CBO: Obama Budget Adds $5.2 Trillion To Deficit, $1 Trillion In New Taxes

CBO: Obama Budget Adds $5.2 Trillion To Deficit, $1 Trillion In New Taxes – Big Government

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget would add $5.2 trillion in deficits over the next ten years and contains nearly $1 trillion in new taxes.

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The Obama budget, which was delivered two months after the legally-required deadline, is larded with accounting gimmicks that count as savings war and disaster contingency funds that were never going to be spent. Obama’s budget also assumes sequester-related cuts will all be restored.

But Obama claims his budget is devoid of budgeting tricks.

“The numbers work,” says Obama. “There’s not a lot of smoke and mirrors in here.”

Congressional Republicans are not buying it.

“This new [CBO] report shows that the President’s budget doesn’t come close to solving the problem,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). “The federal government will take in a record haul over the next ten years. And the President wants yet another massive tax hike. But under his plan, we’ll keep adding to the debt – at an alarming rate.”

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) defending the Obama budget and said the plan offers taxpayers a “big and balanced approach.”

“This is an important validation of the President’s and Democrats’ efforts to restore fiscal discipline through a big and balanced approach while maintaining our ability to invest in a competitive economy and a growing middle class,” said Hoyer.

Obama’s past budgets have resulted in politically embarrassing defeats. In 2011 and 2012, the Senate Democrats and Republicans unanimously rejected Obama’s proposed budgets.

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Obama Says $1 Trillion In Obamacare Spending Is… Wait For It… An Historic Tax Cut

Obama: $1 Trillion In Obamacare Spending Is Historic ‘Tax Cut’ – Washington Examiner

As part of a Mothers’ Day weekend defense of his signature legislative accomplishment, President Obama claimed that the law represented the “largest health care tax cut for working families and small businesses in our history.“

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His argument was a Hail-Mary effort to redesignate subsidies for individuals to purchase health insurance on government-run exchanges as a “tax cut.” But according to the Congressional Budget Office, these subsidies actually qualify as more than $1 trillion in “Exchange Subsidies and Related SPENDING.” (Emphasis mine.)

Far from being a historic tax cut, Obamacare actually qualifies as one of the largest tax increases in history. It contains roughly $1 trillion in taxes – on insurance plans, medical devices and investment income. And many of the taxes will end up falling on the middle class. The law’s individual mandate, which the Obama administration successful argued was a tax before the U.S. Supreme Court, is projected to hit nearly 5 million Americans with incomes less than $60,000 by 2016.

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This Is Criminal: DOE Spends Over $11 Million Per Permanent Green Job

This Is Criminal: DOE Spends Over $11 Million Per Permanent Green Job – Gateway Pundit

Under Barack Obama’s leadership the Department of Energy spends over $11 million per green job.

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Institute for Energy

This is theft.

OilPrice.com reported:

A new report by the Institute for Energy Research (IER) has shown that despite strong support from the Obama administration, all funded by tax payers, the green energy sector has struggled to grow, and created very few jobs.

The report notes that since 2009 the Department of Energy has invested nearly $26 billion through the Section 1703 and 1705 loan programs, and in that time only 2,308 permanent green jobs have been generated, meaning that each new green sector job cost the taxpayers $11.25 million.

The IER stated in the report that “clearly, in terms of ‘bang for the buck,’ government programs that coddle renewable energy are losers. In terms of jobs, the losers are the American workers who would otherwise be gainfully employed but for the tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars on the administration’s obsession with green energy.”

80% of DOE dollars went to Obama backers. 19 of these green energy companies went bust.

Another green boondoggle, Vehicle Production Group, linked to an Obama donor, went bust this week.

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It Figures… Obama’s Nominee For Housing Chief Helped Create Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Housing Nominee Mel Watt Helped Create The Subprime Crisis – Daily Caller

Mel Watt, President Obama’s nominee for director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, pushed government programs to help welfare recipients buy homes during the creation of the subprime mortgage bubble.

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Watt, a 20-year Member of Congress from North Carolina’s 12th district, also had a hand in programs allowing borrowers with poor credit to buy homes with no down payment. The American financial system was subsequently destroyed when millions of bad borrowers defaulted on their loans, setting off a market crash that wiped out nearly 40 percent of the net worth of Americans.

In 2002, Watt teamed up with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Bank of America, BB&T, and UJAMMA Inc., to announce Pathways to Homeownership, a pilot initiative designed to give home loans to welfare recipients.

A press release from Watt’s campaign office in October 2002 said that the loans to the welfare recipients would require “as little as $1,000 of the down payment to come from their own funds” and that the city of Charlotte would help borrowers obtain a “down payment subsidy” to cover the rest of the 3% down payment.

If approved to head up Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Watt will be regulating the very government agencies whose rules he negated in 2003.

Watt, alongside then-Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, blocked Bush Administration efforts to reduce Fannie and Freddie’s overexposure to subprime loans. “I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Watt said in a banking committee hearing, downplaying the risks inherent in pushing.

In 2007, a full year after the real estate market peaked and began to plummet under the weight of millions of mortgage defaults, Watt and Frank co-sponsored a bill forcing Fannie and Freddie to meet even higher quotas for affordable lending and investing in an “Affordable Housing Fund” for inner city communities.

Watt’s deregulation of Fannie and Freddie came after the government-sponsored enterprises spent billions in his congressional district. “Freddie Mac has purchased $9.5 billion in mortgages made to an estimated 82,000 Charlotte-area residents,” Watt’s staff announced in 2002.

Many of those risky loans ultimately led to the housing bubble and financial crisis. Charlotte was among the hardest-hit areas of the country. The 6.09 percent foreclosure rate for the North Carolina city was more than double the national average of 2.85 percent, according to the Charlotte Observer. CNN.com listed Charlotte number five of the hardest hit foreclosure hotspots in America in 2011.

Watt began setting the subprime wildfire several years before it engulfed the nation. In 2001, Watt helped start the Congressional Black Caucus’ “With Ownership, Wealth” (WOW) initiative, which sought to add one million black households to the ranks of America’s homeowners by 2005. The program was designed to close a racial gap in homeownership between blacks and whites, which according to Watt stood at 46.7 percent vs. 73 percent respectively.

Watt, who once said he has “no use” for a majority of white voters “in the democratic process,” blamed racist lending practices for this gap and in 2008 called for “a more coordinated approach to dealing with these issues of discrimination, failure to be fair in loan terms.”

He continued his race demagoguery in an interview with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “Discrimination is an ongoing problem. How do you really effectively legislate and regulate through governmental agencies to eliminate that problem?”

The WOW initiative, relying on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s secondary market mortgage purchases and corporate bank sponsorship forced by the Community Reinvestment Act, set low standards for mortgages to help spur black homeownership. Whether it alleviated the racial disparity in home ownership is unclear, but Americans across racial lines responded to Watt’s government-created incentives for bad mortgage lending. Demographic research [pdf] shows that of the subprime borrowers who were foreclosed on in the ensuing meltdown, a solid majority were white and non-Hispanic.

Watt also drove hard to increase loans to borrowers making no down payment or showing extremely bad credit. “Loan products will be aimed at borrowers experiencing challenges in accumulating wealth and who have not developed traditional credit histories, or who have impaired credit,” explained a 2002 press release on the WOW initiative from the Congressional Black Caucus. “Other mortgage products will be available for low- and moderate-income borrowers with incomes at or below 100% of the Area Medium Income.”

As Watt’s scheme and other public incentives artificially stimulated demand, Charlotte saw home prices rise precipitously before they collapsed in 2006. The failure of many Charlotte residents to pay off their loans led to the housing price collapse. Nationally, the wave of subprime defaults bankrupted Fannie and Freddie, which were placed into a conservatorship by the Treasury Department in 2008.

But rather than punish Watt for pushing this policy, Obama is promoting him to be the chief regulator of the mortgage entities.

“Mel has led efforts to rein in unscrupulous mortgage lenders. He’s helped protect consumers from the kind of reckless risk-taking that led to the financial crisis in the first place. And he’s fought to give more Americans in low-income neighborhoods access to affordable housing,” Obama said on Wednesday, announcing Watt’s nomination.

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You know what would really help our economy?

A time machine. See with a time machine we could all go back to 1979. Why 1979? Well Chris Wysocki figures that today’s “bright” economic news, unemployment hit 7.5%, would really be good news, if this was 1979.

Good news America! The unemployment rate has dropped again! It’s now at 7.5%, and employers are adding more jobs than ever!

U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs in April, and hiring was much stronger in the previous two months than the government first estimated. The job increases helped reduce the unemployment rate from 7.6 percent to a four-year low of 7.5 percent.

The government revised up its estimate of job gains in February and March by a combined 114,000. It now says employers added 332,000 jobs in February and 138,000 in March. The economy has created an average of 208,000 jobs a month from November through April — above the 138,000 added in the previous six months.

Alas every silver lining has a cloud. Or 2.

First, the workforce participation rate remains stubbornly stuck at 63.3%, the lowest it’s been since 1979. Because once you’ve given up, you’ve given up. And your president has likewise given up on you.

Second, and perhaps more ominously, ObamaCare is pushing more and more people into part-time work.

Many part-timers are facing a double whammy from President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The law requires large employers offering health insurance to include part-time employees working 30 hours a week or more. But rather than provide healthcare to more workers, a growing number of employers are cutting back employee hours instead.

See! Even good news is bad news in Obamaland. So, would we REALLY be better to go back to 1979? Well, in 1979, Carter was president, and things were not great at all. But there was no Obamacare looming over us, and do you recall what happened the very next year? Yep, Reagan was elected! Also, there was no MSNBS, no reality TV, of course there was no internet, and no blogs, so, what would I be doing with my time?

 

$7.9B In Improper Social Security Payments Last Year… But The Sequester Will Destroy America

$7.9 Billion In Improper Social Security Payments In FY 2012 – CNS

The Social Security Administration (SSA) needs to focus on “program integrity,” a polite term for reducing fraud and payment errors, the agency’s inspector general told Congress last week.

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Reducing improper payments is one of the challenges facing the next SSA commissioner, Patrick O’Carroll, Jr., the agency’s inspector general, told the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security on April 26.

In fiscal year 2012, the Social Security Administration reported $4.7 billion in improper payments in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, a 9.2 percent improper payment rate. (SSI is funded by general tax revenues, not payroll taxes. It helps elderly, blind, and/or disabled people who are poor.)

SSA reported $3.2 billion in the Old-Age, Survivors’ and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program, a 0.4 percent improper payment rate. (OASDI, funded by payroll taxes, is what people generally refer to as “Social Security.”)

That’s a total of $7.9 billion, and it includes some underpayments as well as overpayments.

“SSA’s improper payments largely consist of those erroneously made to ineligible individuals,” O’Carroll said.

“Improper benefit payments occur for many reasons.” Fraud is one reason, he said. This includes beneficiaries who do not tell the agency about changes in their income, resources or living arrangements, which would change the amount Social Security pays them. O’Carroll also mentioned recipients’ “poor understanding of reporting responsibilities,” and administrative errors.

“For many years, my office has encouraged SSA to balance service initiatives, such as processing new claims, with stewardship responsibilities, such as conducting timely work and medical (disability reviews) and SSI redeterminations, to ensure that individuals remain disabled and eligible, and cease payments to those who do not.”

Soaring disability claims are a particular concern for the Social Security Administration.

In his opening statement, subcommittee Chair Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) said application for disability benefits, triggered by the recession and the weak recovery, have never been higher: “Since 2010, the average number of people filing for disability benefits is just over 249,000 a month,” Johnson said. “At the same time the average number of new jobs created is almost 148,000 each month.”

O’Carroll told the panel he would like to see SSA perform more work-related “continuing disability reviews,” or CDRs, to make sure people collecting disability aren’t working on the side.

SSA estimates that every dollar spent on medical CDRs yields about $9 in SSA program savings over 10 years. Reducing the complexity of Social Security’s disability programs could also streamline operations and reduce millions of dollars in payment errors each year, O’Carroll said.

