As of November 7th, the total U.S. public debt outstanding reached an astonishing $13.7 trillion. This means that although Congress just raised the debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion back in February, the new Congress will face another debt ceiling vote almost immediately next year. Otherwise, the Treasury will not be able to continue issuing debt to fund government operations.
The upcoming vote will provide an interesting litmus test for the new Republican congressional majority, especially those new members closely identified with Tea Party voters. The debt ceiling law, passed in 1917, enables Congress to place a statutory cap on the total amount of government debt rather than having to approve each individual Treasury bond offering. It also, however, forces Congress into an open and presumably somewhat shameful vote to approve more borrowing.
If the new Congress gives in to establishment pressure and media alarmism about “shutting down the government” by voting to increase the debt ceiling once again, you will know that the status quo has prevailed. You will know that Congress, despite the rhetoric of the midterm elections, is doing business as usual. You will know that the simple notion of balancing the budget, by limiting federal spending to federal revenue, remains a shallow and laughable campaign platitude.
Of course congressional leaders – now Republicans – will tell America that they plan on balancing the budget soon, but they just need some time. After all, we have to keep the government open, right? We can’t have an “emergency” shutdown of vital government services. But somehow Congress always finds money for emergency spending, in the form of supplemental appropriations bills for TARP bailouts, troop surges, and the like. Why is there never an emergency that justifies less spending???
Surely we are facing an emergency debt spiral, as evidenced by the Federal Reserve’s recent commitment to buy another round of Treasury debt. It’s now quite obvious that the U.S. government plans to inflate its way out of debt, and the world is fleeing our dollar in response. Just 7 years ago Congress raised the debt ceiling to $6.4 trillion, which means the federal government had doubled its indebtedness in less than a decade. Annual deficits for 2011 and beyond are projected to be at least $1 trillion. By contrast, the entire federal debt amassed from the founding of our nation until President Reagan took office in 1981 – a period of roughly 200 years – was $1 trillion. So it’s no exaggeration to state that federal debt is growing exponentially.
I have two simple proposals when the new Congress convenes in January. First, refuse to raise the debt ceiling. Find a way, month by month, for Congress to spend only what the Treasury raises in revenue. Second, start over from scratch with the 13 appropriations bills that fund the federal government. Reject any talk of baseline budgets or discretionary spending. It is all discretionary, and members of both parties should vote against any 2012 appropriation bill that is not at least 10% smaller – in nominal dollars – than its 2011 counterpart.
A motivated Congress could begin to slow the tide of debt by taking the simple step of cutting federal spending by 10% across the board for the next few years. Let’s hope it does not take the complete collapse of the U.S. dollar to provide this motivation.
By Ron Paul November 30, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Pajamas Media » EPA Fraud: Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf Actually Get Only 23, 25 MPG
Pajamas Media » EPA Fraud: Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf Actually Get Only 23, 25 MPG
So there you have it. The Government Motors Corporation has lied to everyone about it's new flagship fiasco.
So there you have it. The Government Motors Corporation has lied to everyone about it's new flagship fiasco.
Decline the TSA Gate Rape and find yourself Blacklisted
According to the Canada Free Press, the TSA is now compiling "Blacklists" of everyone that decides the 4th Amendment trumps the rules of the TSA.
It does not surprise me that the Obama Administration responds to the backlash against the unconstitutional fourth amendment violating TSA screening measures by blacklisting air travelers who object to the over reaching intrusive searches at the airports. They are trying to send a chilling effect not to protest the TSA groping and body scanners that has the public in an uproar.
Will they add them to a list were you can not buy a new car .apply for employment or do business.Will people be put on this list that will make life hard to function because the government has blackballed people who objected to the abusive TSA.These secretive list shows the abusive executive branch bypassing the courts and due process blacklisting their political enemies and opposition.
It does not surprise me that the Obama Administration responds to the backlash against the unconstitutional fourth amendment violating TSA screening measures by blacklisting air travelers who object to the over reaching intrusive searches at the airports. They are trying to send a chilling effect not to protest the TSA groping and body scanners that has the public in an uproar.
Will they add them to a list were you can not buy a new car .apply for employment or do business.Will people be put on this list that will make life hard to function because the government has blackballed people who objected to the abusive TSA.These secretive list shows the abusive executive branch bypassing the courts and due process blacklisting their political enemies and opposition.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Supreme Court Rejects Hearing About Obama Citizenship
Look, let's get this straight, I'm a constitutional innocent until proven guilty, everyone deserves equal protection under the law kind of guy. I have no evidence that Barack Obama was or wasn't born in the United States and is therefore eligable to be President of the United States of America, and apparently neither does anyone else.
There are however many reasons to think we should at least explore the issue and have the Supreme Court of The United States put the issue to bed. Today the SCOTUS rejected yet another hearing.
My question today is the same as it ever was: Why, if he is indeed a citizen, has Barack Obama spent so much money squelching opposition? No one knows the real figure. Why was Justice Kagan his nominee?
What does the president have to hide in his past that he has sealed his education records? Wayne Allen Root, former Libertarian candidate for vice president, put up $1Million dollars as a challenge for those records to be released.....who couldn't use a million dollars?
If he was such a rock star at Harvard Law and edited the Harvard Law Review, why didn't he ever get an article published? "As president of the Harvard Law Review and a law professor in Chicago, Senator Barack Obama refined his legal thinking, but left a scant paper trail. His name doesn't appear on any legal scholarship."
There are however many reasons to think we should at least explore the issue and have the Supreme Court of The United States put the issue to bed. Today the SCOTUS rejected yet another hearing.
My question today is the same as it ever was: Why, if he is indeed a citizen, has Barack Obama spent so much money squelching opposition? No one knows the real figure. Why was Justice Kagan his nominee?
What does the president have to hide in his past that he has sealed his education records? Wayne Allen Root, former Libertarian candidate for vice president, put up $1Million dollars as a challenge for those records to be released.....who couldn't use a million dollars?
If he was such a rock star at Harvard Law and edited the Harvard Law Review, why didn't he ever get an article published? "As president of the Harvard Law Review and a law professor in Chicago, Senator Barack Obama refined his legal thinking, but left a scant paper trail. His name doesn't appear on any legal scholarship."
The questions are too numerous not to be answered. Like I said, the burden of proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, is on the accuser. I think there is reasonable doubt.
We Are Being Systematically Silenced, This Is Our Time
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I stand here before you in the city of Copenhagen in the year 2010. This is widely considered to be an enlightened country in the heart of an enlightened continent.
Our basic freedoms have long been guaranteed — first by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as passed by the United Nations in 1948, and then buttressed by the Council of Europe in 1950 through the European Convention of Human Rights, which was later affirmed by the European Union. Our individual countries have additionally codified the same basic rights in their own constitutions.
These rights include the freedom of individual conscience, the right to assemble peaceably, and the right to practice our religion freely, or to have no religion at all. And, perhaps most importantly of all, they include the right to voice our opinions freely and to publish them without hindrance.
Yet freedom of speech is under attack today here in Denmark, as it is in my own country Austria, and indeed all across Europe. Today, in 21st century Western Europe, our right to free speech is being shut down quietly and systematically with an effectiveness that the commissars in the old Soviet Union could only dream of.
Read the Rest Here
I stand here before you in the city of Copenhagen in the year 2010. This is widely considered to be an enlightened country in the heart of an enlightened continent.
Our basic freedoms have long been guaranteed — first by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as passed by the United Nations in 1948, and then buttressed by the Council of Europe in 1950 through the European Convention of Human Rights, which was later affirmed by the European Union. Our individual countries have additionally codified the same basic rights in their own constitutions.
These rights include the freedom of individual conscience, the right to assemble peaceably, and the right to practice our religion freely, or to have no religion at all. And, perhaps most importantly of all, they include the right to voice our opinions freely and to publish them without hindrance.
Yet freedom of speech is under attack today here in Denmark, as it is in my own country Austria, and indeed all across Europe. Today, in 21st century Western Europe, our right to free speech is being shut down quietly and systematically with an effectiveness that the commissars in the old Soviet Union could only dream of.
Read the Rest Here
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Fed leverages ownership.....of the United States?
Since the "financial crisis" started, the Fed has kept interest rates at Zero or near zero, to no avail. They increased the supply of money in the system, Quantitative Easing, now along the order of $3trillion over 2.5 years, effectively decreasing the purchasing power of the dollar by 25% over the same time period. (They already decreased the value of the dollar by 97% since the inception of the Fed in 1913)
Now, the Fed is buying Treasury Bonds like they are going out of style.
I wonder, why? Since the Fed has already siphoned off nearly all of the wealth of the USA through inflation, wouldn't it make sense that they are just stealing the entire country, all of it's assets, and all of your future labor through debt?
Now, the Fed is buying Treasury Bonds like they are going out of style.
I wonder, why? Since the Fed has already siphoned off nearly all of the wealth of the USA through inflation, wouldn't it make sense that they are just stealing the entire country, all of it's assets, and all of your future labor through debt?
Minimum Wager Earners Have More Disposable Income Than Someone Earning $60K
Got Cloward?
Tonight’s stunning financial piece de resistance comes from Wyatt Emerich of The Cleveland Current. In what is sure to inspire some serious ire among all those who once believed Ronald Reagan that it was the USSR that was the “Evil Empire”, Emmerich analyzes disposable income and economic benefits among several key income classes and comes to the stunning (and verifiable) conclusion that “a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year.” And that excludes benefits from Supplemental Security Income disability checks...America is now a country which punishes those middle-class people who not only try to work hard, but avoid scamming the system. Not surprisingly, it is not only the richest and most audacious thieves that prosper – it is also the penny scammers at the very bottom of the economic ladder that rip off the middle class each and every day, courtesy of the world’s most generous entitlement system...You can do as well working one week a month at minimum wage as you can working $60,000-a-year, full-time, high-stress job.First outlined by Columbia Professors Cloward and Piven in their blueprint for the destruction of American capitalism, the Democrat Party's dual policies of limitless welfare and open borders have finally succeeded. America stands on the brink of economic catastrophe. The 2010 elections were a hopeful beginning, but only a beginning. We must unwind the treasonous policies of the progressive left and leave them no more a political force than the Whigs.
Tonight’s stunning financial piece de resistance comes from Wyatt Emerich of The Cleveland Current. In what is sure to inspire some serious ire among all those who once believed Ronald Reagan that it was the USSR that was the “Evil Empire”, Emmerich analyzes disposable income and economic benefits among several key income classes and comes to the stunning (and verifiable) conclusion that “a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year.” And that excludes benefits from Supplemental Security Income disability checks...America is now a country which punishes those middle-class people who not only try to work hard, but avoid scamming the system. Not surprisingly, it is not only the richest and most audacious thieves that prosper – it is also the penny scammers at the very bottom of the economic ladder that rip off the middle class each and every day, courtesy of the world’s most generous entitlement system...You can do as well working one week a month at minimum wage as you can working $60,000-a-year, full-time, high-stress job.First outlined by Columbia Professors Cloward and Piven in their blueprint for the destruction of American capitalism, the Democrat Party's dual policies of limitless welfare and open borders have finally succeeded. America stands on the brink of economic catastrophe. The 2010 elections were a hopeful beginning, but only a beginning. We must unwind the treasonous policies of the progressive left and leave them no more a political force than the Whigs.
Free Market Solution To The Naked Body Scanners - Updated
My original post about Free Market Solution To The Naked Body Scanners seems to have gotten attention from some big players. Rep. Dr. Ron Paul, R-TX (although mostly Libertarian) has picked up on my idea and has called for a boycott of the airlines until this stuff stops.
Dr. Paul, you can thank me later. I just hope it works.
Dr. Paul, you can thank me later. I just hope it works.
Obama Now Favorable To Only 39%
According to the latest Zogby Poll, only 39% of Americans now have a favorable opinion of President Obama. This is his lowest approval rating since his election. I expect the recent departures from the White House staff of people like Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod have nothing to do with rats and ships, but I could be wrong.
Ron Paul to be new head of Monetary Policy
The times, they are a-changin’. Unthinkable only a year or two ago, the prospect that Congressman Ron Paul may actually receive the long-deserved chairmanship of a House subcommittee grows brighter by the day. And Paul’s longtime nemesis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, may soon find his chief congressional detractor in a position to do a good deal more than mere finger-wagging.
By all accounts, the congressman from Texas, who, as expected, handily won re-election earlier this month, is in line to chair the House Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology subcommittee. In recent years, the subcommittee has, in Dr. Paul’s words, “basically been a committee that deals with commemorative coins,” its members too cowed by the majesty of the Fed to actually contemplate delving into serious monetary reforms. But if Dr. Paul is permitted by House party leadership to ascend to the chairmanship, there is little doubt that he will soon be using his new platform to push for more transparency at the Fed, more congressional oversight of the central bank, and a phased-in return to the gold standard. (Given the ferocity of the Tea Party insurgency, it is hard, although not impossible, to imagine that they would risk alienating the movement by dissing its founding father.)
Read The Rest Here
By all accounts, the congressman from Texas, who, as expected, handily won re-election earlier this month, is in line to chair the House Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology subcommittee. In recent years, the subcommittee has, in Dr. Paul’s words, “basically been a committee that deals with commemorative coins,” its members too cowed by the majesty of the Fed to actually contemplate delving into serious monetary reforms. But if Dr. Paul is permitted by House party leadership to ascend to the chairmanship, there is little doubt that he will soon be using his new platform to push for more transparency at the Fed, more congressional oversight of the central bank, and a phased-in return to the gold standard. (Given the ferocity of the Tea Party insurgency, it is hard, although not impossible, to imagine that they would risk alienating the movement by dissing its founding father.)
Read The Rest Here
Monday, November 22, 2010
So Long Dave, We Hardly Knew Ya
Libertarian Party founder David Nolan passed away yesterday. David was the creator of the world famous "Nolan Chart" also know as the "World's smallest political quiz". Some people ask, what's the fascination with that damned quiz? Well, it points people, without defined political allegences, toward an idea, or for that matter an ideal of a society based in Liberty, personal responsibility and the firm belief in "the sovereign self", that they never knew existed in themselves.
I look forward to meeting you, Dave, on the other side.
My pal Shane Bruce, Libertarian Stalwart, showing off the Nolan Chart in Athens, GA at a festival full of folks that didn't know they might be Libertarians!
That's how it works, kids. Thanks again Dave.
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