4 percent a year, starting now and continuing for the next several years. Most people would regard this as excellent performance, even as an economic boom; it’s certainly higher than almost all the forecasts I’ve seen.
Yet the math says that even with that kind of growth the unemployment rate would be close to 9 percent at the end of this year, and still above 8 percent at the end of 2012. We wouldn’t get to anything resembling full employment until late in Sarah Palin’s first presidential term.
Seriously, what we’re looking at over the next few years, even with pretty good growth, are unemployment rates that not long ago would have been considered catastrophic — because they are. Behind those dry statistics lies a vast landscape of suffering and broken dreams. And the arithmetic says that the suffering will continue as far as the eye can see.
So what can be done to accelerate this all-too-slow process of healing? A rational political system would long since have created a 21st-century version of the Works Progress Administration — we’d be putting the unemployed to work doing what needs to be done, repairing and improving our fraying infrastructure. In the political system we have, however, Senator-elect Kelly Ayotte, delivering the Republican weekly address on New Year’s Day, declared that “Job one is to stop wasteful Washington spending.”
Realistically, the best we can hope for from fiscal policy is that Washington doesn’t actively undermine the recovery. Beware, in particular, the Ides of March: by then, the federal government will probably have hit its debt limit and the G.O.P. will try to force President Obama into economically harmful spending cuts.
I’m also worried about monetary policy. Two months ago, the Federal Reserve announced a new plan to promote job growth by buying long-term bonds; at the time, many observers believed that the initial $600 billion purchase was only the beginning of the story. But now it looks like the end, partly because Republicans are trying to bully the Fed into pulling back, but also because a run of slightly better economic news provides an excuse to do nothing.
There’s even a significant chance that the Fed will raise interest rates later this year — or at least that’s what the futures market seems to think. Doing so in the face of high unemployment and minimal inflation would be crazy, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
So back to my original point: whatever the recent economic news, we’re still near the bottom of a very deep hole. We can only hope that enough policy makers understand that point.
A couple months ago, Robert Frank,an economist at Syracuse (who read The Great Recession Conspiracy) came to the same conclusion in an Op Ed piece in the New York Times.
Then Laura Tyson, an economist at Stanford and Clinton's economic adviser, said the same thing in an Op Ed piece in the New York Times.
Now Paul Krugman comes to the same conclusion.
Deep Hole Economics
By PAUL KRUGMAN
If there’s one piece of economic wisdom I hope people will grasp this year, it’s this: Even though we may finally have stopped digging, we’re still near the bottom of a very deep hole.
Why do I need to point this out? Because I’ve noticed many people overreacting to recent good economic news. What particularly concerns me is the risk of self-denying optimism — that is, I worry that policy makers will look at a few favorable economic indicators, decide that they no longer need to promote recovery, and take steps that send us sliding right back to the bottom.
So, about that good news: various economic indicators, ranging from relatively good holiday sales to new claims for unemployment insurance (which have finally fallen below 400,000 a week), suggest that the great post-bubble retrenchment may finally be ending.
We’re not talking Morning in America here. Construction shows no sign of returning to bubble-era levels, nor are there any indications that debt-burdened families are going back to their old habits of spending all they earned. But all we needed for a modest economic rebound was for construction to stop falling and saving to stop rising — and that seems to be happening. Forecasters have been marking up their predictions; growth as high as 4 percent this year now looks possible.
Hooray! But then again, not so much. Jobs, not G.D.P. numbers, are what matter to American families. And when you start from an unemployment rate of almost 10 percent, the arithmetic of job creation — the amount of growth you need to get back to a tolerable jobs picture — is daunting.
First of all, we have to grow around 2.5 percent a year just to keep up with rising productivity and population, and hence keep unemployment from rising. That’s why the past year and a half was technically a recovery but felt like a recession: G.D.P. was growing, but not fast enough to bring unemployment down.
Growth at a rate above 2.5 percent will bring unemployment down over time. But the gains aren’t one for one: for a variety of reasons, it has historically taken about two extra points of growth over the course of a year to shave one point off the unemployment rate.
Now do the math. Suppose that the U.S. economy were to grow at 4 percent a year, starting now and continuing for the next several years. Most people would regard this as excellent performance, even as an economic boom; it’s certainly higher than almost all the forecasts I’ve seen.
Yet the math says that even with that kind of growth the unemployment rate would be close to 9 percent at the end of this year, and still above 8 percent at the end of 2012. We wouldn’t get to anything resembling full employment until late in Sarah Palin’s first presidential term.
