2010 Budget Blueprint Overspends in a Long-Term Dangerous Manner

[JimofPennsylvan]

The 2010 Budget bills in both the House and the Senate are extremely bad pieces of legislation for America. The spending levels in these bills are massively irresponsible for their large increases at this time when are country is facing record deficits. The level of budget deficits both bills plan to bring about are not in line with ordinary Americans values which hold that it is not right for the U.S. government to stick future generations of Americans with the bill for massive spending today that is not necessary. The Senate bill which plans for lower deficits compared to the House bill projects a $663 billion dollar budget deficit five years out with that fifth year deficit being the lowest over the five year period. What is further alarming is the size of budget deficits the spending level in these bills will bring to America past the five year projection point in these bills; examining assessments done by the Congressional Budget Office reveals that yearly budget deficits, at these bills spending levels, will increase steadily past the five year period reaching levels of a trillion dollars a year ten years out. The U.S. government can’t continue to generate these levels of deficits and leave future generations of Americans to pay these bills, the American people can’t and won’t allow it.

These kinds of deficits are not only morally wrong and unfair to future generations of Americans who will have to pay the interest and principal on the debt needed to fund these deficits, but it is extremely dangerous to the long-term well-being of the American people and economy. The resulting huge increases in government burrowing will reduce capital available for private investment as that capital goes to buy U.S. treasury bonds, it will drive up interest rates for private burrowing as these interest rates on private burrowing will have to be higher than would ordinarily be the case to attract capital away from government bonds to private investment; all this impairing on private burrowing will result in less private sector jobs and less wealth being accumulated by Americans in the private sector. Moreover, all this increase in government burrowing will increase the interest rates on government bonds as the Treasury has to offer higher interest rates to attract the needed volume of investment and this problem could get dramatically worse if foreign investors and/or foreign governments decide they don’t want to cooperate or cooperate as needed by the U.S. government to buy U.S. treasury bonds. This rising of the interest rate the U.S. government will have to pay to burrow money will mean that the interest payments on the national debt will increase that means there will be less money available to help Americans pay for college, provide low-income housing, medical research and things like that. All these negative repercussions of increased U.S. government burrowing will cause the value of the dollar to drop against foreign currencies. America imports a lot of commodities from foreign countries, a drop in the dollar will cause these commodities to be more expensive. In addition, with the instability of the dollar this will almost certainly cause many foreign countries and foreign businesses to switch from the dollar as their standard to another currency like the euro which will weaken the U.S. economy as it will no longer hold its appeal to foreign individuals, foreign businesses and foreign countries as it had, not to mention how it will hurt America from the standpoint that when an American or an American business do business with any of these foreign entities these entities will want the standard to be a foreign currency not the dollar thus making it more costly and unpredictable for Americans and American businesses to operate.

One helpful step Congress could take to stop the large increases in government spending is make it clear in each years budget how the Congress is expanding the base line spending from the previous year. Currently, Congressional budgets don’t do that they use inflated numbers for the current years budget so that the next years planned budget increases don’t look that large. The inflated numbers for spending in the various areas of government spending are because of emergency spending or one-time spending legislation which occurs over the course of the year. For example, the recently passed $ 787 billion stimulus legislation is emergency legislation that will inflate the numbers in various areas of government spending for FY 2009 such as education and transportation so that for the FY 2010 budget the proposed FY 2010 spending increases in these areas won’t look as bad compared to if the base line spending for the current year was used. Forcing Congress to show in the budget legislation how they are increasing base line spending from one year to the next will put pressure on Congress to hold down spending increases because it will be crystal clear how members of Congress are increasing spending and members of Congress opponents in upcoming elections can hold these members better accountable to their constituents for excessive spending.

Considering the fact that most American family incomes if they rise at all this year will rise at between two to five percent and the fact that the current and projected U.S. government deficits are unaffordable for the American people, the U.S. government should keep its spending increases for the FY 2010 budget in this five percent maximum increase range. The Democrat Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee described the FY 2010 budget authority increases in his chambers budget bill for discretionary non-military spending at seven percent, this is wrong it is too high. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if in future Congressional elections members of Congress who voted for passage of such a bill pay a price for that vote.

 

[007]

Why do think there was tax day tea parties?

There are people who are inquisitive enough to find out what kind of shape we're in, and why we're in that shape. Sure oblahma inherited a mess, but he and his cronies have done nothing more than make a bad situation worse... MUCH worse... LONG TERM worse. He should be impeached, and everything he, pelosi and reid have doen should be rolled back. That would be a real good step in the right direction.

 

[Xenophon]

It makes me ill the way they spend money we don't have and are unlikely to ever get.

 

[auditor0007]

As I stated in another thread, there are reasons for much of the current deficit spending. However, there is no real plan to reduce spending down the road. What we are seeing is a true expansion of government, as goverenment spending is going from 20% to 30% of GDP. To top things off, this doesn't even include spending increases that will be necessary to supplement a future healthcare plan, nor does it address the shortfalls in SS and Medicare, which are now hitting us even sooner than expected due to a decrease in tax revenues due the poor economy.

At this rate, it is easy to see how we could find the government responsible for 40% of GDP, and they will continue to do it on borrowed spending, until they can no longer. Then it will be massive, and I do mean massive, tax increases for everyone. Over the last 50 or so years, governement spending has always been between 18-24 percent of GDP. Even under GW, it was barely over 20%. The expansion of government that we are looking at under the Dems is mind boggling. And truthfully, I don't see any of this changing until our younger generations wake up to the fact that this is going to have a direct impact on them. Once realized, fiscal responsibility may become the movement of our younger generations. At least we can hope.

 

[Meister]

I find it quite ironic that when Bush was in office, the democrats were whining about the war, and the out of control spending. Now that Barry is in office, we don't here anything about the war from them. Barry is following the guidelines that Bush had set into motion for withdrawal.
Now that Barry is in office, the democrats just can't spend our money fast enough. I hear them say that we need it to stimulate the economy...but, they never mention when the bulk of the bill will be spent, which is years away.
Why do I find this so confusing?

 

[Iriemon]

The bitch about the deficit thread of the week.

I'm glad people are finally talking about the budget.

But where were posts like these in 2001 when we needed them, when the Bush administration inhereted a surplus budget that was paying down the debt and passed tax cuts and spending bills and increased the debt to $11 trillion?

 

[WillowTree]

I find it quite ironic that when Bush was in office, the democrats were whining about the war, and the out of control spending. Now that Barry is in office, we don't here anything about the war from them. Barry is following the guidelines that Bush had set into motion for withdrawal.
Now that Barry is in office, the democrats just can't spend our money fast enough. I hear them say that we need it to stimulate the economy...but, they never mention when the bulk of the bill will be spent, which is years away.
Why do I find this so confusing?

it's not ironic,, it's hypocrisy..and don't be confused, it's called wealth redistribution/Marxism.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, given the thieves have ended up with most of the money, it is well past time to redistribute the wealth to the people that created it.

 

[Meister]

Well, given the thieves have ended up with most of the money, it is well past time to redistribute the wealth to the people that created it.

All I have to say is........

 

[garyd]

Spoken like one of those mind numbed robots that's been reading union propaganda for the last fifty years O.R.

The thieves are the idiots with the D after their names in Washington and the R's that went along with Bush's massive increase in social spending that dwarfs what he spent on the WOT.

I told people last summer that if they thought the Dems were the party of fiscal responsiblity they were kidding themselves Now I get to say I told you so.