The spectacle of the Obama White House’s daily dog and pony shows does not begin to cover for the hard data coming out of their own executive branch confirming what Republicans have been saying all along: the Democrat borrow and spend and spend and spend “stimulus” plan is not working now and will not work in the long run. They are accomplishing nothing more than bankrupting our children and grandchildren’s futures.
The federal debt is exploding to over $1.8 trillion this year and the government will have to borrow 50 cents for every dollar it spends. And now President Obama’s job growth claims are increasingly doubtful.
Last month, in a nationally televised address, Obama said his administration had “saved or created over 150,000 jobs,” yet the Department of Labor statistics released just yesterday tell a very different story. The unemployment rate has now reached 8.9 percent, up a full percentage point since the passage of the so-called stimulus bill.
Yesterday’s unemployment numbers release fell short of the expectations set by the Obama administration, even falling short of the unemployment numbers they projected (PDF) would result from passing no “stimulus” legislation at all.
The Obama administration is either making up their numbers outright or their so-called solutions aren’t working. As American families struggle to get through these troubled times, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress are not delivering on the promises they made when they borrowed in the name of the American taxpayer $1 trillion dollars to spend on 50 years’ worth of liberal pet projects.
Shocking Report on the Cost of Social Security and Medicare
In the annual reports issued yesterday by the programs’ trustees, more fiscal red flags were raised on the cost of Social Security and Medicare. According to the reports, these unfunded liabilities pose a mounting and increasingly urgent threat to U.S. fiscal and economic stability.
The staggering growth of these program liabilities will reach a whopping $43 trillion over the next 75 years which is a $3 trillion increase over last year’s estimates. The Medicare report also issues a fourth consecutive warning about the amount of funding the program is drawing from resources other than its dedicated revenue.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee and numbers guru, warned yesterday of the dangers we face in continuing to ignore the urgent need for reforms of these programs.
“Congress has known for years that our largest entitlement programs - particularly Social Security and Medicare - simply cannot survive as currently structured,” Ryan said. “If we act now, we can reform these programs in a rational, well-thought-out way. We can make them better, stronger, more responsive, more resilient, more sustainable, and more in line with the way our economy really works. There is no reason to wait; each year of delay increases the likelihood that Congress will be forced to make deep cuts in benefits, or raise taxes or debt to intolerable levels.”
“Regrettably, the President’s budget makes the problem worse by expanding entitlement spending by $1.4 trillion over the next ten years,” Ryan continued. “The administration has also indicated it has no intention of responding to the Trustees’ fourth consecutive Medicare funding warning - or of using the special procedure that warning provides: to force Congress to take action on critical Medicare reform.
“The alarm has been sounded - and hitting the snooze button, yet again, is not the right choice,” Ryan concluded. “Americans should demand we address this looming crisis, because failure to do so will have an impact on these critical programs - and our nation’s economy - for generations to come."
