On January 20th of 2009 the national debt stood at $10.6 trillion; on January 20th of 2017 it will stand at almost $20 trillion, nearly doubling in the eight years of the Obama administration. The result is that our nation of presumed prosperity has become an unsustainable debtor nation under the misdirection of the current administration.
Foreign countries own $6.118 trillion of U.S. federal debt; China and Japan each hold more than $1 trillion. Each U.S. taxpayer is responsible for $165,097 of current federal debt and total unfunded liabilities are an astonishing $104 trillion (think Social Security, Medicare, Federal employee & Veteran’s benefits).
The federal government owns more than 60,000 vacant buildings throughout the country; maintenance costs amount to over $8 billion each year. There isn’t even an accurate inventory count of vacant federal buildings. The Veteran’s Administration alone wastes $170 million annually on vacant and underused buildings. Government waste probably amounts to $1 trillion annually.
The ‘Student Aid & Fiscal Responsibility Act’ was signed into law by President Obama on March 30, 2010, substantially removing commercial banks from involvement with student loans. The CBO anticipated savings of $61 billion over 10 years. Instead, the plan has created more than $1.3 trillion in student debt, of which $300 to $400 billion is delinquent and must be subsidized by taxpayers.
Government spends about $1 trillion on means-tested welfare programs annually. Number of food stamp recipients has increased from 17.2 million 16 years ago to almost 46 million in the past year. Costs have quadrupled to more than $80 billion. Recently, Governor LePage of Maine imposed work requirements on ABAWD people (able-bodied adults without dependents). Within three months, the more than 13,000 recipients dwindled to fewer than 2,700 after discovering the Governor was serious when the food stamp allocation was terminated for ABAWD recipients. Billions of dollars could be saved if this program swept over the 50 states.
In heavily liberal cities, Charter schools have a tough time getting noticed. In NYC, almost 40% of the best scoring schools where enrollments were 90% Black & Hispanic were Charter schools, compared with just 13% five years ago. Amazingly, the NAACP in cahoots with a teacher’s union filed a lawsuit to halt expansion of charter schools in NYC. Another teacher’s union provided $100,000 to the NAACP to fight growth of charter schools. The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association gave $19.2 million to liberal causes in a recent election.
Perhaps the most insidious actions that Mr. Obama has taken were the oppressive number of regulations; 20,642 new regulations with more added in the final days of his administration. Of this record number are more than 600 major regulations, each costing at least $100 million per year. Consumers pick up the cost of regulation in accord with basic economic rules which means that each of us pays a premium of $2,294 for living expenses annually. The overall cost of regulation is estimated to be at least $81 billion per year.
The healthcare program is proving to be an abject failure and restrictive policies of Dodd-Frank, the FDA, the NLRB, the CFPB and the IRS are suppressing economic growth. It has been reported that Martin Castro of the U.S. Commission on Human Rights has said that religious liberty is ‘code’ for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and Christian supremacy. No wonder we are a divided nation.
While the above issues are critically important, of equal importance are the international failures of this administration such as the giveaway of the Iran nuclear deal, the unilateral reinstatement of Cuban diplomatic relations, the red line debacle in Syria, the Russian annexation of Crimea and military intervention in Ukraine and China’s arrogant military expansion in the South China Sea.
Recent actions taken by the President are the setting aside of 1.35 million acres in Utah and 300,000 acres in Nevada as National Monuments. He has also invoked a 1953 law that blocks oil exploration along the Pacific and Atlantic coast waters. Finally, Mr. Obama is itching to close Guantanamo, releasing prisoners to return to battle.
On January 20, 2017, our nation will be released from the grip of academic theory and ideological mismanagement into the hands of successful realists. Fasten your safety belt!
