Fire-Hose Spending

The current United States government is addicted to profligate spending.  It is behaving like a young tyke in a candy store without parental controls.  In the first five months of fiscal 2013 (begins Oct. 1^st, 2012) our government spent $30.5 billion more than in the same period of fiscal 2012 … see: CNS News Story.  If this rate of fire-hose federal spending continues, our deficit for the entire 2013 fiscal year will increase by $73.2 billion over last year’s number.  This would take our deficit for 2013 to $1.400 trillion instead of its budgeted number (in Congress’s continuing resolution) of $901 billion (see: Federal Budget - FY 2013).  This would mean that the Obama administration would have overspent its credit card limit this year by one-half a trillion dollars! 

Now, even with the recent $43 billion spending sequester, I think that it is well-neigh impossible for our Administration spendthrifts to meet the budgetary goals that Congress had established for them.  And I also suspect that much of the current well-touted spending cuts are just desperate Administration attempts to get back on the track set for them by Congress last year … and blaming these inflated cuts on the sequester.  Neil Cavuto’s green-eye-shade people (from Fox News) have already estimated that, if all the spending cuts being advertised by Obama were to take place, they would add up to ten-times even that phony $85 billion sequester amount.  Q.E.D.

Yes, if the Obama Administration pares back second-half spending by even close to a half a trillion dollars, we surely will go back into a recession (blamed on the Republicans, of course).  And if it doesn't meet it budgetary constraints, it will have some serious explaining to do late next fall.  Little Timmy Geithner got out of town just in the nick of time.  

This cannot all end well.

Afterward:  I keep asking myself why did our government so overspend in the first half of this fiscal year?  Were they setting the Republicans up to be blamed for the humongous cuts they would have to make this spring and summer?  My wife suggests that they were perhaps greasing the skids, money-wise, for a Democrat victory in November?  Maybe a bit of both ...

After-Afterward:  What I didn't account for in the above analyses is the additional revenue that would be coming into the government due to the three tax increases that occurred at the start of this calendar year (to a 30% rate on earners over $400,000, Obamacare taxes, and a 2 percentage point increase on payroll taxes).  I can't imaging that these three tax increases total more tan $100 billion for this fiscal year (see: Wall Street Journal Article) ... so we still have around a $400 billion nut to crack.

The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints

Howard Hughes liked and trusted LDS (Latter Day Saints) believers.  In his dotage, when he was shuffling around with Kleenex boxes on his feet and with long, uncut fingernails, a phalanx of Los Vegas Mormons ran his finances and businesses with utmost honesty and honor.  I, myself, have known over the years a number of Mormons and have admired and respected them all.  I have found them all to be straightforward, trustworthy, and very capable.

Unfortunately there is one glaring exception to this generalization ... Harry Reid, the senior Senator from Nevada, the Democrat Majority Leader, and a Mormon.  Harry Reid is a sneaky scoundrel; a pious poltroon; a piece of pond scum; a doddering doo-doo-head; a rascally rogue; a slimy snake-in-the-grass, a black-hearted blaggard; a noxious nincompoop; a callow, craven, capricious cockroach; a mendacious magpie; and a jerky jackanape.

Two recent Harry Reid shenanigans point out how low this man can stoop (both literally and figuratively):

1) He went on the floor of the Senate and repeated, without any attribution, what is basically a libelous rumor -- that Mitt Romney had not paid any taxes for ten years.  Romney responded with "put up, or shut up."  See: Fox News Story

2) He recently cursed-out an (African-American) member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who dared to seem to support the storing of nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain (Nevada).  His language was inflammatory and supportive of the above pejoratives I have applied to Reid.  See: Powerline Story and note Reid's base language.

Add to this that, in my and many others' opinion, Harry Reid is a primary reason that our Congress has been in grid-lock for the last three years.  Reid controls the Senate like a maniacal martinet and will not allow any debate on the numerous House bills that have been forwarded to help get this nation back to work.  And he has also not, for this same period allowed the Senate to pass a federal budget ... one of his primary Constitutional duties.

Do I make my point?

Dogcatcher

Even though Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz have refused to release their tax returns, they still insist that Mitt Romney release more than the last two years of his (see: Breitbart Story).  To rub salt into the wound, Harry Reid said that, because of his reticence, Romney was not suited to run for dogcatcher.  This comes from a man who has refused for over three years to fulfil his Constitutional duty in the Senate and pass a federal budget.  I suppose that Reid is preparing the way in case Romney wins the Presidency this coming November.  Perhaps, if so, he will send Romney a dogcatcher's net ... and start barking.

Sheherazade

In the legend, A Thousand and One Nights, Sheherazade had to tell the Persian king, Shahryar, a compelling story every night for a thousand and one days in order not to be beheaded (see the details here).  We now have a modern-day version of this story in that Harry Reid (D) tomorrow will have kept the U.S. Senate from passing a federal budget (as required by the Constitution and follow-on laws) for a thousand and one days.  This is in order that the American public doesn't see Democrat fingerprints on our profligate government spending ... and storm the Capitol demanding the Senate's majority leader's head on a platter (see the details here).  And we have heard not a peep of protest from The Barry over this dereliction of duty.

We, in the know, have become so jaded by these nose-thumbings at the Constitution by the current Administration that we too often "go along to get along."  I don't believe we should be very proud of this complacency.  I'm not ... and that is why I have composed this blog complaint.  I wish I could do more.