SSA said it conducted 443,233 medical disability reviews in FY2012, up from 345,000 in FY2011, but the disability review backlog still stands at 1.2 million.

SSA has set a goal of conducting 435,000 medical disability reviews in FY2013, based on the current level of funding. Beneficiaries with a high likelihood of medical improvement undergo a medical review; Beneficiaries with a lower likelihood of medical improvement are mailed a questionnaire, which may or may not trigger a medical review.

Reexamination or “redetermination” of SSI retirement benefits also is effective in reducing overpayments in the SSI program, O’Carroll said. Because SSI is a means-tested program, any change in recipients’ income, living arrangements, or marital status can affect eligibility or payment amount.

SSA reported that it saves $5 for every $1 spent on SSI redeterminations. SSA completed more than 2.4 million redeterminations in FY2011 and 2.6 million in FY2012, and it plans to conduct more than 2.6 million in FY2013. Not every SSI recipient undergoes a redetermination every year; SSA uses a statistical scoring model to identify which cases it will examine.

O’Carroll said his office has encouraged SSA to use data matching with other governmental agencies to detect improper payments. He said SSA also should use more non-governmental databases in doing the redeterminations.

SSA paid more than $800 billion in SSI and OASDI benefits to more than 60 million Americans in FY2012. It estimates that over the next 20 years, another 80 million individuals will retire and file for Social Security benefits.

The hearing was called to discuss the challenges facing the next Social Security commissioner. Michael J. Astrue’s six-year term expired on Jan. 19, 2013, and his successor — once President Obama nominates one – must be confirmed by the Senate.

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Military Signs Contract For Green Jet Fuel That’s Nearly 16 Times The Price Of Conventional Fuel

Military Signs Contract For Green Jet Fuel That’s Nearly 16 Times The Price Of Conventional Fuel – The Blaze

With many claiming to feel the pangs of the sequestration, it appears a green company’s contract for a more expensive jet fuel was allowed to go through.

The renewable chemical and biofuel company Gevo in its first quarter investor relations report stated that it signed a contract with the Defense Logistics Agency to supply 3,650 gallons of renewable jet fuel.

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The order, worth $215,350 total ($59/gallon), is set to be delivered by 2013′s second quarter and has the option to be increased to 12,500 gallons, which would cost up to $737,500.

Gevo calls this an “initial testing phase.”

Under other contracts, the company already supplies renewable jet fuel for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy.

As the Washington Examiner pointed out, DLA set conventional JP-8 jet fuel as costing $3.78 per gallon at FY 2013 rates.

In other renewable jet fuel news, the Wisconsin-based company Virent Inc. delivered 100 gallons of bio-fuel this week to the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

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The Dayton Daily News reported that the jet fuel produced from 100-percent renewable plant sugars will be tested against applicable standards as the Air Force continues to strive toward its goal of flying on domestic, alternative fuels by 2030.

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Thanks Barack… Shorter Work Week Equivalent To 500,000 Jobs Lost

Thanks Barack… Shorter Work Week Equivalent To 500,000 Jobs Lost – Gateway Pundit

The good news is the unemployment rate dropped to 7.5%. The bad news is that companies are cutting hours.

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In April the shorter work week was equivalent to 500,000 jobs lost.

Market Watch reported:

The April employment report exceeded expectations, with 165,000 jobs created and a welcome drop in the unemployment rate to 7.5%.

But there was a dark side to the report: Total hours worked fell sharply, and the total amount of money earned by U.S. workers actually declined from the month before.

“Aggregate weekly hours” is an obscure series of data in the jobs report, but it’s vital to understanding how strong the economy is performing. As the name implies, it measures the total number of hours worked, which is what matters for sizing up overall growth in the economy.

Usually, we focus just on the number of new jobs created and the unemployment rate, but the number of hours we work matters just as much, if not more, to our economic well-being…

…In April, companies hired 165,000 more workers, but they cut everyone’s hours (on average) by 12 minutes. That doesn’t sound like much of a decline, but spread out over the 135 million-strong work force, the decline in hours worked is the equivalent of firing more than 500,000 workers while keeping hours steady.

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U.S. Taxpayers Spend $355,825 To Reduce Stigmatization Of India’s Transgenders

U.S. Taxpayers Spend $355,825 To Reduce Stigmatization Of India’s Transgenders – CNS

The federal government is spending $355,825 in taxpayer dollars to develop a “culturally relevant stigma-reducing intervention” program for the transgender population in India.

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Bindiya Rana, right, a transgender candidate in Pakistan’s elections, talks with locals in Karachi, Pakistan

The National Institutes of Health issued a two-phase grant to the Ohio-based Baldwin-Wallace College to conduct the study. The first phase cost $173,221. The second phase cost $182,604.

The reason given for the study is “HIV prevalence is disproportionately high among Male-to-female transgenders (Hijra) in India.”

“Stigma among health care providers limits HIV testing, treatment and care and creates a barrier to HIV protective behavior,” the project summary says. “Stigmatization of transgender by healthcare providers has been documented, and is identified as a significant barrier to effective HIV prevention responses among this marginalized, at-risk population in India. However, evidence based interventions to reduce stigma and discrimination among health care providers are seriously lacking.”

The title of the study is “Project Shakti: Stigma Reduction, Health Care Provider Awareness and Knowledge.”

CNSNews.com asked an NIH spokesperson several questions, including, “Since this study focuses on India, what is the benefit to the U.S.? Why is it worthwhile to U.S. taxpayers?”

In a written response, the NIH told CNSNews.com only, “NIH research addresses the full spectrum of human health across all populations of Americans. Behavioral research will continue to be an important area of research supported by NIH.”

The NIH referred back to the project summary for any other comment.

The funding for the project ends in August.

“The proposed project will address this need by developing a theory-based, culturally relevant stigma-reducing intervention targeting health care providers in Mumbai, India,” the NIH project summary says. “The proposed multidisciplinary US-India collaborative research team with significant HIV/AIDS research experience will implement a two-year formative study to develop and pilot health-care provider-focused stigma reducing intervention.”