Seriously, what we’re looking at over the next few years, even with pretty good growth, are unemployment rates that not long ago would have been considered catastrophic — because they are. Behind those dry statistics lies a vast landscape of suffering and broken dreams. And the arithmetic says that the suffering will continue as far as the eye can see.
So what can be done to accelerate this all-too-slow process of healing? A rational political system would long since have created a 21st-century version of the Works Progress Administration — we’d be putting the unemployed to work doing what needs to be done, repairing and improving our fraying infrastructure. In the political system we have, however, Senator-elect Kelly Ayotte, delivering the Republican weekly address on New Year’s Day, declared that “Job one is to stop wasteful Washington spending.”
Realistically, the best we can hope for from fiscal policy is that Washington doesn’t actively undermine the recovery. Beware, in particular, the Ides of March: by then, the federal government will probably have hit its debt limit and the G.O.P. will try to force President Obama into economically harmful spending cuts.
I’m also worried about monetary policy. Two months ago, the Federal Reserve announced a new plan to promote job growth by buying long-term bonds; at the time, many observers believed that the initial $600 billion purchase was only the beginning of the story. But now it looks like the end, partly because Republicans are trying to bully the Fed into pulling back, but also because a run of slightly better economic news provides an excuse to do nothing.
There’s even a significant chance that the Fed will raise interest rates later this year — or at least that’s what the futures market seems to think. Doing so in the face of high unemployment and minimal inflation would be crazy, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
So back to my original point: whatever the recent economic news, we’re still near the bottom of a very deep hole. We can only hope that enough policy makers understand that point.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
This Says It All!
The Economic Collapse put up this post. See if you can find anything to argue with in here.
17 National Debt Statistics Which Prove That We Have Sold Our Children And Grandchildren Into Perpetual Debt Slavery
What we have done to future generations over the past 30 years is absolutely criminal. 30 years ago the U.S. national debt was a bit under one trillion dollars, and at that time it was considered a huge national crisis. Today, the national debt is 14 times larger and the years ahead look absolutely apocalyptic at this point. We have literally sold our children and our grandchildren into perpetual debt slavery. We have accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and our children and our grandchildren will be burdened with it for the rest of their lives. All of our politicians keep talking about how it is vitally important that we do something about all of this debt "soon", but they just can't seem to stop wildly spending our money. They keep telling us that now is not the time for deficit reduction because it would harm "the economic recovery", but the "right time" for deficit reduction never seems to come along. The national debt statistics in this article are meant to shock you. Hopefully they will shock you enough to actually take action. Up to this point, the vast majority of Americans have been extremely apathetic about the horrific crime that we are committing against future generations.
How would you feel if you found out one day that your parents had run up a million dollars in debt that now you were obligated to pay off?
Would you be absolutely furious?
Of course you would be, and rightly so.
So how do you think future generations will feel about us?
We were once the wealthiest nation on the planet, but we have taken that great inheritance and we have squandered it.
Now we are handing our children and our grandchildren the largest debt the world has ever seen.
How in the world can we do that?
How can we consign our descendants to perpetual debt slavery and still feel good about ourselves?
The America that we have all been enjoying so much today is going to be wiped out by all of this debt.
We have literally stolen the future.
We just had to keep spending more and more and more and more.
The greed of this generation will be remembered for a very, very long time.
The truth is that both political parties are responsible. Both of them have voted over and over and over to keep running up these huge budget deficits.
If you have voted for big spending Democrats at any point over the past 30 years then you have contributed to the problem. If you have voted for big spending Republicans at any point over the past 30 years then you have contributed to the problem.
Now we have reached a point where a horrific financial meltdown is basically inevitable. We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and it is only a matter of time until it bursts.
The following are 17 national debt statistics which prove that we have sold our children and our grandchildren into perpetual debt slavery....
#1 As of December 28th, the U.S. national debt was $13,877,230,355,933.00.
#2 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.
#3 If the federal government began repaying the national debt at a rate of $10 million dollars a day it would take approximately 3,800 years to pay off the national debt.
#4 Today, the U.S. national debt is increasing by roughly 4 billion dollars every single day.
#5 The U.S. government is borrowing approximately 2.63 million more dollars every single minute.
#6 On September 30th, 1980 the U.S. national debt was 907 billion dollars. Just thirty years later, the U.S. national debt is over 14 times larger.
#7 According to a recent U.S. Treasury report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will reach 19.6 trillion dollars in 2015.
#8 It is being projected that the U.S. government will be paying 900 billion dollars just in interest on the national debt by the year 2019.
