{"id":839,"date":"2011-03-08T10:57:52","date_gmt":"2011-03-08T17:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/?p=839"},"modified":"2011-08-05T19:03:20","modified_gmt":"2011-08-06T02:03:20","slug":"facing-the-facts-to-save-our-future-hughhewitt-com-03-07-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/2011\/03\/08\/facing-the-facts-to-save-our-future-hughhewitt-com-03-07-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing the Facts to Save Our Future | HughHewitt.com | 03.07.11"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, with the battle over public finance continuing across the country and in Congress, the left launched an amazing counter attack. \u00a0Too bad for them that new facts belied their argument even as they were making it.<\/p>\n

The counterattack came down to four words: \u201cWe are not broke.\u201d \u00a0Predictably, The New York Times <\/em>led the charge \u00a0(see http:\/\/tiny.cc\/yhnmz).<\/a> In a Wednesday editorial, the paper of record decried \u201cThe Hollow Cry of \u2018Broke.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObfuscating nonsense\u201d the Times\u2019 <\/em>editorialists called Republican warnings about the fiscal condition of states and the nation. \u00a0While acknowledging that \u201cthe federal deficit is too large for comfort, and most states are struggling to balance their books,\u201d the Times<\/em> laid the blame at \u201ctax cuts, mostly for the rich.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two days later, almost as if he were coordinating with the Times<\/em>\u2019 editorial writers, <\/em>AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka had an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal<\/em> (http:\/\/tiny.cc\/rv807)<\/a> decrying \u201cScott Walker\u2019s False Choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe business climate couldn\u2019t be stronger,\u201d Mr. Trumka told readers. \u00a0\u201cCorporate profits reached an annualized level of $1.7 trillion in the third quarter of 2010.\u201d \u00a0He added, \u201cIt wasn\u2019t [state employees] who crashed the stock market\u2026. It was the so-called engine of our economy \u2013 Wall Street.\u201d \u00a0The nation needs more taxes, more regulations, and more of its money going to public employees, he said \u2013 never mind the devastation such moves would wreck on a tottering economy still recovering from the bursting of a Congressionally mandated housing bubble.<\/p>\n

Even Michael Moore got into the act. \u00a0At rallies and in interviews (he seems to be all over YouTube), he picked up the cry \u201cAmerica is not broke\u201d and declared that the money banks and companies are holding in reserve \u201cis our money.\u201d \u00a0Seizing it is the way out of our crisis, he said.<\/p>\n

Yet also last week, the storied venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, issued a top to bottom analysis of the U.S. government (http:\/\/tiny.cc\/rv807<\/a> ). \u00a0KPCB is headquartered on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California, as far from Wall Street in mindset as well as geography as you can get in the United States. \u00a0The head of the team that crunched the numbers was Mary Meeker, one of the most celebrated analysts in the global financial world, particularly of the venture capital part of that world.<\/p>\n

The report focused on the federal government, not the states, which have much more labor-intensive functions than does Washington. \u00a0It was titled USA, Inc.<\/em> and asked a simple question: If the United States government were a company, what would we say of its financial condition?<\/p>\n

Here are some quotes:<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the standards of any public corporation, USA Inc.\u2019s financials are discouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[C]ash flow is deep in the red (by almost $1.3 trillion last year, or -$11,000 per household), and USA Inc.\u2019s net worth is negative and deteriorating.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]he trends are clear, and critical warning signs are evident in nearly every datapoint we examine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem is not defense spending, the analysis found:<\/p>\n

\u201c[D]efense spending is still below its 7% share of GDP from 1948 to 2000; it accounted for 20% of the budget in 2010, compared with 41% of all government spending between 1789 and 1930.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem lies elsewhere:<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the Great Depression, USA Inc. has steadily added \u2018business lines\u2019 and, with the best of intentions, created various entitlement programs\u2026. [F]unding for these programs has been woefully inadequate \u2013 and getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than 35% of the US population receives entitlement dollars or is on the government payroll, up from ~20% in 1966.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a percentage of GDP, the federal government\u2019s public debt has doubled over the last 30 years, to 53% of GDP. This figure does not include claims on future resources from underfunded entitlements and potential liabilities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). If it did include these claims, gross federal debt accounted for 94% of GDP in 2010. The public debt to GDP ratio is likely to triple to 146% over the next 20 years, per CBO.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLess than 15 years from now, in other words, USA Inc. \u2013 based on current forecasts for revenue and expenses — would have nothing left over to spend on defense, education, infrastructure, and R&D, which today account for only 32% of USA Inc. spending, down from 69% forty years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

One conclusion is inescapable: as a nation, we are broke — OK, close to broke. \u00a0So close that we have run out of tomorrows to put things off until. The struggle in Washington and throughout the nation is will we act in time to save our future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, with the battle over public finance continuing across the country and in Congress, the left launched an amazing counter attack. \u00a0Too bad for them that new facts belied their argument even as they were making it. The counterattack came down to four words: \u201cWe are not broke.\u201d \u00a0Predictably, The New York Times led […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us-debt-crisis","tag-hugh-hewitt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":953,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions\/953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}