The project summary continues, “The study has three specific aims: 1) Document cause and manifestation of stigma among health care providers in Mumbai; 2) Use the information to design a provider-focused intervention module, and obtain community feedback; 3) Pilot the revised intervention module among 50 healthcare providers, and assess its feasibility, acceptability and preliminary effect on health service behavior among healthcare providers. These data will prepare the team to conduct a large scale randomized controlled trial in India.”

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Obamacare’s Tax Hike Train Wreck

Obamacare’s Tax Hike Train Wreck – Americans For Tax Reform

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Asked about Senator Max Baucus’s (D-Mont.) recent “train wreck” comments, President Obama today said, “A huge chunk of it [Obamacare] has already been implemented.” Unmentioned was the wave of destructive Obamacare tax increases that will begin to hit Americans during the next tax filing season and beyond:

Starting in tax year 2013:

Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income: A new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This tax hike results in the following top tax rates on investment income:

	Capital Gains	Dividends	Other*
2013+	23.8%	43.4%	43.4%

*Other unearned income includes (for surtax purposes) gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents, and passive income in partnerships and Subchapter-S corporations. It does not include municipal bond interest or life insurance proceeds, since those do not add to gross income. It does not include active trade or business income, fair market value sales of ownership in pass-through entities, or distributions from retirement plans. (Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 87-93)

Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Increase:

	First $200,000 ($250,000 Married) Employer/Employee	All Remaining Wages Employer/Employee
Pre-Obamacare	1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self-employed	1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self employed
Obamacare	1.45%/1.45% 2.9% self-employed	1.45%/2.35% 3.8% self-employed

(Bill: PPACA, Reconciliation Act; Page: 2,000-2,003; 87-93)

Obamacare Medical Device Tax: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will make everything from pacemakers to artificial hips more expensive. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,980-1,986)

Obamacare High Medical Bills Tax: Before Obamacare, Americans facing high medical expenses were allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceeded 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). Obamacare now imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. Therefore, Obamacare not only makes it more difficult to claim this deduction, it widens the net of taxable income. According to the IRS, 10 million families took advantage of this tax deduction in 2009, the latest year of available data. Almost all are middle class. The average taxpayer claiming this deduction earned just over $53,000 annually. ATR estimates that the average income tax increase for the average family claiming this tax benefit will be $200 – $400 per year. To learn more about this tax, click here. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994-1,995)

Obamacare Flexible Spending Account Tax: The 30 – 35 million Americans who use a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs face a new Obamacare cap of $2,500. This will squeeze $13 billion of tax money from Americans over the next ten years. (Before Obamacare, the accounts were unlimited under federal law, though employers were allowed to set a cap.) Now, a parent looking to sock away extra money to pay for braces will find themselves quickly hitting this new cap, meaning they would have to pony up some or all of the cost with after-tax dollars.

Needless to say, this tax will especially impact middle class families.

There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. Nationwide there are several million families with special needs children and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,388-2,389)

Starting in tax year 2014:

Obamacare Individual Mandate Non-Compliance Tax: Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance – as defined by President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services – must pay an income surtax to the IRS. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that six million American families will be liable for the tax, and as pointed out by the Associated Press: “Most would be in the middle class.”

In addition, 100 percent of Americans filing a tax return (140 million filers) will be forced to submit paperwork to the IRS showing they either had “qualifying” health insurance for every month of the tax year or they obtained an exemption to the mandate.

Americans liable for the surtax will pay according to the following schedule

	1 Adult	2 Adults	3+ Adults
2014	1%AGI/$95	1%AGI/$190	1%AGI/$285
2015	2%AGI/$325	2%AGI/$650	2%AGI/$975
2016	2.5%AGI/$695	2.5%AGI/$1390	2.5%AGI/$2085

Obamacare Employer Mandate Tax: If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2,000 for all full-time employees. This provision applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3,000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer). (Bill: PPACA; Page: 345-346)

Obamacare Tax on Health Insurers: Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year. The tax phases in gradually until 2018. Fully imposed on firms with $50 million in profits. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,986-1,993)

Starting in tax year 2018:

Obamacare Tax on Union Member and Early Retiree Health Insurance Plans: Obamacare imposes a new 40 percent excise tax on high cost or “Cadillac” health insurance plans, effective in 2018. This tax increase will most directly affect union families and early retirees, who are likely to be covered by such plans. This Obamacare tax will be levied on insurance policies whose premiums exceed $10,200 for an individual and $27,500 for a family. Middle class union members tend to be covered by such plans in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family) for early retirees and high-risk professions. CPI +1 percentage point indexed. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,941-1,956)

Click here for a printable PDF

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Obama’s Borrowed More Per Household ($53,616) Than Median Household Earns ($50,502)

Obama’s Borrowed More Per Household ($53,616) Than Median Household Earns ($50,502) – CNS

Under President Barack Obama, the federal government’s debt has increased by an amount per household that exceeds the annual median household income.

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Since Obama’s first inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009, the federal debt has climbed $6,167,472,778,984.22. That equals about $53,616 for each of the 115,031,000 households the Census Bureau currently estimates are in the country.

By contrast, the Census Bureau’s most recent estimate of the median household income was $50,502 (for 2011).

If the federal government increased taxes sufficiently to take from the private sector the equivalent of $50,502 for every household in the country – that is, an amount that equals the median household income multiplied by the total number of households ($50,502 x $115,031,000), it would only take in $5,809,295,562,000.

That $5,809,295,562,000 tax increase would not be enough to pay back the $6,167,472,778,984.22 Obama has borrowed so far on the credit of American taxpayers.

To actually pay back what Obama’s has already borrowed, the federal government would need to tax away from the private sector an amount that equals more per household than the median household earns–and then it would need to refrain from spending those additional tax dollars on new or expanded government programs so the money could be used to pay down the debt.

On Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama first took the oath of office, the federal debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08, according to the U.S. Treasury. At the close of business on April 25, 2013, it was $16,794,349,827,897.30.