#9 A trillion $10 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globe more than 380 times. That amount of money would still not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.
#10 The U.S. Congress has raised the federal debt ceiling six times in just the past three years.
#11 The 111th Congress added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.
#12 The 111th Congress got us into so much new debt that it breaks down to $10,429.64 for each of the 308,745,538 people counted by the 2010 U.S. census.
#13 The U.S. government currently has to borrow approximately 41 cents of every single dollar that it spends.
#14 When you break down the debt that the U.S. government owes to China alone it comes to over $10,000 for every single American family.
#15 If you were alive when Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now. Almost unbelievably, the U.S. government will accumulate well over a trillion dollars more debt in 2011.
#16 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.
#17 The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that U.S. government debt held by the public will reach a staggering 716 percent of GDP by the year 2080.
But the American people don't want to hear that we have spent decades creating a horrific debt crisis that is not going to be easy to fix. They just want someone to "tweak" a few things and get us back to being the greatest economy on earth. Unfortunately, it is simply not that easy.
Just check out the chart posted below. Our debt is exploding at an almost exponential rate....
But what do you tell a nation that is completely addicted to debt?
On an individual level, it can be a lot of fun to wildly run up credit card debt, but at some point you have to stop and start paying down that debt.
Unfortunately, on a national level we can't even get our politicians to slow down the rate at which our debt is increasing.
Sadly, the chart above does not tell the real story. It is based on fraudulent government accounting. If the government used GAAP accounting (like all public companies on Wall Street must), the numbers would look much worse.
John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics says that if the federal government would have used GAAP accounting standards to calculate the federal budget deficit for 2009, it would have been approximately 8.8 trillion dollars and that there is simply no way out of all this debt....
The government’s finances not only are out of control, but the actual deficit is not containable. Put into perspective, if the government were to raise taxes so as to seize 100% of all wages, salaries and corporate profits, it still would be showing an annual deficit using GAAP accounting on a consistent basis. In like manner, given current revenues, if it stopped spending every penny (including defense and homeland security) other than for Social Security and Medicare obligations, the government still would be showing an annual deficit. Further, the U.S. has no potential way to grow out of this shortfall.
The U.S. government is essentially bankrupt at this point. It is just a matter of playing out the hand.
The rest of the world is starting to realize this, and confidence in the U.S. dollar is beginning to significantly decline.
Things did not have to turn out this way, but Americans did not listen to the warnings and so now this is where we are at as a nation.
The next time you see a small child, look into the hopeful eyes of that child and just think about what we have done to the future of all of our children.
We have obliterated the financial future of this nation. Someone should be put into prison for all this. But instead the mainstream media treats prominent politicians from both political parties like rock stars.
The mainstream media continues to perpetuate the myth that the U.S. economy is on the road to a grand recovery and that eventually we can get a handle on all this debt and that somehow everything is going to be okay.
Well, everything is not going to be okay.
All that is on the horizon is great financial pain, and the sad thing is that it could have all been avoided.
But now the game is over and the day of reckoning is coming soon.
We are going to reap what we have sown.
17 National Debt Statistics Which Prove That We Have Sold Our Children And Grandchildren Into Perpetual Debt Slavery
What we have done to future generations over the past 30 years is absolutely criminal. 30 years ago the U.S. national debt was a bit under one trillion dollars, and at that time it was considered a huge national crisis. Today, the national debt is 14 times larger and the years ahead look absolutely apocalyptic at this point. We have literally sold our children and our grandchildren into perpetual debt slavery. We have accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and our children and our grandchildren will be burdened with it for the rest of their lives. All of our politicians keep talking about how it is vitally important that we do something about all of this debt "soon", but they just can't seem to stop wildly spending our money. They keep telling us that now is not the time for deficit reduction because it would harm "the economic recovery", but the "right time" for deficit reduction never seems to come along. The national debt statistics in this article are meant to shock you. Hopefully they will shock you enough to actually take action. Up to this point, the vast majority of Americans have been extremely apathetic about the horrific crime that we are committing against future generations.
How would you feel if you found out one day that your parents had run up a million dollars in debt that now you were obligated to pay off?
Would you be absolutely furious?
Of course you would be, and rightly so.
So how do you think future generations will feel about us?
We were once the wealthiest nation on the planet, but we have taken that great inheritance and we have squandered it.
Now we are handing our children and our grandchildren the largest debt the world has ever seen.
How in the world can we do that?
How can we consign our descendants to perpetual debt slavery and still feel good about ourselves?
