2011 will have record deficit of $1.5 trillion

As President Obama indicated in his State of the Union address last night before Congress, the United States is dealing with the weight of horrible recession with skyrocketing deficits and there is the need to find a rational solution to deal with our escalating mountain of debt.

Today, the Congressional Budget Office reported that they are anticipating a budget shortfall by $1.5 trillion for 2011, making it the largest deficit in our country's history, and representing 9.8% of our gross domestic product. To make matters worse, the bickering that has been contentious between both political parties, has done little to find any form of compromise between tax cuts and federal spending cuts.

Republicans want to repeal Obama's controversial Health Care Reform law, which the CBO insists would only add $230 billion to the nation's deficit by 2021, and Democrats want to raise taxes, which are not favorable among many Americans.

Thus far however, President Obama and Congress have achieved some success on government spending. The President proposed $78 billion to be cut from the Military Defense over the course of the next five years. That would explain why the three Generals sitting in the front row of the State of the Union address last night were not smiling.

In addition to this, one has to consider that even cutting staff in government departments will just add to more unemployment. If a government worker looses their job, this is just one more person unemployed in this country, even though it is no secret that government workers get outrageous salaries and pension funds paid for kindly with tax payer money.

Either way you look at this, there is no easy way out of our nation's escalating financial problems. As one former budget adviser to President Reagan put it: "The United States has reached the point of no return"

Indeed, we have. 

President Obama ready to sign tax cuts

In what became a massive bipartisan effort, the House of Representatives approved on a vote of 277-148, to extend the Bush tax cuts, and will be signed into law by President Obama.

Congressman Anthony Weiner, who vigorously opposed the compromise, said "Republicans are better poker players than Obama"

Finally getting the hint Congressman Weiner? Its all a poker game.
You recall that just about every single Democrat on Capitol Hill were whining, moaning and complaining that President Obama was a traitor to side with the Republicans compromise on extending the tax cuts for all families, renew unemployment benefits and another year cut to Social Security taxes. Like Congressman Weiner, just about every other Democrat from the Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to Barney Frank, wanted to see it fail, because they claimed it would only favor tax cuts to the most wealthy Americans.

But that wasn't the case, thankfully. The President and the majority of Congress saw that this would be the best interest in the American people.

Maybe the only smartest thing they've done all year.

Unemployment rises to 9.8%

The unemployment rate in the United States rose to 9.8% from 9.6% this month, and it is starting to send warning signs throughout Washington. Whether or not they will actually pay any attention to the warning signs remains unclear since they've been ignorant on virtually everything else.

Economists were hoping to be more optimistic as they were predicting 150,000 new jobs, while only 39,000 jobs were actually created in the month of November alone. According to the Labor Department, for the month of November, 17% of the labor force is "underemployed", 1.3 million people are simply given up looking for work because jobs are not available as retail firms slashed 28,000 positions, factories eliminated 13,000 and the public sector 11,000. The  businesses that were hiring are re-employing either retired individuals or those over the age of 50 because they have the experience and not utilizing college graduates.

The total people unemployed for the month of November is 15.1 million.

Despite the fact that economists believe the economy grew, but way "too slowly", they believe it is imperative that the economy needs to continue to rebound. The only problem is when you have a completely incompetent and ineffective Deficit Commission that cannot agree to they're own plan about extending the Bush tax cuts, or letting them expire, how in the world can one even think about growing the economy?

What is really shocking is that despite the millions of Americans suffering in this country from unemployment, many of the President's far-left liberal supporters say the Bush tax cuts should just expire, and allow the largest tax increase in our nation's history to be paid by those earning more than the average person. Again, this comes back to the President's plan of the redistribution of wealth, and far-left America wants this simply because as things continue to get worse, they will look for the Government to support them.

I don't believe that was the initial intention when our Government was formed some 234 years ago.

As if the rise in joblessness in this country was not enough, the benefits to the unemployed expired because Congress failed to extend them, and more than 2 million Americans will loose their unemployment benefits by the end of this month.

What are all of these people suppose to do when they have nothing left?

I'll choose a quote from Gerald Celente, an expert trends forecaster, who has commonly said: "when people have nothing left to loose, they loose it". 

I'm inclined to agree with him, if things don't start shaping up this nation. 

 

Republicans to block bill, until tax cuts extended

Considered bold by some, Republican Senate leaders have all come together (yes, all 42 of them) to block all current and future legislation until the tax cuts are extended and they can agree on a bill that will properly fund the Federal Government.

While President Obama is in a crisis mode, trying to figure out how to address the situation, Republican Senators remain firm on the matter wanting to only concentrate their efforts on the tax and spending bills before the end of the year. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says all Democratic Senators are doing is simply "ignoring" what the voters decided on in the Midterm elections.

Democratic Senators lead by Majority Leader Harry Reid, say the pack is threatening their attempts to lift controversial legislation such as allowing openly gay members to serve in the military, and the DREAM Act, a Congressional measure to allow illegal aliens under the age of 16 a path to citizenship, and to go to college.

Republicans overwhelmingly do not support the DREAM Act because they say it is simply a form of amnesty. The measure seems more or less, targeted at a majority of Latinos and Hispanics who support the measure, yet even special interest groups have begun to criticize Senator Reid and President Obama for simply not doing enough to support the DREAM Act, and to repeal the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy, which Republicans want as remaining legislation.

Its nothing that we have not seen before in partisan politics, but we can definitively see why it is called the 'Lame Duck Congress'... You'll have one party saying no, and the other party saying yes, and with no compromise. 

But probably the most important issue is the tax cuts themselves. Too many people are struggling and cannot deal with being taxed to death any longer. That should be the top priority among the Senate, not the DREAM Act and not the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy.

President Obama and Republican Congressional Leaders meet

As the Earmark Ban failed in the Senate today, Republican Congressional leaders met with President Obama to try and resolve differences over the Bush era tax cuts. Both the President and Republicans called the meeting 'very productive'. Maybe the President is trying to make an effort?

While Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell specifically stated that they were against any tax increases from when the rates were established in 2001 and 2003 which were set to expire at the end of this year, President Obama went on to say that he would oppose any permanent extension of tax cuts to individuals making more than $200,000, and $250,000 for couples.

While it should be somewhat of a good compliment to President Obama that he is working with Republicans, and even announced yesterday a freeze on pay to Federal Government workers who earn ridiculous salaries and pension funds, Republicans in the House seem to be tied with working on solutions in the coming year ahead, while trying to find a compromise in the Democratic controlled Senate.

Many Republicans would like to see the controversial Health Care Law that was shoved down the throats of every single American repealed, but don't beat on that. Democrats in the Senate have already made their decision on that and are standing firm, not to mention having it vetoed by President Obama, and it is unlikely that Congress would get a 2/3 majority vote to over-ride the President's power.

But obviously, the Health Care Law and future taxes will start coming into fruition and will need to be discussed extensively in Congress, not to mention trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities including Social Security and Medicare, and let's not forget about our $14 trillion and growing national debt that everyone is also suppose to pay back (at least that is what our Federal Government expects us to do, even though it will never be repaid).

Where is all of this money going to come from?

People are sick and tired of being taxed to death in this country, but somewhere along the line, they'll have to find the money, won't they?