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The 20 Most Stunning Poverty Statistics Of The Obama Epoch

The 20 Most Stunning Poverty Statistics Of The Obama Epoch – Doug Ross Journal

It’s even worse than than we thought.

1 – According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty. The number of Americans living in poverty is now at a level not seen since the 1960s.

2 – When you add in the number of low income Americans it is even more sobering. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either “poor” or “low income”.

3 – Today, approximately 20 percent of all children in the United States are living in poverty. Incredibly, a higher percentage of children is living in poverty in America today than was the case back in 1975.

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4 – It may be hard to believe, but approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are currently living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.

5 – Poverty is the worst in our inner cities. At this point, 29.2 percent of all African-American households with children are dealing with food insecurity.

6 – According to a recently released report, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

7 – Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, close to one out of every six Americans is on food stamps. Even more shocking is the fact that more than one out of every four children in the United States is enrolled in the food stamp program.

8 – For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.

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9 – Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.

10 – One university study estimates that child poverty costs the U.S. economy 500 billion dollars each year.

11 – At this point, approximately one out of every three children in the U.S. lives in a home without a father.

12 – Families that have a head of household under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.

13 – Today, there are approximately 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

14 – About 40 percent of all unemployed workers in America have been out of work for at least half a year.

15 – At this point, one out of every four American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.

16 – There has been an explosion in the number of “working poor” Americans in recent years. Today, about one out of every four workers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the poverty level.

17 – Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even include Social Security or Medicare.

18 – An all-time record 47.79 million Americans are now on food stamps. Back when Barack Obama first took office, that number was only sitting at about 32 million.

19 – The number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of Spain.

20 – According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”

In March of 2009 – yes, a full four years ago – I warned “Obama’s destruction of the economy is intentional.”

After 48 months, I see no evidence to the contrary.

His policies represent fiscal suicide. And nothing, not facts, logic, or reason, will dissuade him from his ideology of collectivism that can’t work, won’t work and has never worked in all of human history.

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Jihad Blows Up The Liberal Utopia (Jeffrey Lord)

Jihad Blows Up The Liberal Utopia – Jeffrey Lord

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Jihad has blown up The Liberal Utopia.

The visionary liberal land of political and social perfection.

President Obama is not happy – and he isn’t alone.

You know the place.

• The Liberal Utopia is a land where gun background checks prevent mass murder.

• The Liberal Utopia is a land where Islamic fundamentalists have changed their perception of America because the President travels to Muslim nations to give lovely speeches, believes that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere is a wonderful sign of an Arab Spring, and refuses to use the word “terrorist” whether his administration is investigating Ft. Hood, Boston, or Benghazi.

• The Liberal Utopia is a land where a 2009 presidential video proclaiming a “new beginning” in American relations with Iran will halt the effort to build a nuclear bomb.

• The Liberal Utopia is a land where the good intentions of Social Security will never bankrupt the Social Security Trust Fund.

• The Liberal Utopia is a land where the good intentions of Medicare could not possibility result in trillions of unfunded liability.

• The Liberal Utopia is a land where the War on Poverty was supposed to end poverty – and instead winds up sending violent crime skyrocketing, and, in the words of Thomas Sowell, setting up the American black family for rapid disintegration in the liberal welfare state “that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.”

One could go on… and on and on… spotting those will-o-the-wisp glimpses of The Liberal Utopia (Obamacare here, the Obama stimulus over there, the promise to close Guantanamo way back there) with example after example of this miserably failed attempt to find or create a Liberal Utopia.

Or what our friend Mark Levin deftly calls Ameritopia.

The search for this Liberal Utopia has been going on in this country since at least 1932 and in fact before that when one keeps going on back to Woodrow Wilson’s progressives and beyond to the late 19th century when the progressive movement began to gain political steam with the likes of William Jennings Bryan and a whole host of other if lesser known figures.

The idea is always the same. To quote Levin: “Utopianism is the ideological and doctrinal foundation for statism.”

Or, to simplify: if only Americans are made to do X, The Perfect Society will manifest.

What is X? The above list suffices: background checks, a video sending nice words to Iran, opening up to the Muslim Brotherhood, setting up a government-run Social Security or Medicare or Obamacare, declaring a government-run War on Poverty. The Obama stimulus.

And let’s not forget the Philadelphia abortion scandal where live human babies outside the womb were repeatedly killed – a direct contradiction of the entire Roe.v. Wade sacrament.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Let’s start with two stories that have dominated the news in the last week: gun control and the Boston Marathon murders.

Recall that after the Senate defeated the Toomey-Manchin background amendment, President Obama, outraged, took to the White House Rose Garden to say this:

“The gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill. They claimed that it would create some sort of ‘big brother’ gun registry, even though the bill did the opposite. This legislation, in fact, outlawed any registry.”

Next up was former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who took to the Op-Ed page of the New York Times to say “I’m furious.” Giffords accused the Senate of being in the “grip of the gun lobby” fearful of political consequences.

Gifford’s statement was filled with irony. There are people aplenty out there who have also discussed issues other than guns as being a problem in this area of violence in America. Indeed just this last Sunday Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley not only talked about guns but the role of abortion in what O’Malley called a “Culture of Death.” But did Gabby Giffords want to talk about abortion as a contributing factor? Did the president? Of course not – and for exactly the reason they attributed to those who oppose background checks. Which is to say, pro-choice politicians both, neither Giffords nor Obama have the guts to take on the abortion lobby.

But let’s stay focused on background checks and its role in the liberal Utopia.

Remember the Brady law? So named for President Reagan’s press secretary Jim Brady who was seriously and permanently wounded during the assassination attempt on Reagan.

