Posts Tagged ‘Budget’
The United States accounts for nearly half of the ENTIRE WORLD’s military spending. The current defense Secretary, Robert Gates, wants to reduce that spending by nearly $100 Billion… and he will likely meet strong resistance. Do you have ideas how to cut the defense budget? (Cartoon by KAL)
Budget problems? We ain’t got no stinkin’ budget problems! California unveils its brand new $578 million school complex.
D.C.: Prepare ye the way of Glenn Beck, et. al.! The Maine Tea Party has prepared a very helpful guide to navigating D.C. that’s worth your review.
It’ll cost you $80 to snap a pic with Blago. If you had a face like that, you’d charge too.
Photo Credit: The Washington Post
Washington DC is rolling in pork. We don’t meat all those BBQ ribs consumed at Super Bowl Parties (Who Dat?!).
No, we are talking about pork-barrel spending. That’s when politicians grab government funds for pet projects in their congressional districts.
Now, to be fair, every politician does this. If congress folk bring home the Bacon (hence the term “Pork”) to their district voters love ‘em for it. Who doesn’t like somebody else’s money being spent on them?
But there are some in Congress who are artfully abusing working this system. The most notorious example might be Alabama Senator Richard Shelby’s $40 billion pet project (yes, that is Billion with a B).
His local project wants to take taxpayer money to create air-to-air refueling tankers and an explosive testing lab for the FBI (let’s hope the the exposive testing does not take place inside the fuel tankers).
Okay…maybe the USA needs these projects…but Senator Shelby has a curious way of convincing opponents to support him: he is using BLACKMAIL.
The powerful Senator has decided to block any of the Obama administration’s nominees (and there are loads) until he gets his Mega Billion Payout. …read more.
Thanks to Wikicommons.
We at US Democrazy are pretty sure that there is nothing you, our readers, find more interesting than accounting. That’s why we are excited to present (Sound the trumpets!): President Obama’s Federal budget proposal for the 2011 Fiscal Year! (Applause!)
Now in case you missed the proposed budgets release on February 1 here are some quick numbers from the proposal (the full collection of tables is here as a .pdf):
- The Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the value of all goods and services produced in the US – $15,299 Billion
- Expected federal income for 2011 – $2,567 Billion (16.8% of the GDP)
Of which: $1,121 Billion comes from individual’s (ie. your) income taxes
- Expected federal expenditures for 2011 – $3,834 Billion (25.1% of the GDP)
Of which: $548.9 Billion goes towards the Department of Defense
$730 Billion goes towards Social Security
- The difference (e.g. deficit) – $1,267 Billion (8.3% of the GDP)
From our friends at the Daily Beast comes a good summary of some interesting parts (yes, such a thing exists) of the budget.
Courtesy of McCormick
America’s most wanted: Wendy’s Chili:
Police say a lumber truck crashed into a Massachusetts home after the driver was knocked unconscious when he choked on chili from Wendy’s.
Re-educating NCLB… Administration reworks No Child Left Behind.
Show me the money… President Obama sends Congress his $3.8 trillion budget.
So, it’s not a secret, the US has some debt.
Not like “oops I overdrew this month” debt, more like a $1.35 TRILLION deficit for the coming year.
The latest attempt to decrease this depressing disaster comes from the President. President Obama will seek a three-year freeze on some domestic spending.
Let both sides of the political aisle prepare their mud catapults! We’ve got the rundown…
Legislators go for the axe, not the scalpel. Maybe it’s manlier?
Birth contol: BAD! Babies: GOOD! No, this ain’t the Pope talkin’.
We were always taught to blame others. But Hillary Clinton’s teaching us to blame ourselves!
Britney or Barack… Who’s easier on the eyes? One senator finds that question an easy one.
Budgets… bonuses… banks… bailout… borrowing… bankruptcy… They’re all BIG issues on Obama’s BIG economy plate. (His hopeful eyes must be bigger than his economy-sickened stomach.)
Yes, President Obama’s got a lot of money talk going on.
And soon, Obama will be on the road again (what a great song!) doing some campai — er, we mean normal, regular old town hall meetings in California.
He’s even got a date with Jay Leno and his “Tonight Show,” making him the first sitting president to appear on the talk show. (But he did go on during the campaign…)
To help pass his budget, Obama called upon his campai — er, actually his normal, regular old supporters to phone and write their Congresspeople and neighbors to garner support for the President’s proposal. This all sounds a lot like the permanent campaign, like we talked about a couple weeks ago.
If all that weren’t enough to keep the poor guy busy, AIG has been acting up again. AIG decided that they were legally obligated to give some of its Bosses employees “retention” bonuses, totalling $165 million.
Naturally, taxpayers are up in arms. And so is Chris Dodd, ever the taxpayer vigilante. “We can tax the dang bonuses!” he says. (Okay, you caught us, that’s not a direct quote…) We’ll see. However, Forbes seems skeptical that all this anger will last long, because fickle as “the public” are, we’ll all get over it.
Or we’ll just keep putting the pressure on Obama and his staff until the White House literally cracks in half.
Obama’s hard sell. The administration prepares to put up its dukes.
BREAKING NEWS! Friction in Washington! Oh wait, that’s not news after all.
The EU tries to figure this mess out. Good luck, we say.
Elmo suffers an assasination attempt? The Onion’s got the story.
Are you tired of big numbers? Let’s hope not, as we at USDemocrazy have a new one for you…
$1,750,000,
000,000.00!!!!
That’s right folks! There are twelve zeroes in there. That is the predicted US budget deficit for 2009.
Before you freak out, we have some good news to go with the bad. The good news is that Obama has provided us an explanation for the twelve-zeroed budget. The bad news is this outline is a hefty 146 pages of grade A government prose (meaning: this tome makes drying paint seem like an Obama Inauguration bash).
Lucky for you, we at USDemocrazy took the time to read the entire document (and by that we mean this entire Los Angeles Times document providing a good summary of the budget).
One of the largest increases in this unhealthy budget is in the form of health care. The budget establishes a $634 billion reserve fund for this purpose. This money is being set aside for a health care bill that will later be drawn up by those healthy folks in Congress and the White House.
If you think the projected twelve-zeroed deficit is high, you should see how big it would have been without money generated by more taxes! Obama currently plans taxes will increase and thus hurt only those earning more than $250,000 a year (sadly, we don’t fit into that category… in fact, our entire staff combined does not…).
Before the budget will go into effect, Obama must garner congressional support. Republicans, born-again fiscal conservatives, will not be a source of this support.
One thing is sure, this budget is BIG and there will be BIG arguements over its value. But hey, don’t take our word on it, check out this New York Times blog summing up what others have said.
Don’t cry for me, California… This mess is your own darn fault.
They found bin Laden on the map? Huh?
More money, more problems. Obama asks for more problems.
Who cares about the Oscars? The worst films of the year are announced, and they’re pretty funny.
