Temporary Debt Ceiling, Delinquents and Giveaways
January 8, 2010 by Chip Wood
*A very temporary new debt ceiling. In its last action before shutting down for the Christmas holidays the Senate voted 60-39 on Christmas Eve to raise the U.S. debt ceiling by $240 billion, to a grand total of $12.4 trillion. The new funds won’t last long, however. At the present rate of spending the government will run out of money by mid-February.
*Here’s one way to pay the bills. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reports that some 276,000 current and retired federal employees are in arrears on paying their income taxes. The total owed Uncle Sam by these deadbeats comes to a little more than $3 billion. Among cabinet agencies, the Department of Housing and Urban Development had the highest delinquency rate at just over 4 percent.
*Let’s stop giving it away. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack recently promised that the United States would give $1 billion to developing countries that work to preserve their forests. This means that the U.S., already $12 trillion in debt and facing another trillion-dollar deficit, will borrow the money from China, to send to Brazil, to bribe them to stop cutting down their own trees.
*But Hillary wants to spend a lot more. Vilsack’s promise of $1 billion to preserve the Amazon rain forests seemed modest indeed compared to the promise at Copenhagen from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She pledged that the U.S. will lead a campaign to provide $100 billion a year, starting in 2020, “to address climate change needs in developing countries.” Where will the money come from? See the first item above.
This is the first time i am visiting your blog and i must confess, i am really impressed by your sincere remarks. You hit the nail on the head. Many of us should stop pointing accusing fingers and should issue addressing ourselves.
IMPRESSIVE. DASCHLE A FORMER LOBBYIST AND A TAX CHEAT TO WORK WITH THE WIDOW OF THE DEAD MURDERER AND ALINSKY MARXIST ON SPENDING 125 MILLION BORROWED TAX DOLLARS. TRUST ME–THEY KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THAT KIND OF FUNDING–IT WILL BE LIKE THE STIMULUS AND BE SPENT IN POLITICAL DISTRICTS THAT DO NOT EXIST. IT IS A FOREGONE CONCLUSION THAT NO ONE BUT THE PRINCIPALS AND OTHER INSIDERS WILL BE THE BENEFICIARIES.