The Brady law mandated background checks across the country. Challenged in the Supreme Court, the law was mostly upheld in 1997, with the exception of the mandate. States however, were free to do background checks. One of the states that picked up on this – as did most states – was, yes, Massachusetts. In 1998 Massachusetts, headed on that endless journey to The Liberal Utopia, passing what has been called “the toughest gun control legislation in the country.” Reported Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby – just two months ago on February 17, 2013 – the “toughest gun control legislation in the country” was signed into law by the-then Republican governor and praised to the hilt by the Democratic Attorney General, as well as a leading anti-gun activist. Jacoby quoted from the Globe story of 1998 that trumpeted the bill’s signing:

“Today, Massachusetts leads the way in cracking down on gun violence,” said Republican Governor Paul Cellucci as he signed the bill into law. “It will save lives and help fight crime in our communities.” Scott Harshbarger, the state’s Democratic attorney general, agreed: “This vote is a victory for common sense and for the protection of our children and our neighborhoods.” One of the state’s leading anti-gun activists, John Rosenthal of Stop Handgun Violence, joined the applause. “The new gun law,” he predicted, “will certainly prevent future gun violence and countless grief.”

Catch all that? Massachusetts was “cracking down on gun violence.” This “will save lives and help fight crime” in the state’s communities. The new law was a “victory for common sense” that was a “victory for common sense” and “the protection of our children and our neighborhoods.” The law “will certainly prevent future gun violence and countless grief.”

Now let’s leave aside the point of Jacoby’s column – that in fact the law did none of that and that indeed, in Jacoby’s words:

…the law that was so tough on law-abiding gun owners had quite a different impact on criminals.

Since 1998, gun crime in Massachusetts has gotten worse, not better. In 2011, Massachusetts recorded 122 murders committed with firearms, the Globe reported this month – “a striking increase from the 65 in 1998.” Other crimes rose too. Between 1998 and 2011, robbery with firearms climbed 20.7 percent. Aggravated assaults jumped 26.7 percent.

Let’s stay focused on the fact that the Boston bombers did in fact have guns.

That’s right, in addition to bombs, the brothers Tsarnaev had guns. And surprise surprise, in spite of all that “toughest” gun law in the country business – you guessed it.

The brothers didn’t apply for a license.

That’s right. As the Huffington Post has noted here:

WASHINGTON – The Boston bombing suspects engaged in a deadly firefight with police last week, possessing six bombs, handguns, a rifle and more than 250 rounds of ammunition. But the Tsarnaev brothers did not have proper licenses to possess the firearms, according to the Cambridge Police Department – a revelation that comes just days after the Senate voted against strengthening and expanding background checks for gun sales.

Cambridge Police Department spokesman Dan Riviello told The Huffington Post that neither Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, nor Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, appeared to have a license to own a handgun.

“The younger brother could not have applied as he is not 21 years of age and the older brother did not have a license to carry and we have no record of him ever applying,” Riviello said.

Got all that?

So in spite of the Brady law, which subjects law-abiding gun owners to all manner of rules and regulations, and in spite of the Massachusetts law, which was “the toughest” gun control law in the country, and in spite of the hundreds (thousands) of other gun control laws that bind the country, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, hell bent on murder and mayhem, never bothered to get a “proper license.” Brother Dzhokhar, of course, wasn’t permitted to have a license because he was just too young.

Yet somehow, without being licensed, the two managed to have “handguns, a rifle and more than 250 rounds of ammunition.” With which the unlicensed brothers shot MIT policeman Sean Collier to death – and came close to killing Boston Transit policeman, Richard Donohue.

Shocker, isn’t it?

Yet there is no more shock in listening to the reasoning of liberals on gun control than there is in listening to their reasoning on Islamic fundamentalists. The subjects may be different – although they happened to become two stories in one this last week – but the reasoning is always the same.

Let’s hear from Andrew McCarthy, who was the Clinton-era prosecutor of the Blind Sheikh, the brains behind the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. Andy later wrote the more than aptly titled book Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad and now writes this from National Review in an article headed:

Jihad Will Not Be Wished Away: But willful blindness remains the order of the day.

“Outlook: Islam.” So reads the personal webpage of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who ravaged Boston this week, along with his now-deceased brother and fellow jihadist, Tamerlan – namesake of a 14th-century Muslim warrior whose campaigns through Asia Minor are legendary for their brutalization of non-Muslims.

Brutalizing our own non-Muslim country has been the principal objective of jihadists for the last 20 years. This week marks a new and chilling chapter: the introduction on our shores of the tactics the self-styled mujahideen have used to great, gory effect for the past decade in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Willful blindness remains the order of the day, as it has since the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993. It is freely conceded that, when the identities and thus the motivation of the Marathon terrorists were not known, it would have been irresponsible to dismiss any radical ideology as, potentially, the instigator. But in our politically correct, up-is-down culture, to suggest “Outlook: Islam” was unthinkable. So the most likely scenario – namely, that jihadists who have been at war with us for two decades had, yet again, attacked innocent civilians – became the least likely scenario in the minds of media pundits. Instead, they brazenly prayed (to Gaia, I’m sure) for white conservative culprits with Tea Party hats and Rush 24/7 subscriptions.

To borrow from the gun control debate, closing one’s eyes to Islamic fundamentalism is not just displaying a lack of common sense (to borrow a phrase from the gun control debate) – it is indeed, as Andy McCarthy accurately calls it, willful blindness.

And this particular willful blindness on jihadists is lethal.

It is exactly the same as the willful blindness that kept the State Department from understanding that there was a reason for the repeated pleas from the now murdered Benghazi diplomats for security assistance. When the attack came on those diplomats last September, the U.S. government had been willfully blinded – right from the top – that such a thing could be the result of Islamic fundamentalism

Ditto with the attack on Ft. Hood by the Islamic fundamentalist Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army major. Shouting “Allahu Akbar!” – God is Great – as he opened fire, Hasan killed 13 and wounding more than 30. The response from the US government? To declare yet another mass murder in the name of Islam to be “work place violence” – and then have the then-Army Chief of Staff murmur aloud that to treat this as anything else would somehow hurt the military’s diversity push.

And so it goes.

From the promises of Obamacare that you can keep your own doctor to the massive indebtedness of Social Security and Medicare to the War on Poverty that wasn’t and the Obama stimulus that wasn’t either – and on and on and on – liberalism’s Achilles’ heel is that it isn’t about serious, common sense ideas that display an understanding of everyday human reality.

