Thread: The Pelosi-Reid Economy

Commentary

The Pelosi-Reid Economy

Jim DeMint, 08.03.10, 03:00 PM EDT

Democrats haven't stimulated the economy. They've tranquilized it.

In January 2007, when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took control of Congress, the unemployment rate was 4.6% and the national debt was $8.6 trillion. Today, unemployment is 9.6% and the nation is $13 trillion in debt.

Pelosi and Reid have tried to convince voters they inherited all the debt from President Bush, but it was their bailouts, takeovers and power grabs that have blown the budget for years to come. These bills were written by Democrats and made law with Democrat votes.

The only thing that changed when President Obama took office is that the Democrats' economic agenda went from bad to worse. The Democrats have made the big-spending Republicans they knocked out of power in 2006 look like bean counters.

The first failed stimulus bill written by the Democrats to issue $600 checks so America could go shopping was crowned with the mother of all government handouts when President Obama signed his $787 billion stimulus bill in 2009. The Democrats topped that off with yet another "jobs bill" worth $18 billion, last March. Three stimulus bills and trillions of dollars later, what do the Democrat have to show for it? Three straight years of job losses.

The Pelosi-Reid 2008 stimulus also approved $300 billion in new loans for the Federal Housing Authority for risky, subprime borrowers and authorized Treasury to start buying shares of Fannie Mae ( FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac ( FRE - news - people ) in July 2008.

In the fall of 2008, with an assist from then-presidential candidate Barack Obama who left the campaign trail for Washington to help broker the deal, Democrats wrote the $700 billion TARP bill to bailout banks that couldn't balance their books because of the trades they made on shaky housing loans. When Republicans tried to block the second $350 billion installment of the TARP funds from being released in January 2009, the Democrats stopped them, even though there was little accounting for how the first $350 billion was spent. To this day, the public doesn't know where all the TARP money has gone.

Obama administration then gave Fannie and Freddie, organizations at the center of the financial meltdown, unlimited access to government coffers on Christmas Eve 2009. Today Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee half the nation's mortgages, worth about $5.5 trillion. Experts estimate it will take between $389 billion to $1 trillion tax dollars to keep Fannie and Freddie afloat. After all these housing bailouts, more than a million homes are expected to be foreclosed this year--a record high.

The biggest debt bomb, however, didn't come until 2010. It took the Pelosi-Reid Congress years to write their budget crushing, 2,300-page health care takeover.When they were done, taxpayers were on the hook for more than $2.6 trillion to pay for the new federal health care entitlement by the year 2023.

Stimulus. TARP. ObamaCare. These three words are being written into the political obituaries of politicians who voted for the programs--for good reason. These three bills, made law by the Pelosi-Reid Congress in only three years, will take decades' worth of work by regular folks, who dutifully clock in and out of their jobs 40 hours a week or more, to pay off.

In 2006 then-Senate Minority Leader Reid called President Bush and the Republican Congress "the most fiscally irresponsible in the history of our country" and said "no other president or Congress comes close." That may have been true, until he and Speaker Pelosi took their gavels. Rather than cutting the deficit, they used the spending mistakes of the Bush-era as a license to pile up exponentially more debt.

The day Pelosi became speaker and Reid became leader, the government's debt was 62% of gross domestic product. In 2012 government debt will be 100% of GDP. When the Obama stimulus bill passed in February 2009, 12.5 million Americans were unemployed. Today, 14.6 million Americans, 2 million more, are looking for work. Even more depressing is the fact that the jobs outlook remains bleak for years to come. The Obama administration's economic team has forecast that the national unemployment rate will average 9% or higher until 2012.

The high unemployment and debt rates prove Democrats haven't stimulated the economy. They've tranquilized it.

In a little over three years of the Pelosi-Reid Congress, the number of unemployed has increased by over 2 million, federal spending has increased 25%, our national debt has increased by 50%, and yearly deficits have risen over 550%. Today, 41 cents of every dollar spent by Washington is borrowed from nations like China. The $3.6 trillion in federal spending this year is equal to $30,543 for every American household.

Americans simply cannot afford the Democrats' agenda any longer. It's time to enact commonsense policies we know will work. Republicans must fight to pass a balanced budget amendment, repeal ObamaCare, eliminate wasteful pork-barrel spending, stop the Democrat tax increases and instead enact broad-based permanent tax relief. These are the pro-growth policies that will allow our economy to create long lasting jobs.

