Fire Hose Spending

President Obummer is leaving office the way that he came in... with crushing increases in our federal debt ... see: CNS News Article and above chart. Our national debt increased in just-ended fiscal 2016 by $1.42 trillion, compared to his first year in office, 2009, when our debt increased by $1.89 trillion ... driven mostly by an over $800 billion stimulus package. However, this current $1.42 trillion debt increase compares to a projected deficit for fiscal 2016 of $590 billion. Should not these two numbers be the same? Very perplexing ... especially since we are living a public relations lie that it is the size of our national deficits that count toward our fiscal prudence ... when it is really the growth in our national debt that counts most in judging our degree of peril.

Moreover, the difference is that in 2009 there was a rationale for all this fire-hose spending ... to help pull the United States out of the great recession caused by the housing bubble bursting. Now this country, theoretically is not in extremis, so why is our debt growing almost as rapidly ... and why is there such a disconnect between our deficits and the change in our national debt? I have found one brave soul who has tried to rationalize this difference ... see: Wolf Street Article. The possible explanations given therein ... from hidden defense spending to the Social Security surplus ... cannot account for this huge 2016 disparity of $830 billion between our current deficit and our increase in our indebtedness. This article concludes with no real explanation.

However. I think I might have the answer ... and that, like most roads to fiscal hell, is fuzzy accounting. By this I mean that our federal government has not established hard and fast rules in how to apply cash versus accrual accounting methods ... see: The Hill Article. So, as a result, different government agencies use whatever method is most advantageous to their spending desires. They can and often do spend cash on things (both needed and unneeded) and don't enter it in the books as an accrued expense until subsequent fiscal years ... or, less often, do the opposite. This is how our government could increase our debt by $340 billion in one single day last fall. It had accrued expenses until Congress passed the debt ceiling increase ... and then booked all this as cash out of pocket on the debt ledger. And, since these accrued expenses were not required to be shown under existing deficit cash accounting methods, they were hidden from Congress and the American public.

This is an insane way to run a government ... particularly one that can't seem to shut off the fire-hose spending hydrant.

Afterward: I realize I didn't address the second part of my query ... how come the $830 billion 2016 fiscal year disparity between our reported deficit and the increase in our debt? Perhaps the $150-$200 billion we gave to Iran may be part of this delta?

Great Idea ...

Wrong person.  The Barry, in an election-year U-turn is proposing measures that would make our federal government leaner and meaner.  See: Earthlink Article.  Three measures he has proposed are:

1) merging six major trade and commerce agencies into one and eliminating the Commerce Department, 2) tax incentives to bring jobs back to the U.S., and 3) eliminating corporate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas (does this include G.E.?).

Now this would be a giant HOORAY if Obama's track record indicated that he was trustworthy on such matters.  Unfortunately, he pulled a trillion dollar scam on the American people with the stimulus package in 2009 that did little more than siphon federal tax dollars into public service unions and produced very few "shovel-ready jobs" as promised.  So one has to look sideways at this new proposal and expect that, if Congress were to approve it as is (note the corporate tax increases ... most every large company has foreign affiliates), Administration magicians would find some way to augment the Democrat re-election war chest with more resources.

Or, if Congress were not to endorse this pig-in-a-poke proposal, then The Barry would have one more bullet-point to decry in his re-election campaign ... which seems to be pointing toward his running against a "do-nothing" Congress.  So the U.S. legislature is boxed in and will probably have to pass such a measure.  But, the House of Representatives should take this opportunity to expand this law even further into significant government downsizing and include so many caveats that Obama can't find his way into reversing its effect.  Then, if Harry Reid does Obama's dirty work and kills this proposal in the Senate (more do-nothing evidence) ... or, if The Barry wouldn't ink such a measure, then the real purpose of this election-year grandstanding would be revealed ... which, hopefully, would then be communicated to the American public (ha ha).

Bonehead Moves

The Obama administration has made a few good and even gutsy decisions ... like icing Osama bin Laden and the surge in Afghanistan.  However, it has also made and continues to make far too numerous bonehead moves.  I offer the following as but a few examples:

- Abrogating our anti-missile defense agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic.
- Obamacare ... along with something more than 1,300 wavers to mostly large businesses and unions.
- This past January, the opening up of diplomatic relations with Syria ... just in time for the bloody anti-government uprisings there.
- Sending our warplanes into Libya almost two months ago while assuring the American public that this incursion would last for "days not weeks."  It is still going on.
- Trying to keep the Boeing corporation from opening a manufacturing plant (for its Dreamliner airplane) in South Carolina because it is a "right to work" state.
- Appointing of 37 executive-branch czars ... unvetted by Congress.
- Helping (along with Ben Bernanke) to destroy the value of the U.S. dollar.
- Spending almost one trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayer money on a "stimulus" bill which did nothing to create private-sector jobs.  It just briefly saved public-sector jobs in many states ... which jobs are now being cut due to continued economic malaise.
- Taking Arizona to court over its new anti-illegal-immegration laws.
- Disclosing British military secrets to the Russians as grease-on-the-skids to get them to ratify the START treaty.
- Meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt shortly after his inauguration.
- Federalizing two car companies, the student loan industry, and some financial companies (AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.)
- Demagoguing on the illegal immigration issue, the balanced budget issue, the political contributions from foreigners issue, the collective bargaining issue, the racial equality issue, the Tea Party issue, the environmental issues, the Israel/Arab issue, the oil depletion allowance issue, etc.
- The "Cash for Clunkers" program.
- Trying to bring Islamic terrorists to trial in U.S. civilian courts.
- Placing a moratorium on new oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico while, at the same time, fronting Brazil $2 billion for them to develop its own off-shore oil resources.
- Providing 85 drone aircraft to Pakistan right before we found Osama bin Laden ensconced there.
- Refusing to proffer or pass a 2011 federal budget ... and offering only a grossly irrational one fo 2012.
- The (mis)handling of the BP oil spill ... including extorting $20 billion out of BP.
- (Just in.) A call for Israel to return unilaterly to its pre-1967 borders with the Arab world.

Now, take the ratio of good decisions to bonehead moves to determine a President's worth.  Any number greater than one qualifies a President for Mount Rushmore. The Barry so far doesn't seem even to qualify for a footnote to history.