You can feel the budget bucks blowing as unprecedented government spending continues to 1. Fix the immediate problems in the economy and 2. threatens major future disruptions of the economy and standards of living.
Unfortunately the polarization in politics has the most vocal folks in the camp either keeping quiet about the looming time bomb of massive debt or unfairly lambasting the president for the bailout and spending sprees that are more a function of the democratic process (where voters reward foolish spending by legislators if it’s in their own district) than a function of Obama’s ideas.
The solutions are not clear but they clearly involve a shift in spending priorities that must begin very, very soon. I’m not very optimistic, thinking that neither party can possibly make the cuts needed. There’s a lot of Republican and Tea Party talk about fiscal restraint, but until the massive military budget sits squarely on the budget table those fake conservatives are just flapping their gums. Real spending reform will require *massive cuts* across the board, a move that is so politically impossible it’s not going to happen.
A point I’m struggling to study is the notion that the entire recovery has simply been purchased at the expense of our kids, by pushing the debt sky high with borrowed dollars that we are unlikely to be able to repay. The reason China and other countries keep loaning the US money can be understood in very simple terms – they don’t really have more desirable alternatives since our economy is what keeps their economy growing so robustly.
I think many in the Obama administration sincerely (though very foolishly) believe that there will be a “green revolution” that will bring unprecedented levels of prosperity and allow us to repay the debt. Possible but in my view very unlikely, especially as we watch how quickly “green” has been co-opted by marketeers and others for whom this is simply another profit vehicle. Nothing wrong with profit, but it’s tricky to mix profit motives with “good will” because there are often conflicts between the two.
Joe Duck 
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
And within the next 10 years this scenario is going to more than double just with the committments already made by this reckless administration and congress.
And…how many times has our government come in on budget? So you know this is going to be a lot worse and there is almost nothing that can be done about it unless we reverse all that been done in the last 18 months.
The liability per citizen by the year 2020 will be north of $1 million dollars. So every child born in the year 2020 will owe over $1 million to the government.
Time to listen to some Zager and Evans…
Ha – great song!
Do you have a source for the million number? Seems high though if you include all the unfunded liabilities it’ll be huge and almost certainly unsustainable.
The saving grace may be a techno breakthrough that revalues everything. e.g. If we had super cheap energy it would usher in an era of almost boundless prosperity since so much of the economy is tied to energy costs. I’m not optimistic about this – in fact I think the ‘green energy’ movement is more likely to raise total costs rather than reduce them since a focus is CO2 reduction which is unsustainably expensive.
Joe I just extrapolated the current number per citizen to what it would be with all our liabilities by 2020. Just use the past accuracy of projections and reality and you will see what I mean.
The 2020 numbers (which are horrible and scary enough) are the best case scenario from these clowns…we know it will be much worse.
Hydrogen and nuclear are the keys to cheap energy not the green movement. You are right about the costs they are going to skyrocket which in turn will slow everything else down. The Crony capitalism is in full swing with this administration and as we learn more people will realize just how much organized crime is involved in the green movements and the payouts required are going to be crippling.
Real spending reform will require *massive cuts* across the board, a move that is so politically impossible it’s not going to happen.
Note that very few d-KOS- or DU- style liberals (such as this typical hysteriacrat, byronia of New worlds) have barely raised a squeak about Obama’s mammoth DoD budget, which actually outdoes Bushco’s.
Greenwald was one of a very few demo-pundits who mentioned it (and was attacked, I believe). Apart from a few slight tax increases, the Bailout, and approval of the massive health-care bureaucracy (itself nothing like what, say Hillary discussed two years ago or so..) there have been few changes.
I generally disapprove of the Tea-party types, though at times a few libertarian sorts have alluded to the bloated DoD budget. I suspect powerful Demos (like Dame Feinstein in CA) collect as much from DoD kickbacks as do repub good ol’ boys.