President Joe Biden has asked Congress for $106 billion in supplemental “emergency” funding, a proposal that contains several important policy flaws and threatens to drive the nation further down the road to bankruptcy.
Biden’s Sept. 20 request includes $61 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, $13 billion for border security, $10 billion for global humanitarian aid, and $4 billion to address China.
To begin with, Biden’s supplemental proposal ignores Republicans’ request that he separate aid for Ukraine and Israel, since Americans are much more unified about supporting Israel.
The Biden administration’s response to the border crisis it created also hinges on showering left-leaning nonprofits with taxpayer dollars, which would do nothing to address the underlying causes.
An aspect of the spending request that likely will get little (if any) attention from the mainstream press is the administration’s casual choice not to cover any of the cost of this $106 billion package, meaning it would be pure deficit spending.
Washington’s reckless, $7.5 trillion spending spree from 2020 through 2022 is having a disastrous effect on the economy. American families still suffer from persistent inflation caused by the glut of deficit spending, rising interest rates make it unaffordable to buy a home, and interest rates on the national debt are spiking.
Market is beginning to realize that these deficits are unsustainable and Biden admin has no plan to change course; no one wants to be holding the bomb when it goes off…
Treasuries:
30-year: 5.102%
20-year: 5.334%
10-year: 4.988%
2-year: 5.171%
3-month: 5.487% pic.twitter.com/owNIFOXtvC— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) October 20, 2023
Investors have good reason to be concerned about how safe U.S. debt securities are. The Fitch credit rating agency downgraded its assessment of federal finances in August, citing the complete breakdown of fiscal responsibility.
It helps to visualize just how out of whack things have become.
Despite the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, Washington still racked up an astonishing $1.7 trillion budget deficit in 2023. This would be like a typical family adding $28,381 in debt while ignoring the $564,749 in debt it already had.
Things only get worse as we look toward the future.
The current gross debt of $33.6 trillion means that the share of debt for each U.S. household is over $258,000. Worse, because Congress has ignored the finances of Social Security and Medicare for years, the programs have a combined $75.3 trillion in unfunded liabilities—or roughly $579,000 for every household.
That adds up to $837,000 in federal debt and liabilities per household, and few leaders in Washington are willing to even acknowledge that the problem exists.
By far, the policy area with the largest effect on the federal government is health care. Programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, along with preferential tax treatment for employer-provided health insurance, cost $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2023.
Incredibly, the cost of these provisions is set to nearly double over the next decade, reaching $3.3 trillion in 2033.
Many reforms are available to slow the growth of federal health spending and prevent Medicare from going bankrupt, but sadly little appetite exists among elected officials to tackle this mounting crisis.
The picture is similarly bleak for Social Security. Despite strong and growing revenue from the payroll tax, the program’s deficits are on pace to explode over the next few years, driving it to bankruptcy by 2033.
If that happens, America’s seniors would face an immediate 23% cut in benefits.
Considering the mountainous national debt, the unsustainable nature of Social Security and health care subsidies, and the surge in interest rates, this would seem to be a bad time for Uncle Sam to put another $106 billion on our shared credit card tab for Biden’s supplemental request.
The president’s request is yet another example of the swampy approach to spending: Because politicians use other people’s money, they aren’t concerned about the consequences of overspending.
This is Washington’s business-as-usual mindset in action. The nation’s leaders could draw on hundreds of available policy reforms to cut waste and inefficiency to cover the cost of the supplemental package.
If supporters of this spending genuinely believe it is worthwhile, they should be willing to make the case for which low-value programs Congress should cut to make room in the budget for the spending.
Instead, the Biden administration and its allies would rather avoid upsetting any special interests or established bureaucracies that would be on the wrong end of badly needed deficit reduction. Thus, they want to use the “emergency” designation to avoid any budgetary discipline whatsoever.
It’s a shameful way to run the country.
David Ditch is a policy analyst specializing in budget and transportation policy in the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation.
Reprinted with Permission from The Daily Signal – By David Ditch
The Federal government is spending like a drunken sailor, banking on filling the politicians pockets before war breaks out. War is a form of bankruptcy excusing the irresponsible bureaucrats and politicians.
JACKASS JOE BIDEN IS TREASONOUS
AND IS DEFINITELY THE WORST AND IN
AMERICAN HISTORY!!!
It’s a insult to drunken sailors because drunken sailors have to stop spending when they run out of money. Politicians keep spending adding more to the deficit. If normal Americans tried to do deficit spending with there own budgets we be put i prison for fraud.
The Democrats at every turn have made decisions or implemented policies that have weakened the security and financial stability of the United States. This is not by accident. This is globalist politics supported only by globalists propaganda. All to enrich globalist elites and the people that do their dirty work.
The The United States is Flat Broke!!
Our Government has to Stop Spending!
Every Penny The US Spends is Financed by Multiple Foreign Countries Buying US Treasury Bonds, Mainly China and Japan. The US Debt is $33 Trillion Rapidly Heading Towards $34.
Here’s some Math on Just One Trillion! If You Spent One Million Dollars a Day! It would take You 3,000 Years to Spend One Trillion Dollars!
To Biden and the communist politicians, it’s all like monopoly money. Just get more. Kind of like Joe’s relationship with communist China.
Get rid of the fkng green spending crap would go a long way in helping the cause. Actually our debt with interest is well over $90 Trillion, why is that never mentioned? Had Trump been in office as he should be this sh!t would not be anywhere near the shape we are in!!
It’s time we financially trim the size of government that Obama and Biden have created. How about drilling for oil, the product that makes our enemies strong????
When does the printing press breakdown? Oh, I forgot if it stops printing, then the buck is passed (taken) from the people. Disgusting as usual.
This is exactly what happens you don’t know the laws of economics. Income vs expenditures. If you spend more than you have and keep on doing that then, sooner or later going bankrupt is your only option. That also means that someone else will pay for your financial ignorance. The only way is to take care of the root cause .What happens when a citizen gets a loan and doesen’t pay the loan off and it goes into default??? 1. Make the government responsible for their financial spending.2. If the government can’t take care of their financial obligations then, everyone that let that happen should be thrown out of office.3. The ones that are thrown out of office should have all of their financial assets confiscated to pay for the monetary misdeeds.4. If that happens just once to a couple of high ranking politicians maybe they will realize their paychecks and entire life savings are on the line.Make them personal responsible for their actions and it will stop!
Jackass Joe Biden graduated from Syracuse with a law degree which just goes to prove that 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name!
Awww……c’mon, lets borrow an additional +100 billion to fund our terrorist NAZI buddies in Ukraine, our completely insane Zionist foreskin chompers in Israel and………..well, since we agree that Taiwan IS a part of China…….lets throw money at them as well because it all feeds the machine that is our beloved military industrial complex.
Heck, lets send our youth along with our borrowed money. I mean, couch dwelling incel pink haired neurotics will perform perfectly in combat situations and if they don’t? No harm, no foul.
God bless America!!
Absolute unequivocal, unapologetic no I’ll read this later, but shut the Spicket off and start with the ball in this guy‘s ass out the front door of the White House
Jackass Joe Biden “is a lot better than what a progressive would propose”.
ARE YOU NUTS?
I guess you just don’t know the definition of PROGRESSIVE!