What liberalism is about is creating Utopia.

A Utopian world where gun control stops criminals, being politically correct with jihadists means they won’t attack, the value of helping the aging means Social Security and Medicare cannot possibly be in debt to the tune of trillions, that Obamacare will work just as the War on Poverty worked, and that forcing banks to give millions of Americans the money to buy homes they can’t afford can’t possibly crash the economy.

And on goes the endless parade.

Substituting sentiment for common sense, then watching the results crash and burn in a hurricane of dead Americans, impoverished Americans, massively indebted Americans or continually impoverished, jobless and hopeless Americans.

Does anyone really wonder why so many Americans listen to President Obama say that “the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill” – and believe it’s the President who lies? And that they believe this for the simple reason that all the other liberal Utopian promises haven’t been kept? With a lie just this last week about the results of Massachusetts gun control being all too painfully obvious? Who, based on hard real-life experience with these Liberal Utopians, would ever believe that the Toomey-Manchin bill will never result in what Obama calls “some sort of ‘big brother’ gun registry”? If you believe this, you believe the Boston bombers simply forgot to apply for a license to carry a gun.

The response by liberals to these repeated liberal disasters is to simply ignore the results and walk away. Then finding yet another “problem” on which to visit this same disastrous pattern of emotionally charged non-common sense.

Promising once again that if Americans just do this next X, Utopia will finally arrive.

The question here is whether a majority of Americans will ever come to understand the game.

To know that the real meaning of Utopia is not some visionary system of political or social perfection, as the dictionary says.

Utopianism is, precisely as Mark Levin documents, the ideological and doctrinal foundation for statism.

It is dumb. It is wrong. It is a call to mindless emotion instead of careful, logical thought. It can and will bankrupt. It can and will – and as we have seen this last week it does – kill.

Which makes the ideas of a Liberal Utopia not just wrongheaded.

It makes them dangerous.

Which makes it time to say enough is enough.

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Thanks Barack… Food Stamp Participation Has Increased At 10 Times The Rate Of Job Creation Under Obama

Thune: Food Stamp Participation Has Increased At 10 Times The Rate Of Job Creation Under Obama – Daily Caller

South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune and Indiana Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman introduced legislation Thursday aimed at saving $30 billion in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over a decade.

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Thune and Stutzman said their “Streamlining the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Act” would eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse and close loopholes in a program that, under President Obama, has seen participation increase from 32 million to 47.8 million people and spending double to $80 billion in fiscal year 2012.

“Since President Obama came into office, SNAP participation has increased at 10 times the rate of job creation, the annual spending on SNAP has doubled, and one in seven Americans now participates in SNAP,” Thune said in a statement.

“This explosive growth in both the SNAP enrollment and federal cost of the program is alarming and requires lawmakers to take cost-effective legislative control measures,” he added.

The cost-saving measures laid out in the bill would not affect current benefit levels. The legislation would, however, refine categorical eligibility – or automatic qualification for SNAP if a person is enrolled in other assistance programs – to just low income people receiving cash assistance.

It would further require interviews for SNAP participants re-enrolling in the program to ensure that they remain within the income and asset limits and end the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) loophole – which allows states to provide SNAP recipients with small $1 and $5 energy assistance checks to increase their SNAP benefits.

The legislation would also limit the Able-bodied Adult Without Dependents (ABAWD) work requirement waiver to areas with unemployment higher than 10 percent and require the agriculture secretary to create a national database to make sure people are not receiving benefits in more than one state.

Additionally it would reform the nutrition and obesity program to reduce cost, eliminate state quality bonuses and focus on quality control in states via penalties for improper payments.

“Everyone in Washington talks about deficit reduction but we’ve introduced a real, responsible plan to save taxpayer dollars,” Stutzman said. “Over the past decade, SNAP spending has doubled as this program outgrows its original mission of providing temporary assistance. This is a common-sense start for Congress’ Farm Bill discussions as we look for ways to tackle Washington’s nearly $17 trillion debt.”

“Our bill would ensure that benefits are available for needy families by maintaining system integrity and reducing waste in the system,” Thune added. “I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to move this common-sense legislation through Congress in the Farm Bill.”

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Thanks Barack… Nation’s Biggest Movie Theater Chain Cuts Workweek, Blaming ObamaCare

Nation’s Biggest Movie Theater Chain Cuts Workweek, Blaming ObamaCare – Fox News

The nation’s largest movie theater chain has cut the hours of thousands of employees, saying in a company memo that ObamaCare requirements are to blame.

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Regal Entertainment Group, which operates more than 500 theaters in 38 states, last month rolled back shifts for non-salaried workers to 30 hours per week, putting them under the threshold at which employers are required to provide health insurance. The Nashville-based company said in a letter to managers that the move was a direct result of ObamaCare.

“In addition, some managers have requested guidance on what they should tell those employees negatively impacted and, at your discretion, we suggest the following,” read the memo obtained by FoxNews.com. “To comply with the Affordable Care Act, Regal had to increase our health care budget to cover those newly deemed eligible based on the law’s definition of a full-time employee.”

“To manage this budget, all other employees will be scheduled in accord with business needs and in a manner that will not negatively impact our health care budget,” the message continues.

Regal, which had revenue of $2.8 billion in 2011, is the latest company to respond this way to the Affordable Health Care Act’s requirement that employees at companies of a certain size who work more than 30 hours per week be provided health coverage. Applebee’s and Olive Garden also scaled back the hours of workers. A handful of colleges have cut hours because of the law, including Palm Beach State College in Florida and New Jersey’s Kean University. Critics say the law is boomeranging on working folks.

“If you want to have reduced work, lower wages and economic stagnation, this is a great way to do it, said Ed Haislmaier, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

One Regal theater manager told FoxNews.com the move has sparked a wave of resignations from full-time managers who have seen their hours cut by 25 percent or more.

“In the last couple weeks, managers have been quitting on a daily basis from various locations to try and find full-time work,” said the manager, who asked not to be named. “Regal up until now has never restricted anyone to anything below 40 hours.”

