Debt Soared $5.5 Trillion Since Last Senate Budget

[Wehrwolfen]

By John Merline



If you want a sense of just how massive the nation's debt problem is, consider this: The U.S. added $226 billion in new debt in just the 35 days since President Obama missed the legal deadline to submit his budget.

That's more than the government will spend this year on education, homeland security, law enforcement, housing aid, energy and the environment, combined.

A 1921 law requires the president to submit his budget plan to Congress on the first Monday in February, but Obama so far hasn't produced one, and the White House says it won't release its plan to get the nation's deficits and debt under control until sometime in April.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, haven't produced an annual budget — also required by law — since 2009. Over that time, the nation's debt has climbed $5.5 trillion, according to the Treasury Department.

Senate Budget Committee Democrats are now promising to introduce a budget plan this week.


Read More:
Debt Soared $5.5 Trillion Since Last Senate Democrat Budget Passed - Investors.com

 

[waltky]

Granny says now we havin' to give back all dem Bush tax cuts...

Senate Democrats’ budget includes nearly $1 trillion in new taxes
3/12/13 - The first budget from Senate Democrats in four years includes nearly $1 trillion in new taxes but would not balance the budget.

The blueprint unveiled by Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Tuesday to her Democratic colleagues would also turn off the next nine years of the sequester and replace those spending cuts with a 50-50 mix of tax increases and spending cuts. The budget would dedicate $100 billion to economic stimulus in the form of infrastructure spending and job training. Murray argues that her budget cuts $1.85 trillion from deficits over 10 years. But once the sequester cuts are turned off, Murray’s budget appears to reduce deficits by about $800 billion, using the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline. The Murray budget does not contain net spending cuts with the sequester turned off.

The details of Murray’s budget came hours after House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) released his budget, which reduces tax rates and slashes spending much more deeply that Murray’s budget. The Ryan budget would balance in 10 years without raising taxes and by reducing spending over the next decade by $5.7 trillion compared to the CBO baseline. While Ryan’s budget would reduce the highest tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent, providing a significant tax cut to the wealthiest households, Murray’s budget would raise $975 billion in tax revenue by closing corporate and individual tax loopholes.

More details on the tax plan were expected Wednesday when the committee begins its formal markup of the budget. Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said based on the reported details, Murray’s budget increases taxes to pay for more federal spending. “If the Senate Majority’s budget actually contains these accounting tricks, it would increase spending above already massive projections for spending growth. In other words, Senate Democrats would be proposing a tax hike to fuel even more wasteful government spending,” Sessions said. “Can it really be this is all they have developed after four years of not producing a plan? If that it is so, no wonder why they won’t make their proposal public until after the committee meets.”

Murray’s budget also will contain reconciliation instructions on tax reform, a move that could allow the budget, which cannot be filibustered in the Senate, to become the legislative vehicle for a tax reform bill. This would also allow a tax bill to move through the Senate under a majority vote, since reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has opposed including the instructions in the budget, arguing it would tie his hands in tax reform. The $975 billion in spending cuts include $240 billion in savings from the end of the Afghanistan war and $242 billion in reduced interest payments, according to a source.

Read more: Senate Democrats? budget includes nearly $1 trillion in new taxes - The Hill's On The Money

See also:

Obama’s approval drops as Americans take a dimmer view of his economic policies
Wednesday, March 13,`13 - The afterglow of President Obama’s reelection and inauguration appears to have vanished as increasingly negative views among Americans about his stewardship of the economy have forced his public approval rating back down to the 50 percent mark, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

In December, just after he won a second term, Obama held an 18-percentage-point advantage over congressional Republicans on the question of whom the public trusted more to deal with the economy. Now, it’s a far more even split — 44 percent to 40 percent, with a slight edge for the president — but the share of those saying they have confidence in “neither” has ticked up into double digits. The poll contains ample evidence of the disillusionment voters feel toward both sides amid a sense of continuing dysfunction in Washington, which since December has been grappling with fiscal crises and deadlines of its own making.

Almost two weeks into the automatic across-the-board budget cuts known as the sequester, a slim majority of Americans dis*approve of the reductions. At the same time, nearly three-quarters say they are feeling no impact on their lives, and fewer than half expect a toll on their family finances if the cuts continue. Still, large majorities expect that the sequester will eventually damage the economy, the military and the government’s ability to provide basic services. Most, 68 percent, say they would like the two sides to work together to come up with a deal to stop the cuts. The desire for cooperation is widely shared across party lines.

Asked who is responsible for the sequester, 47 percent say Republicans in Congress and 33 percent say Obama. The poll suggests a closer divide on which side the public trusts in the battles over issues such as immigration and gun control — closer, perhaps, than the public’s policy preferences would indicate. Americans largely support the administration’s stand on new measures to curb gun violence, but on basic trust on the issue, the president and Republicans in Congress fare about evenly.

Obama’s overall job-approval rating stands at 50 percent, down five points from before he took the oath of office in January. Looking along partisan lines, the slippage since then has been particularly pronounced among political independents. Two months ago, independents tilted clearly in his direction, with 54 percent approving and 41 percent disapproving. Now, half of independents express a negative opinion of the president’s performance; just 44 percent approve. The president has also seen an erosion in confidence among groups that he has counted as core supporters. Compared with a Post-ABC poll in December, the share of liberals who place their faith in Obama over Republicans when it comes to dealing with the economy is 14 points lower; there has been a 12-point slide among women.

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[waltky]

Well, at least it's not continuing to increase...

70 Straight Days: Treasury Says Debt Stuck at Exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00
July 29, 2013 -- According to the Daily Treasury Statement for July 26, which the Treasury released this afternoon, the federal debt has been stuck at exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00 for 70 straight days.

That is approximately $25 million below the legal limit of $16,699,421,095,673.60 that Congress has imposed on the debt. The portion of the federal debt subject to the legal limit set by Congress first hit $16,699,396,000,000.00 at the close of business on May 17. At the close of every business day since then, it has also been $16,699,396,000,000.00, according to the official accounting published by the Treasury Department. If the debt had increased by even $30 million at any time during those 70 days, it would have exceeded the statutory limit. But, according to the Treasury, the debt did not do that. Instead, it remained precisely $16,699,396,000,000.00.

Even though the government's official accounting of the debt has not budged for 70 days, the Treasury has continued to sell bills, notes and bonds at a value that exceeds the value of the bills, notes and bonds it was redeeming. In fact, according to the Daily Treasury Statement for May 17, the Treasury had by then already redeemed approximately $4,776,995,000,000.00 since the beginning of the fiscal year (which started on Oct. 1, 2012). As of that same day, the Treasury had already sold $5,354,508,000.000.00 new bills, notes and bonds during the fiscal year. That represented a net increase in publicly circulating U.S. government debt instruments of $577,513,000,000.00 for the fiscal year.

As of July 26, according to the latest Treasury statement, the Treasury had already redeemed approximately $6,128,368,000,000.00 in bills, notes and bonds during this fiscal year. But, at the same time, according to the statement, the Treasury had sold an additional $6,759,148,000,000.00 bills, note and bonds--for a net increase of $630,780,000,000.00 for the year. Thus, the number of U.S. Treasury debt instruments circulating in the public has increased $53.267 billion since May 17--even though the Treasury says the debt has remained exactly at $16,699,396,000,000.00 during that time.

How could the value of extant U.S. Treasury Securities increase by $53.267 billion during a 70-day period when the federal government’s debt subject to the legal limit has remained constant at $16,699,396,000,000.00—just $25 million below the legal limit? On May 17, the day the debt began its long stay at $16,699,396,000,000.00, Treasury Secretary Lew sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner. In the letter, Lew said the Treasury would begin implementing what he called “the standard set of extraordinary measures” that allows the Treasury to continue to borrow and spend money even after it has hit the legal debt limit.

- See more at: 70 Straight Days: Treasury Says Debt Stuck at Exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00 | CNS News