** An American Promise **
● A Balanced-Budget Amendment to the Constitution, with appropriate exceptions for times of war and recession.
● A line-item veto, to give the President a fighting chance to eliminate pork and earmarks.
● A limitation on federal spending, to 20% of GDP.-
** About We Elected You **
** Building A Million Dollar Retirement Portfolio **
Most of the millionaires in the U.S. are small business owners, and their wealth is tied up in their businesses. They drive used, American-made sedans; they live in modest homes in middle-class neighborhoods. Most of them are first-generation wealthy; they did not inherit their wealth, but earned it the hard way, through adding value in a business, or by saving diligently. Source: "The Millionaire Next Door", by Thomas Stanley and William Danko.Have Your Say!
- John Lumbard on Problems With a Balanced Budget Amendment?
- Chris Curley on Problems With a Balanced Budget Amendment?
- John Lumbard on How to Fix the Health Care Mess
- Did Government Agencies “Raid” Social Security “Coffers”? « Joejolly’s Weblog on “The Debt The Government Owes Itself For Raiding Social Security”
- John Lumbard on The Antidote
- Gen Y on The Keepers of the Flame
- Chuck Bailey on Amendment Filed. Call Your Congressman!
- Phoebe Addington on Party On!
- FaGaurlwal on Incentives Rule!
- James Schaefer on The ENTIRE Government Runs on Borrowed Money
Topics
$1.6 trillion deficit $8.2 trillion $12.8 trillion American Promise Austerity Balanced Budget Amendment balance the budget bipartisan reform cbo compound interest Congressional Budget Office Constitutional Amendment Contract From America debt burden default economy entitlements fair tax system federal budget Federal debt Federal deficit fiscal respnsibility fiscal responsibility Fiscal Sanity government debt Greece growth of government interest rates Judd Gregg limit on federal spending Line-Item Veto national debt net debt Pledge of Fiscal Responsibility political platform Portugal Social Security Spending Cap Spending Limit Amendment Sustainable Government Tax Reform Tea Party Term Limits trillion dollars unsustainable fiscal policyBlogroll
Land of the Setting Sun
By John Lumbard.
When news came that we had not, like lemmings, jumped over a Cliff, celebrations broke out across the nation. Nearly a million people jammed the streets around Times Square, and the party lasted well after dawn. As the sun rose---coincidentally the first day of a new year---revelers quietly...
Read More “Who ARE You People??!?”
By James Schaefer.
Outraged by partisan gridlock, corporate CEOs have become central players in the fiscal cliff negotiations -- and the far larger effort to tame the nation's deficits and debt.
Friday's Wall Street Journal ("Honeywell CEO in the Middle of Cliff Standoff", Monica Langley, December 14, 2012) gave a behind-closed-doors look at...
Read More The Fiscal Cliff Explained, With Links To The White House Budget Office
By John Lumbard.
According to the National Debt Clock, the US is currently collecting about $2.4 trillion in taxes, and spending about $3.5 trillion.
Put another way, we’re collecting 16% of GDP in taxes and spending 23% of GDP on government programs. Entitlement programs such as Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security are almost 16%...
Read More The Bipartisan Debt Machine
By John Lumbard.
Below you'll find the text of a speech that Senator Barack Obama gave in the Senate in March of 2006 (you want page S2237, if you'd rather read it there) regarding our debt and deficits---which at the time were growing rapidly under President Bush. Now they're growing rapidly...
Read More The Value of Bipartisan Reform, or, We’re In This Together
By James Schaefer.
It's amazing what can be found on government websites. The Social Security Administration posts a chart of their annual FICA tax revenue, from 1937 to 2009, a full seventy-two years' worth (link). It shows the Trust Fund's cumulative surplus, and is reproduced below.
From inception to 1987, the Trust...
Read More On Savings and Debt
By James Schaefer.
Some years back, at an annual company off-site retreat, a presenter was elaborating on money. He gave many definitions, then asked us to think of money in a slightly different way. Rather than thinking of it as a medium of exchange, he asked us to think of money as...
Read More Non-Partisan
By John Lumbard, CFA.
When we launched this blog in January of 2010 the federal debt stood at $12 trillion. The debt owed to the public (not including, that is, the US Treasury bonds held in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds---which Congress doesn't have to pay interest on or...
Read More Another Path To Solvency
By John Lumbard.
The legislatures of seventeen states have recently passed a bill calling for a constitutional convention that would be focused solely on the drafting of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Each of these bills explicitly states that it will be declared null and void if the Supreme...
Read More