The manager told FoxNews.com ObamaCare has had the unintended consequence of taking food off his table.

“Mandating businesses to offer health care under threat of debilitating fines does not fix a problem, it creates one,” he said. “It fosters a new business culture where 30 hours is now considered the maximum in order to avoid paying the high costs associated with this law.

“In a time where 40 hours is just getting us by, putting these kind of financial pressures on employers is a big step in a direction far beyond the reach of feasibility for not only the businesses, but for the employees who rely on their success,” he said.

Regal, which operates cinemas under the names Regal Cinemas, Edwards Theatres and United Artists Theaters and recently purchased Oregon-based Hollywood Theaters for $191 million, did not respond to repeated requests for comment from FoxNews.com. The publicly-traded company’s stock has risen nearly 30 percent over the last year.

In addition to the movie theater chain and several restaurants, the state of Virginia also rolled back the hours of all part-time employees back to 29 per week in February, with officials from the state claiming that the new mandate would cost the state tens of millions of dollars a year.

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*VIDEO* President Obama Sells Crazy

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Obama-Funded Electric Car Company Fisker Automotive Lays Off 75% Of Its Workforce, Bankruptcy Looms

Obama-Funded Electric Car Company Fisker Automotive Lays Off 75% Of Its Workforce, Bankruptcy Looms – Weasel Zippers

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Then again it’s only taxpayer money.

Via Washington Examiner:

Fisker Automotive laid off three quarters of its staff today to avoid bankruptcy while it seeks an angel with big bucks to help it become operational again.

The maker of the luxury hybrid Karma says it has “at least” $30 million in cash, and $15 million more due after settling a claim this week with its bankrupt battery maker A123 Systems, according to Reuters.

But the company owes $192 million on a $193 million Department of Energy “green” loan. It was supposed to receive $529 million, but the DOE declined to pay the full amount in May 2011 after Fisker fell behind on its targets. Executives who kept their jobs are trying to renegotiate a $10 million loan payment due on April 22.

The auto maker’s public relations team was part of the layoffs, but an outside PR firm said in a statement Fisker is still seeking a “buyer or strategic partnership” but couldn’t afford to keep on the majority of its workforce, according to Fox News.

Keep reading…

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Disability Trust Fund Ran Record $31.2B Deficit In 2012; In Deficit Every Year Under Obama

Disability Trust Fund Ran Record $31.2B Deficit In 2012; In Deficit Every Year Under Obama – CNS

The federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, which takes in money via a federal payroll tax and pays it out in disability benefits, ran a record $31.2 billion deficit in calendar year 2012, according to the Social Security Administration.

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That means the trust fund has run a deficit in each of the first four years of the Obama presidency.

For fifteen straight years before Obama took office – from 1994 through 2008 – the Disability Insurance Trust Fund ran a surplus. In 2007, for example, it ran an $11 billion surplus and in 2008 it ran an $889-million surplus.

In 2009, however, the Disability Insurance Trust Fund dipped into the red and has not returned to the black since then. In fact, each year since then the annual deficit has increased.

In 2009, the disability trust fund ran a $12.2 billion deficit; in 2010, it ran a $23.6 billion deficit; in 2011, it ran a $26.1 billion deficit; and in 2012, it ran a $31.2 billion deficit.

These deficits in the Disability Insurance Trust Fund have coincided with a massive run-up in the number of American workers taking federal disability payments.

In January 2009, when President Barack Obama was inaugurated, 7,442,377 workers took disability payments, according to data published by the Social Security Administration. In March 2013, 8,853,614 took disability payments. The 1,411,337 additional workers taking federal disability payments since Obama took office represents an increase of about 19 percent in the number of Americans claiming a disability.

Employed workers pay a 0.9 percent payroll tax for federal disability insurance and their employers pay an additional 0.9 percent. Self-employed workers pay the entire 1.8 percent themselves.

The aggregated revenue from the disability payroll tax is counted by the government as the Disability Insurance Trust Fund. When the value of the disability benefits paid by the government exceeds the value of the disability tax revenue received by the government, the trust fund runs a deficit.

The U.S. Treasury needs to borrow money–and increase the federal debt – to fund disability payments that exceed disability payroll taxes. As of the close of business on Tuesday, the federal debt equaled $16,804,876,955,116.78 – or about $146,090 for each of the 115,031,000 households the Census Bureau now estimates there are in the United States.

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People Not In Labor Force Soar By 663,000 To 90 Million, Labor Force Participation Rate At 1979 Levels

People Not In Labor Force Soar By 663,000 To 90 Million, Labor Force Participation Rate At 1979 Levels – Zero Hedge

Things just keep getting worse for the American worker, and by implication US economy, where as we have shown many times before, it pays just as well to sit back and collect disability and various welfare and entitlement checks, than to work .The best manifestation of this: the number of people not in the labor force which in March soared by a massive 663,000 to a record 90 million Americans who are no longer even looking for work. This was the biggest monthly increase in people dropping out of the labor force since January 2012, when the BLS did its census recast of the labor numbers. And even worse, the labor force participation rate plunged from an already abysmal 63.5% to 63.3% – the lowest since 1979! But at least it helped with the now painfully grotesque propaganda that the US unemployment rate is “improving.”

People not in labor force:

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Labor participation rate:

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California’s High-Speed Rail Project To Cost $97 Million More Than First Projected, Could Bankrupt State

Report: Rail Project To Cost $97 Million More – KTTV

The costs for California’s bullet train project has doubled since its first projection. And a new report says the design will cost an extra $97 million.

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…………………….Click on image above to watch video.

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Rail authority spokesman Rob Wilcox says that money isn’t an increase.

“It’s just part of the budget, part of the anticipated costs,” says Wilcox. “We’re going to be spending billions of dollars on this project. That doesn’t mean that the costs are going up. That’s anticipated.”

But Assemblyman Brian Jones (R-Santee) tells our investigative producer Heidi Cuda he’s concerned the high-speed rail project might bankrupt the state.

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