Peter Roff

Still Paying for Obama's Overspending

August 12, 2011 RSS Feed Print

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Happy Cost of Government Day.

"A milestone calculated by Americans for Tax Reform Foundation and further explored in the annual Cost of Government Day report," the group said in a release, "Cost of Government Day is the day on the calendar year until which the average American must work to pay for the full costs of government spending and regulation at the local, state and federal levels."

Some key points from the report:

Impact of Obama overspending: Americans have lost 29 days of the calendar year thanks to Obama's overspending and regulatory zeal. 2011 marks the third straight year Cost of Government Day has fallen in August. Prior to the Obama administration, Cost of Government Day had never fallen later than July 21.
Stimulus, bailouts, and federal spending: The effects of the bailouts and failed "stimulus" plan are still being felt by Americans, who must work a full 103 days to pay for the costs of federal spending.
State and local government spending: Americans spent 44 days working to pay off state and local government spending.
Regulatory burden of Obamacare and Dodd-Frank: Americans are forced to labor 77 days to pay for total federal regulations, a workload that will increase exponentially with the implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill and Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

As far as the overall government burden is concerned, "Americans labor a full 224 days into the year to pay for local, state and federal government spending and regulations." Whether or not it's worth it is a different question —the answer to which depends on who you ask.

Read more about the deficit and national debt.
See an opinion slide show of 10 wasteful stimulus projects.
Check out a roundup of editorial cartoons on the economy.

Tags:: economy,; Obama administration,; deficit and national debt,; economic stimulus,; Barack Obama

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I am working on my master’s degree and classes are starting back, so I will not have time to keep reading to try to figure out why a liberal’s mind does not work properly. I am glad Hedges looks up all of the info he does, I can’t put in the time. But, I have to respond to the tax the wealthy crap. There were 8240 people in the US who made over $10,000,000 (ten million). If they were taxed a full $10,000,000 each that would bring in $82,400,000,000 (eighty two billion, four hundred million). Guess what, our total debt is $14,500,000,000,000 (fourteen trillion, five hundred billion). So stealing almost their entire income would serve the same purpose as paying 57 cents on your $100 credit card bill. Do you understand? We have a spending problem. Taking the $10,000,000 from each of the 8240 people would not even come close to paying for Obama’s waste of money stimulus. We have to drastically cut spending. The higher tax rates on the people who have the ability to create jobs only makes liberals feel good, it serves no real purpose. We have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world. We would be better off to charge no corporate taxes and then we would have business investment from all over the world here. But because most people have heard corporate welfare, pay their fair share etc., it would be twisted by democrats and the media and it would be political suicide, no matter how much it would actually help the economy, and how many people it would put to work. I wish democrats would operate on logic and not emotions.

kewaal of GA 8:46PM August 15, 2011

In real IRS government revenue numbers (not projections):
“According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Bush tax cuts actually shifted the total tax burden farther toward the rich so that in 2000-2004, total income tax paid by the top 40% of income-earners grew by 4.6% to 99.1% of the total.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/lying_about_bushs_tax_cuts.html
__
other STUFF:
“The Kennedy tax cuts”
"President Kennedy proposed across-the-board tax rate reductions that reduced the top tax rate from more than 90 percent down to 70 percent. What happened? Tax revenues climbed from $94 billion in 1961 to $153 billion in 1968, an increase of 62 percent (33 percent after adjusting for inflation)."
“The Reagan tax cuts”
“ President Reagan proposed sweeping tax rate reductions during the 1980s. What happened? Total tax revenues climbed by 99.4 percent during the 1980s, and the results are even more impressive when looking at what happened to personal income tax revenues. Once the economy received an unambiguous tax cut in January 1983, income tax revenues climbed dramatically, increasing by more than 54 percent by 1989 (28 percent after adjusting for inflation)."
"The 1993 Clinton Tax Increase Did Not Lead to the Budget Surpluses of the Late 1990s"
"Since the Clinton Administration’s own numbers reveal that the 1993 tax increase was a failure, we have to find a different reason to explain why the budget shifted to surplus in the late 1990s."
"Fortunately, there’s no need for an exhaustive investigation. The Historical Tables on OMB’s website reveal that good budget numbers were the result of genuine fiscal restraint. Total government spending increased by an average of just 2.9 percent over a four-year period in the mid-1990s. This is the reason why projections of $200 billion-plus deficits turned into the reality of big budget surpluses."
"To sum things up, it turns out that spending restraint and lower taxes are a recipe for good fiscal policy. This second chart (click to enlarge) modifies the first chart, showing actual deficits under this small-government approach compared to the OMB and CBO forecasts of what would have happened under Clinton’s tax-and-spend baseline."
http://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2011/02/10/the-1993-clinton-tax-increase-did-not-lead-to-the-budget-surpluses-of-the-late-1990s/

Bill Hedges of MO 4:05PM August 15, 2011

I am a deficit hawk - have been one since I was 18. My father and I used to argue about the Federal deficit. Using Obama as the boogey man may make Republicans feel better, but it won't solve our problems. Trying to blame everything on him only distracts us from the real work.
I believe that our current deficit problem (not the long range problem, which must be addressed once we are in recovery) comes from three issues: 1) Attempting to wage two wars on credit with no plan on how to pay for them; 2) An economic disaster brought on by marketing sub-prime mortgages as if they were investment quality - recessions ALWAYS result in an increase in the deficit; 3) A systematic effort by the Right to dramatically reduce taxes for the wealthy without thinking about the correct way to reduce taxes - there have been so many loopholes added to the tax code that our tax revenue, as a percentage of GDP, is one of the lowest in the developed world.
A tax loophole has the same effect on the Treasury as a subsidy. It may be easy to say you want to keep taxes down to create jobs, but lets view some of the loopholes as if they were subsidies. Should the tax payers really subsidize race horse breeders? What, are they going to hire more people to clean stalls? Should the tax payers really subsidize corporations investing in new manufacturing capabilities in other countries? How does that help us?
At the very least, lets shift where our loopholes are. Eliminate every loophole that doesn't directly help us get out of this recession. If you want to remain revenue-neutral then provide tax deductions/subsidies that help us get on our feet. They should only be available for investing in this country, hiring people in this country, improving the infrastructure of this country, etc.
And please, stop pretending that Obama is the root of all problems. That is a smoke screen to keep us from addressing the real issues. Congress are the ones who passed the bills to spend the money. Congress are the ones who pandered to lobbyists and anyone with a deep pocket. Replacing Obama, without changing the priorities of Congress (Democrats and Republicans) will have no benefit.

Ron Albury of OH 3:31PM August 15, 2011

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Still Paying for Obama's Overspending

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