Research

The day after House Dems passed Obama’s $2.5 trillion government-run health care bill, Bloomberg is reporting that it is currently less risky to lend to Warren Buffet than to President Obama and the Congressional Democrats. Historically, treasuries have lower yields than corporate debt because they are backed by the “full faith and credit of the government,” but currently two-year notes from Berkshire Hathaway Inc. have yields that are 3.5 basis points lower than similar treasuries. Put more simply, as one investor stated: “It’s a slap upside the head of the government.”

It should come as no surprise to anyone that it is becoming increasingly more risky to lend to the United States.  As a result of Obama’s binge spending, Moody’s has warned recently that the U.S. could lose its AAA credit rating.  The Obama administration has been ignoring these warnings and last night’s House vote on the Dems’ government-run health care bill just reinforced the fact that Congressional Dems are in ... more

Is Obama’s Treasury Secretary playing chicken with our credit ratings agency? Today, at a House Appropriations Committee hearing, Tim Geithner was asked about Moody’s “warning shots” of America losing its triple A credit rating because of increasing deficits and debt, to which he responded:

                There's not a chance that's going to happen to our country.

We hope for the sake of our country that Geithner is right, because as CNBC’s Trish Regan explained today on MSNBC, a downgrade in our credit rating would mean Obama’s binge spending would cost us even more than it does now because it would be riskier for countries to lend to us.

But Obama’s binge spending has already left us with unprecedented deficits. The last thing we need is to pay higher interest rates on the money we are forced to borrow in order to pay for Obama’s binge spending agenda.

President Obama likes to boast that he runs the most transparent administration in history but whether it’s shielding union cronies, crafting health care reform in secret or stemming waste and fraud in the stimulus program you’ll find that his actions fall far short of his promises. Now that list of shortcomings includes failing to accurately maintain USAspending.gov, which tracks government spending on federal contracts. The website was conceived by then-Senator Obama and is currently maintained by his own Office of Management and Budget but an audit of its records by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) turned up several problems:

After reviewing 100 federal contracts, the GAO also found "widespread inconsistencies" in what appeared on the website and what was contained in records provided by the agencies. Auditors, for example, found discrepancies in where the work took place and the purpose of the contracts.

When he was a senator, Obama hailed the website as a victory for ... more

For the past year, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have been ignoring the American people, 73 percent of whom want to start over on health care reform or stop their government-run health care experiment altogether. But The Financial Times notes that Obama is not only ignoring the American people; he’s ignoring experts who say that Obama’s binge spending is threatening American’s credit rating:

Moody’s Investor Service, the credit rating agency, will fire a warning shot at the US on Monday, saying that unless the country gets public finances into better shape than the Obama administration projects there would be ‘downward pressure’ on its triple A credit rating ... Standard & Poor’s warned last week the triple A status of the US was at risk unless the country adopted a credible medium-term plan to rein in fiscal spending.

With a projected record $1.6 trillion deficit this year and a $9.76 trillion ten-year deficit, you would think that an American president would take ... more

… and what you’ll see is a red ink tsunami coming soon. Late on Friday afternoon, CBO came out with their analysis of the president’s budget where they found that the ten year deficit caused by the President’s spending plan will be $1.2 trillion higher than what the administration estimated.  According to CBO, Obama’s binge spending will result in a ten year deficit of $9.76 trillion.

But back in November, the White House pledged it would “pivot” its focus toward deficit reduction. Here’s what Politico reported on November 13, 2009:

President Barack Obama plans to announce in next year’s State of the Union address that he wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010 … according to top aides involved in the planning.

So much for that “pivot.” Instead of dealing with what’s being described as “unsustainable” deficits that’s setting “runaway records,” Obama is still pushing his $2.5 trillion government-run health care plan that will bust the budget. As we showed ... more

After he failed to deliver on the unions’ top two priorities – passing card-check legislation and comfirming their anti-business NLRB nominee, SEIU lawyer Craig Becker – Obama may now be trying to pay back labor unions by appointing SEIU boss, Andy Stern, to the administration’s newly created debt commission. The question is this: why is Obama considering appointing a union boss to a commission tasked with lowering the deficit when that union boss is only interested in increasing government spending and expanding the number of (unionized) government workers?

As The Washington Post points out, the influence of labor unions in the public sector has led to unsustainable increases in state spending: 

The more pertinent claim against organized labor may be on the public-sector side, where unions put significant pressure on state budgets, particularly with pension obligations. A new study by the Pew Center on the States finds a $1 trillion gap between what the states have promised their ... more

We’ve known all along that the Obama Democrats’ PAYGO scheme was just a fig leaf to hide their embarrassing binge spending habit. But only two weeks after passing PAYGO, Democrats are starting to poke holes in their own fiscal fig leaf.  The Hill’s Walter Alarkon reports,

The ink is barely dry on the pay-as-you-go law, and Democrats are seeking to bypass it to enact parts of their job-creation agenda … Democratic leaders said extensions of unemployment insurance and COBRA healthcare benefits should be emergency spending that isn’t subject to the pay-as-you-go statute, which requires new non-discretionary spending to be offset with spending cuts or tax increases.

“Emergency spending”? How can extending provisions of the first stimulus Democrats knew were going to expire be defined as “emergency spending”? After PAYGO was signed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that “irresponsible practices will end.” But old habits die hard, and Democrats are itching to go back to their ... more

When then-Sen. Obama was running for president, he told the American people, “We have a significant stake in ensuring that those who live in fear and want today can live with dignity and opportunity tomorrow,” adding that “the security and well-being of each and every American is tied to the security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders.” 

As part of this commitment to what Obama called our “common security,” he pledged to increase funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a global health initiative started in 2003 by George W. Bush to prevent the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will commit $50 billion over five years to strengthen the existing program and expand it to new regions of the world, including Southeast Asia, India, and parts of Europe, where the HIV/AIDS burden is growing.

And yet, Obama’s budget is prompting worries “that some of the gains made against the AIDS epidemic since 2003 could be reversed.” ... more

The D.C. public school system is in dreadful shape, but one bright spot is the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. Each year 1300 students are selected for scholarships to attend private schools. While larger reforms are needed, at least these few students are allowed to escape their failing schools.

But this year’s enrollees will be the last, because Obama’s 2011 budget eliminates funding for accepting any new students. A bipartisan group of senators are calling on Obama to save the program.

Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) haven't given up on their bid to save the federally funded voucher program that allows low-income families in the District to send their children to private schools. We would like to see them succeed, but it's clear that President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress have already written the epilogue to this worthy program. Their disregard for how vouchers have helped children is so complete that it seems that the best ... more

Here’s what President Obama had to say about his budget in New Hampshire yesterday:

Responsible families don’t do their budgets the way the federal government does. Right?  When times are tough, you tighten your belts.  You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.  You prioritize. You make tough choices. It’s time your government did the same. 

Really? Obama should be the last person to lecture Americans about “blowing a bunch of cash”:

• Obama’s budget will create a record-breaking $1.6 trillion deficit this year.
• Obama will own the three largest deficits in American history: $1.4 trillion in FY2009, $1.6 trillion in FY2010 and $1.3 trillion in FY2011
• And Obama will more than double the national debt held by the public, from $9.3 trillion in FY2010 to $18.6 trillion in FY2020.

Not to mention he blew away $862 billion on a stimulus package that didn’t prevent double-digit ... more