There will be an election on November 6 that will re-calibrate the direction of the USA for the next four years starting in January 2013. Whether Mr. Obama or Mr. Romney assumes the title of the most powerful position in the world, the job will be roughly equivalent to filling in the Grand Canyon with hand shovels.
Sound ridiculous? Think again.
Since December 26, 2011, the national debt has grown by $1 trillion, at the rate of nearly $4 billion EACH DAY. The total national debt amounts to $16.1 trillion, $5.5 trillion of which has been added since January 20, 2009. The national debt has grown at the rate of more than $1.4 trillion per year since 2009. State and local debt totals more than $2.8 trillion. EVERY CITIZEN in the USA is on the hook for more than $60,000 in total debt (think taxes)!
The President submitted a proposed 2013 Budget on February 13, 2012. The last two sentences of the President’s budget message to the Congress are as follows: “This Budget is a step in the right direction. And I hope it will help serve as a roadmap for how we can grow the economy, create jobs, and give Americans everywhere the security they deserve.”
But the President’s words don’t reflect his budget that forecasts losses of an average of more than $668 billion each year for the next 10 years! That’s a total increase of $6.7 trillion added to the current bloated national debt of more than $16 trillion. Does that sound like ‘the security that Americans deserve’? Other unsolved issues continue to fester.
Although the overall RATE of unemployment dropped to 7.8% in September from 8.1% in August, 418,000 people dropped out of the workforce. The rate for Black/African Americans dropped to 13.4% and for Hispanics to 9.9%. Median household incomes have slumped to 1995 levels or $50,054. For Blacks the number is $32,366 and for Hispanics, $38,624.
While incomes are falling, the cost of food and fuel is increasing, squeezing family budgets. Gasoline has about doubled in the past four years. Because 128 million tons of corn was distilled into ethanol for fuel additive, food and fuel costs remain high. The fuel tax amounts to a high of 67.7 cents per gallon in California and New York to a low of 26.4 cents in Alaska.
Student loan defaults have spiked lately to 9.1% due in part to unemployment, low salaries and part-time jobs. Now guaranteed by the government (taxpayers), student-loan debt totals more than $1 trillion. As much as $90 billion of delinquent, unpaid student loan debt could be extracted from our tax contributions.
The ‘Affordable Care Act’ will add more than 30 million insured citizens with newly mandated coverage. Changes of this magnitude, if not repealed, will cost from a few billion to two trillion dollars. These costs must be covered with higher premiums and more taxes. For example, drug companies will pay about $27 billion and device makers will be taxed about $20 billion to cover the higher costs.
If the EPA ‘Cap & Trade’ bill is re-introduced and passed, the cost nationwide will be billions, perhaps even trillions of dollars. And about 90% of all households will contribute about $500 billion to the treasury if the current tax cuts are allowed to expire. The top 20% of taxpayers would pay about $300 billion of the total.
Before we reach the tipping point of these lethal challenges, new leadership must step in and start to fix these pernicious problems. If not, this once-great nation may fail in its final test of self-determination, liberty, justice, sovereignty and the world’s leading economy.
by Dick Baynton