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It’s Only $26 Billion a day April 3, 2009

Posted by Todd in Finance, Politics.
Tags: , , ,
6 comments

I have recently become a fan of the social media application Twitter and lately I have been following Senator Tom Coburn, M.D.  from Oklahoma.  On March 31st he posted these remarks:

  • Congress has spent $136.3 billion each week it has been in session.
  • Congress has spent $26.7 billion each day it has been in session this year.
  • Little Known Fact: Page 72 of the budget admits it increases the federal debt by $4.9 trillion, rising by “$16,200 on every U.S. citizen”

For three weeks Congress has spent somewhere around $408.9 billion.  What does that look like?  Let’s look at some of the top ten companies in the Fortune 500 list – looking at annual revenues as a point of reference.

Rank Company Rev ($ millions)
1 Wal-Mart 378,799
2 Exxon Mobil 372,824
3 Chevron 210,783
4 General Motors 182,347
5 Conoco Phillips 178,558
6 General Electric 176,656
7 Ford Motor 172,468
8 Citigroup 159,229
9 Bank of America Corp. 119,190
10 AT&T 118,928

So in three weeks congress has managed to spend more than Wal-Mart’s global revenues for an entire year.  That’s more than all the products sold in all the Wal-Marts and Sam’s Clubs in 14 countries.  In three weeks congress would spend  more than twice as much as General Motors revenue (there’s a certain amount of irony in that).

The top ten Fortune 500 companies revenues are $2.07 trillion -  less than half of the increase in federal debt of $4.9 billion.

No matter how you look at it, that’s a lot of money.

I guess AT&T is just going to have to sell more iPhones.

Is There a Silent Scream About the Deficits April 1, 2009

Posted by Bob in Finance, Politics.
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1 comment so far

I enjoy a good debate as much as anyone does.  Three other guys who know nothing on this blog and, ah, yes dear – you too, might say that I’m in the fourth quartile when it comes to being argumentative.  Nevertheless, during the last eight years, a number of liberal friends and co-workers were quick to point out how President Bush “created” a huge deficit after inheriting a balanced budged from President Clinton.  Being a good conservative, I for the most part took the verbal barrages and listened to how western civilization would collapse if Mr. Bush and the Republicans didn’t eliminate the deficit. 

Well it didn’t take long but things have certainly changed.  Does anyone hear the silent scream from the left – the wailing and gnashing of teeth from Democrats and liberals given the deficits that President Obama and the democratically controlled House and Senate are racking up?  A quick look at the chart in the previous post and you’ll see that the deficit:

·         Peaked at ~$410B in 2004 following the 9/11 attack and the subsequent war in Iraq. 

·         Was reduced to around $200B in 2007 (and had been going down for three straight years).

·         Grew to ~485B in 2008 as the economy went south. 

Where is the outrage amongst my liberal protagonists (that would include you, Roland) that President Obama’s first year deficit will be ~$1.85T, which is about 3.8x higher than when Mr. Bush left office? 

By President Obama’s own calculations, around $10T of additional debt will be saddled onto America’s back by 2019.  Again, where is the outrage from the left?

In one of the presidential debates, candidate Obama excoriated John McCain and the Republican Party about the deficits.  Shortly thereafter I heard the question asked – what opposition did Mr. Obama provide to the uber-spending policies of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in 2007 and 2008?  As far as I know – absolutely nothing. 

What changed?  Why is President Obama so willingly tripling and potentially quadrupling the federal deficit?  Why are liberals who portended themselves as deficit hawks now utterly silent on current and projected deficits?  Well, that’s not entirely correct as Sen. Kent Conrad (D, ND) proposed reducing President Obama’s budget from $3.6T to $3.5T.  Big deal – but what’s $100B amongst friends?  Geez, I never thought I’d think that $100B was “small potatoes”.