A Telling Graph

Posted on 22 May 2023 by eehines

This one via The Wall Street Journal in an article positing three scenarios regarding our economy and the existing debt ceiling negotiations. The graph, which the WSJ sourced to the Bipartisan Policy Center, is especially dispositive given the backdrop of Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden refusing to negotiate over an already House-passed bill that raises the ceiling along with some initial, and small, spending reforms. That backdrop also includes Biden’s, his Progressive-Democratic Party Congressional cronies’, and journalism’s shrill panic-mongering over default if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.Notice that. Interest on our nation’s debt is tiny compared with the revenue flowing in for June; that means there’ll be no default if Biden and his Treasury Secretary obey our Constitution, the latter which makes the situation plain in the Preamble to Article I, Section 8:

This is a preview of A Telling Graph. Read the full post (428 words, 1 image, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Debt Limit Extensions

Posted on 5 May 2023 by eehines

James Freeman quoted Capital Alpha Partners‘ James Lucier’s prediction concerning reaching the current debt limit and Congress’ response to it:

We think that Congress will pass a temporary extension of the debt limit deadline for 30, 60, or 90 days.

The House already has passed a temporary debt limit extension—of ~365 days.

The sad fact is that all debt limit extensions, of however many years, are merely temporary, and that will continue to be the case until Congress quits spending more money than the Federal government takes in. The most efficient way of achieving that end is to cut spending—not merely reduce its rate of growth.

This is a preview of Debt Limit Extensions. Read the full post (188 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

Debt and Spending

Posted on 25 April 2023 by eehines

Here’s a fun fact, one that every child from three years old and up who gets an allowance clearly learns, one that’s made explicit in any high school basic economics class, and one that’s driven home in junior college and college Econ 101 classes: when you spend more than take in, you owe the difference, either explicitly by borrowing separately to make up the arrears or implicitly by the existence of the deficit resulting from spending more than is taken in.

This is a preview of Debt and Spending. Read the full post (703 words, estimated 2:49 mins reading time)

The Purpose of Medicaid

Posted on 28 March 2023 by eehines

State Medicaid programs were created for the explicit purpose of providing health insurance coverage for State citizens on the lower rungs of that State’s economic ladder. The Federal government transfers Federal funds—the tax remittances of all of us citizens regardless of the State of which we might also be citizens—to support those Medicaid programs.

In California’s case, Federal transfers in support of Medi-Cal, that State’s Medicaid program, comprise more than 69% of the program. That amounts to 71.4 billion of our tax dollars.

Now the Progressive-Democrat governor of California, Gavin Newsom, wants Medi-Cal to pay the rent for the State’s homeless.

This is a preview of The Purpose of Medicaid. Read the full post (357 words, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

Debt Limits and Spending

Posted on 20 February 2023 by eehines

The Congressional Budget Office is out with its projection for our nation’s economic future.

As for the much-discussed federal debt, the nearby chart shows how fast it has grown in the last several years. Debt held by the public—the kind we have to pay back to creditors like the Chinese and Japanese based on contracts—is now 97% of the economy, and will soon rise to 100% and keep going to 118.2% in 2033. How high can it go before creditors stop lending? No one knows, but it will be ugly if they do.

Here is that nearby chart:

This is a preview of Debt Limits and Spending. Read the full post (390 words, 1 image, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Debt Ceiling “Negotiating”

Posted on 16 February 2023 by eehines

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed centered on ways to “save” Social Security and Medicare, Progressive Policy Institute‘s Director of the Center for Funding America’s Future, Ben Ritz, opened with this bit for his lede:

The Biden administration has sensibly rejected attempts by some far-right Republicans to hold the full faith and credit of the US hostage in exchange for spending cuts. The administration now must show it will be open to good-faith budget negotiations after the impasse over the federal debt limit is resolved.

Leave it to a Left-winger to say, once again, “Trust us.”

This is a preview of Debt Ceiling “Negotiating”. Read the full post (285 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

Mistaken?

Posted on 2 February 2023 by eehines

In a Fox News article centered on Congressman Chip Roy’s (D, TX) proposed legislation that would bar Federal funds from going to schools that teach critical race theory (the foolishness doesn’t deserve capitalization), Cato Institute’s Colleen Hroncich had this in objecting to Roy’s proposal:

For starters, the federal government has no constitutional role in education[.]

Plainly, the Federal government does have a role, Constitutional or otherwise, in education—hence the existence of those federal funds to schools that Roy’s proposal would block.

Alternatively, Hroncich is correct, and all Federal funds transfers to schools should stop.

This is a preview of Mistaken?. Read the full post (152 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

Federal Debt Ceiling

Posted on 18 January 2023 by eehines

The Progressive-Democratic Party says they’ll refuse to negotiate on raising the debt ceiling. Not at all. Those politicians are looking to hold our nation’s weal and our national security hostage against their demand to spend, spend, spend.

Republican Party politicians—at least those in the House and some of them in the Senate—insist that the debt ceiling can’t be raised without agreement on spending cuts in the next and subsequent budgets: not agreement to talk about cuts, but actual, specific cuts.

These Leftist politicians insist that the debt ceiling is solely about current bills that must be paid and that future spending questions—cuts or otherwise—are separate questions and must be negotiated separately. This is badly mistaken.

This is a preview of Federal Debt Ceiling. Read the full post (377 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Rules and Defense Spending Cuts

Posted on 10 January 2023 by eehines

The House—in particular, the majority Republicans—along with too many so-called defense journalists are having trouble with a rule that potentially leads to defense spending cuts, a particular anathema in today’s environment of a Russia at war and a People’s Republic of China threatening war.

However, the fact is defense spending has always been vulnerable to cuts, particularly by the Progressive-Democratic Party and its predecessor Democratic Party. The proposed rule just makes the potential explicitly stated. But it does not mandate defense spending cuts; it mandates spending cuts in one (or more) places if there are to be spending increases in other places. Quoting from the proposed rules:

This is a preview of Rules and Defense Spending Cuts. Read the full post (486 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

This is Why

Posted on 14 December 2022 by eehines

Georgia recently won a court case in which the Biden administration had—illegally, as it turns out—blocked its program to expand Medicaid eligibility to individuals making up to 100% of the federal poverty line ($13,590 for singles) while conditioning benefits on working, going to school, or volunteering 80 hours a month.

However, under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020, States are unable to remove able-bodied Medicaid folks—i.e., folks who are fully capable of working but who choose not to—from their Medicaid rolls as long as the Wuhan Virus emergency remains in effect. The CDC conveniently continues to extend that “emergency,” even though no less a light than our Progressive-Democrat President, Joe Biden, has said the emergency is over.

This is a preview of This is Why. Read the full post (261 words, estimated 1:03 mins reading time)

A Plebe's Site

Quam bene vivas referre, non quam diu.

Tag Archives: spending

A Telling Graph

Like this:

Debt Limit Extensions

Like this:

Debt and Spending

Like this:

The Purpose of Medicaid

Like this:

Debt Limits and Spending

Like this:

Debt Ceiling “Negotiating”

Like this:

Mistaken?

Like this:

Federal Debt Ceiling

Like this:

Rules and Defense Spending Cuts

Like this:

This is Why

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this:

Like this: