John Kerry Serves Up a Reality Check

From a Crooks and Liars post on Jan 16th. I know it's long, and no, it's not required reading. but it is very good. click title of this post for original piece, and worthy links.

John Kerry gave a speech last week at the Center for American Progress that should become the marching song for every liberal in this country. He was clear: The last 10 years have cost us too much, and if the hyper-partisan tone doesn't change to one of true concern for the direction of this country, we will cede any chance to lead to others.

He hits it all: Infrastructure, energy, debt, climate change. Every point. The one that hit home for me was when he talked about where we might have been, had Bush and the Republicans not unwound progress made during the Clinton administration.

Here's an example. We talk about how the Clinton tax rates generated a surplus, but we stop there. We don't talk about the fact that if the Clinton tax rates had remained in effect, the entire national debt would have been paid off by 2012. Imagine what a difference that would have made in today's dialogue. And more importantly, why aren't we hammering this home every single time one of those self-righteous Republican buffoons stands up and talks about how our national debt is killing the country?

Kerry points out that we would be at a point where our financial position would be at it's strongest point ever. What would that have meant when (or if) the bottom fell out of the economy? Most assuredly, we wouldn't have to be speaking of debt retirement and austerity.

We need to start going there. This shouldn't be swept under the rug. I can't recommend this highly enough. Take an hour out of your day and watch Kerry's speech. He really hits hard on the cost of NOT investing in the country and how it puts us behind on a global basis every single day.

Check out this headline from January 26, 2000, just 11 years ago:

Consumer Confidence Hits an All-Time High; Jobs Called 'Plentiful' : Clinton Sees An Early Payoff of U.S. Debt

Compare it to today's headlines (this one, from the Wall Street Journal, one of the biggest tax-cut pimps):

U.S. Ran $80 Billion Budget Deficit in December

I think we need to give Republicans full credit for everything they did for to us. We should be at least as loud as the anti-hcr folks are, and we should repeat it every single day in public, especially to anyone who still thinks Republicans are fiscally responsible.

nevermind "Wolfman" - this is the REAL scary stuff...National Debt & Budget Deficit summary, and how it affects unborn Americans...

Drowning in Debt: What the Nation's Budget Woes Mean for You
Economists Predict Cutbacks, Tax Increases That 'Aren't Even Imaginable'
By DEVIN DWYER
WASHINGTON, Feb. 17, 2010—

American political and economic leaders have sounded the alarm for years about the red ink rising in reports on the federal government's fiscal health.

But now the problem of mounting national debt is worse than it ever has been before with -- potentially dire consequences for taxpayers, according to a report by the nonpartisan Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform.

"It keeps me awake at night, looking at all that red ink," said President Obama in Nashua, N.H., on Feb. 2. "Most of it is structural and we inherited it. The only way that we are going to fix it is if both parties come together and start making some tough decisions about our long-term priorities."

Obama will sign an executive order tomorrow that establishes a bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to make recommendations on how to reduce the country's debt.

Over the past year alone, the amount the U.S. government owes its lenders has grown to more than half the country's entire economic output, or gross domestic product.

Even more alarming, experts say, is that those figures will climb to an unprecedented 200 percent of GDP by 2038 without a dramatic shift in course.

"Within 12 years&the largest item in the federal budget will be interest payments on the national debt," said former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. "[They are] payments for which we get nothing."

(click below for rest of scary story...)

National Debt, Budget Deficit: A Scary Forecast for Taxpayers? - ABC News

Read it and fucking weep: unemployment to peak above 10% next year

No one has been more accurate during the last decade than the Congrssional Budget Office, with regards to accounting for where the government's cash is going, what it takes to pay for everything, unemployment/job loss numbers, predictions looking forward on what money will be left, what will be needed, and "all-things US economy." So, here you go. - sj

U.S. unemployment likely to peak above 10 percent: CBO

Thu May 21, 2009 10:24am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy will likely start growing again in the second half of this year but unemployment will likely keep rising through 2010 to peak over 10 percent, the Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday.

"The growth in output later this year and next year is likely to be sufficiently weak that the unemployment rate will probably continue to rise into the second half of next year and peak above 10 percent," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said in prepared testimony to the U.S. House Budget Committee.

It will likely take several years for the unemployment rate to fall back to levels seen before the recession hit, in the neighborhood of 5 percent, he said in the prepared remarks.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky)

Worries Rise on the Size of U.S. Debt

this is a very good - and very accurate - piece on what the debt situation is shaping up to look like in America in the not-too-distant future; and the trouble that's in store. I say, "accurate" (these are not predictions, per se), because the Congrssional Budget Office is the "bomb" when it comes to analyzing these types of things. No one - and I mean no one - was more accurate with their analysis during the Bush years than the CBO. They're experts in the field, to be sure. I trust their information more than I trust Obama's team on matters such as these. - sj

The New York Times
May 4th
by Graham Bowley and Jack Healy

The nation’s debt clock is ticking faster than ever — and Wall Street is getting worried.

As the Obama administration racks up an unprecedented spending bill for bank bailouts, Detroit rescues, health care overhauls and stimulus plans, the bond market is starting to push up the cost of trillions of dollars in borrowing for the government.

Last week, the yield on 10-year Treasury notes rose to its highest level since November, briefly touching 3.17 percent, a sign that investors are demanding larger returns on the masses of United States debt being issued to finance an economic recovery.

While that is still low by historical standards — it averaged about 5.7 percent in the late 1990s, as deficits turned to surpluses under President Bill Clinton — investors are starting to wonder whether the United States is headed for a new era of rising market interest rates as the government borrows, borrows and borrows some more.

Already, in the first six months of this fiscal year, the federal deficit is running at $956.8 billion, or nearly one seventh of gross domestic product — levels not seen since World War II, according to Wrightson ICAP, a research firm.

Debt held by the public is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to rise from 41 percent of gross domestic product in 2008 to 51 percent in 2009 and to a peak of around 54 percent in 2011 before declining again in the following years. For all of 2009, the administration probably needs to borrow about $2 trillion.

The rising tab has prompted warnings from the Treasury that the Congressionally mandated debt ceiling of $12.1 trillion will most likely be breached in the second half of this year.

Last week, the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, a group of industry officials that advises the Treasury on its financing needs, warned about the consequences of higher deficits at a time when tax revenues were “collapsing” by 14 percent in the first half of the fiscal year.

click here for rest of story