The America that we have all been enjoying so much today is going to be wiped out by all of this debt.
We have literally stolen the future.
We just had to keep spending more and more and more and more.
The greed of this generation will be remembered for a very, very long time.
The truth is that both political parties are responsible. Both of them have voted over and over and over to keep running up these huge budget deficits.
If you have voted for big spending Democrats at any point over the past 30 years then you have contributed to the problem. If you have voted for big spending Republicans at any point over the past 30 years then you have contributed to the problem.
Now we have reached a point where a horrific financial meltdown is basically inevitable. We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and it is only a matter of time until it bursts.
The following are 17 national debt statistics which prove that we have sold our children and our grandchildren into perpetual debt slavery....
#1 As of December 28th, the U.S. national debt was $13,877,230,355,933.00.
#2 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.
#3 If the federal government began repaying the national debt at a rate of $10 million dollars a day it would take approximately 3,800 years to pay off the national debt.
#4 Today, the U.S. national debt is increasing by roughly 4 billion dollars every single day.
#5 The U.S. government is borrowing approximately 2.63 million more dollars every single minute.
#6 On September 30th, 1980 the U.S. national debt was 907 billion dollars. Just thirty years later, the U.S. national debt is over 14 times larger.
#7 According to a recent U.S. Treasury report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will reach 19.6 trillion dollars in 2015.
#8 It is being projected that the U.S. government will be paying 900 billion dollars just in interest on the national debt by the year 2019.
#9 A trillion $10 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globe more than 380 times. That amount of money would still not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.
#10 The U.S. Congress has raised the federal debt ceiling six times in just the past three years.
#11 The 111th Congress added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.
#12 The 111th Congress got us into so much new debt that it breaks down to $10,429.64 for each of the 308,745,538 people counted by the 2010 U.S. census.
#13 The U.S. government currently has to borrow approximately 41 cents of every single dollar that it spends.
#14 When you break down the debt that the U.S. government owes to China alone it comes to over $10,000 for every single American family.
#15 If you were alive when Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now. Almost unbelievably, the U.S. government will accumulate well over a trillion dollars more debt in 2011.
#16 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.
#17 The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that U.S. government debt held by the public will reach a staggering 716 percent of GDP by the year 2080.
But the American people don't want to hear that we have spent decades creating a horrific debt crisis that is not going to be easy to fix. They just want someone to "tweak" a few things and get us back to being the greatest economy on earth. Unfortunately, it is simply not that easy.
Just check out the chart posted below. Our debt is exploding at an almost exponential rate....
But what do you tell a nation that is completely addicted to debt?
On an individual level, it can be a lot of fun to wildly run up credit card debt, but at some point you have to stop and start paying down that debt.
Unfortunately, on a national level we can't even get our politicians to slow down the rate at which our debt is increasing.
Sadly, the chart above does not tell the real story. It is based on fraudulent government accounting. If the government used GAAP accounting (like all public companies on Wall Street must), the numbers would look much worse.
John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics says that if the federal government would have used GAAP accounting standards to calculate the federal budget deficit for 2009, it would have been approximately 8.8 trillion dollars and that there is simply no way out of all this debt....
The government’s finances not only are out of control, but the actual deficit is not containable. Put into perspective, if the government were to raise taxes so as to seize 100% of all wages, salaries and corporate profits, it still would be showing an annual deficit using GAAP accounting on a consistent basis. In like manner, given current revenues, if it stopped spending every penny (including defense and homeland security) other than for Social Security and Medicare obligations, the government still would be showing an annual deficit. Further, the U.S. has no potential way to grow out of this shortfall.
The U.S. government is essentially bankrupt at this point. It is just a matter of playing out the hand.
The rest of the world is starting to realize this, and confidence in the U.S. dollar is beginning to significantly decline.
Things did not have to turn out this way, but Americans did not listen to the warnings and so now this is where we are at as a nation.
The next time you see a small child, look into the hopeful eyes of that child and just think about what we have done to the future of all of our children.
We have obliterated the financial future of this nation. Someone should be put into prison for all this. But instead the mainstream media treats prominent politicians from both political parties like rock stars.
The mainstream media continues to perpetuate the myth that the U.S. economy is on the road to a grand recovery and that eventually we can get a handle on all this debt and that somehow everything is going to be okay.
Well, everything is not going to be okay.
All that is on the horizon is great financial pain, and the sad thing is that it could have all been avoided.
But now the game is over and the day of reckoning is coming soon.
We are going to reap what we have sown.
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