Although Obama won't be on the ballot in November, the Pelosi-Reid economy will. Americans who have lost work as a consequence of their misguided economic plans should consider putting the Democrats out of work, too.

DeMint is chairman of the Senate Steering Committee and a member of the Joint Economic Committee.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/03/pelosi ... emint.html

The only way to stop this theft of taxpayer money is to stop paying taxes to the Federal Government. We can do that legally by making far less money and living much simpler lives.
Anyone willing?

"making far less money and living much simpler lives"

Phew! I thought you were gonna ask me to sacrifice something.
That was easy..

Originally Posted by Texan123

The only way to stop this theft of taxpayer money is to stop paying taxes to the Federal Government. We can do that legally by making far less money and living much simpler lives.
Anyone willing?

Dude...I started this 10 years ago. I call it "getting as close to the ground as possable..." I sold everything...bought back with cash and now I owe nothing. I have payed no income tax for 10 years.

We have been defined (everthing has to have a name now) we are:

Minimalists

It is certainly a sacrifice some are not willing to consider. If your goals are a bigger house, newer car, and regular nights out on the town, you'll never make it. That is exactly what BIG GOVERNMENT is counting on. That taxpayers will strive to make more money, pay more taxes and continue to fuel the Big Brother machine.
There needs to be a major shift in the compliance attitude of American citizens. We are honest, hard working, FOOLS. Something needs to be done to show the IRS and Big Gov that the PEOPLE still have control. That control comes from our tax dollars. It is the only thing that makes us valuable to the gov.
We need a LARGE SCALE PROTEST. Something that will force the elites to take notice. A TAX REVOLT like this country has never seen before. Why should politicians be the only ones who do not pay their taxes?
I understand that this site would NEVER advocate violating the law. So the only legal way to avoid paying taxes to a corrupt government is to put yourself in a position to make less money, without starving. PAY OFF DEBTS. Pay off your car, your home and do everything you can to reduce monthly costs. Drop cell phone or TV cable service. Do whatever it takes. Because whether you are prepared or not, your standard of living is about to change.

My sister and her hubby "love Califony" live beyond their means...max out and lose credit cards and cars and have to move about every year to another opulent house they cannot afford. Borrow from every sorce they can find...owe my Mom and Dad so much we no long know how much...

They call me unAmerican because I don't live like "everyone else..."

Texan123 wrote,

It is certainly a sacrifice some are not willing to consider. If your goals are a bigger house, newer car, and regular nights out on the town, you'll never make it. That is exactly what BIG GOVERNMENT is counting on. That taxpayers will strive to make more money, pay more taxes and continue to fuel the Big Brother machine.
There needs to be a major shift in the compliance attitude of American citizens. We are honest, hard working, FOOLS. Something needs to be done to show the IRS and Big Gov that the PEOPLE still have control. That control comes from our tax dollars. It is the only thing that makes us valuable to the gov.
We need a LARGE SCALE PROTEST. Something that will force the elites to take notice. A TAX REVOLT like this country has never seen before. Why should politicians be the only ones who do not pay their taxes?
I understand that this site would NEVER advocate violating the law. So the only legal way to avoid paying taxes to a corrupt government is to put yourself in a position to make less money, without starving. PAY OFF DEBTS. Pay off your car, your home and do everything you can to reduce monthly costs. Drop cell phone or TV cable service. Do whatever it takes. Because whether you are prepared or not, your standard of living is about to change.

Sacrifice now, or sacrifice more later. As more and more become "minimalists" and more and more open their eyes, the sights will diminish the status quo. This pay to play game is losing its shine.

I don't think it's a sacrifice, say you work less hours so have less taxable income, then spend the hours you freed up maintaining your own car and keep it longer, grow some of your own food, read up and practice low cost natural health care, do you own house maintenance, maybe make and sell some home products at a local street fair for extra cash. You just re-adjust your work hours to pay no taxes but have the same lifestyle. I have been doing this for 18 years now, the only taxes I paid in that time was the 10% penalty on an early IRA withdrawl.

We are looking at our future.

Photos: Japanese Micro Homes
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =128953596