Total U.S. government expenditures for 2012 come to $3.8 trillion. This is twice (!!) the 2000 budget - President Clinton's last year in office. As a percentage of GDP, spending has increased over this period from 18% to 24%. With "only" $2.5 trillion in revenues, our current deficit is $1.3 trillion. Current U.S. debt has just crossed the $16 trillion threshold. Unfunded liabilities for future entitlements - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid - has been estimated as high as $225 trillion. To put this in perspective, current global GDP is somewhere in the range of $70-$80 trillion. There is literally not enough money in the world to pay for what we plan to spend.
But surely all that money has bought us a comfortable existence today, even if our descendants will have to pay for our profligacy with a much lower standard of living. After all, leftists tell us that the path to prosperity goes through the federal government. Are they right? Have these otherworldly levels of government spending produced prosperity?
No. Real median income is down $4300 since January 2009 and we have 11+% (and rising) unemployment. (That phony 8.3% number, which is disgraceful enough, doesn't include those who have dropped out of the work force since President Obama took office). Of those unemployed, over 4 million have been out of work for more than one year. The first black presidency has been particularly hard on blacks, who have a 14.4% unemployment rate. Teenage (16-19) unemployment is 24%. Among 18-29 year-olds, those engorged on the Obama Kool-Aid four years ago, the rate is 12.7%. (Again, these are the phony numbers. The real numbers are much higher). The percentage of working age Americans currently employed is at a multi-decade low of 58%.
The U.S. is currently like a family whose two bread winners have lost their jobs. In response to their situation, they go out, put a million dollars on their credit cards, buy new cars, furniture, clothes and think to themselves, "Gee, we're really doing well!" Only, they're not and we're certainly not.
The fix for the economy's malaise? More government spending, of course. Since it's been working so well, Obama wants to expand the transfer of resources from our dynamic, productive private sector to his corpulent commissariat of central planners (or CCCP). Obama's budget projections for the next decade call for a 57% increase over today's insane levels. That's $46.2 trillion over 10 years, generating an additional $9 trillion in debt. These projections are no doubt understated, especially with the laughably low estimates for the cost of Obamacare. And Obama's "plan" to address the deficit and debt problem? A proposed tax increase on the "rich" which would yield $40 billion in revenue, without the drag on the economy it would certainly create. That (fantasy) revenue gain doesn't even qualify as a rounding error with respect to the overall numbers.
It is absolutely bewildering. There is no sensible explanation why this unserious man still has a serious shot at re-election.
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