The House, as I predicted, went along with the Senate’s massive spending increase — $4 trillion in more deficit spending over the coming decade, according to the CBO (American Taxpayer Relief Act).
Everybody in the Nevada delegation voted in favor of the deal, except Rep. Mark Amodei. He made a strong statement about just where the country is headed:
“I respectfully decline to support a measure that raises $41 in revenue for every dollar of spending cuts (Congressional Budget Office). This is not a balanced approach. The status quo on the federal budget deficit and federal debt is not acceptable; especially at a time when Nevadans continue to struggle with the uncertainties of a persistent recession, the implementation of ObamaCare, and the administration’s newly expressed desire to increase taxes again this year.
“Adding to the uncertainty misery index for employers and the middle class, is the appearance there is no end in sight to the anti-business regulatory onslaught of health, labor, environmental, and land use regulations pouring out of this administration.
“I will not tell the Nevadans I represent that this bill is anything resembling a solution to the fiscal and economic sickness that threatens all of us. In seven weeks, it will be Groundhog Day all over again when the debt ceiling debate begins and we will have ignored the opportunity to start to address the unsustainable spending and crushing debt that continue to drag down the private sector and the people employed therein.
“I will continue to study any measures in the time allotted and am hopeful that a meaningful and responsible path can be identified and fought for to break the federal spending cycle of deferring fiscal reality to future generations or until a catastrophic financial meltdown requires long overdue fiscal accountability from this president and congress.”
Catastrophic financial meltdown. That is what is coming. The nation will either default on its debt burden or print money to cover it — meaning run away inflation that will sap lifetime savings.
This is what Richard W. Rahn, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth, foresees. Writing at The Washington Times, Rahn says inflation can be held in check only so long.
So far, he says the federal government has been papering over its fiscal irresponsibility through regulatory and central bank actions.
Rahn writes:
“The recent gains in productivity growth have been taxed away by government. The increases in taxes are all non-legislated taxes, largely invisible to most people. First, there is the inflation tax imposed by the Federal Reserve, which currently taxes away about 2 percent of the purchasing power of the individual’s money each year. There is nothing new in this tax; the Fed has been in the business of creating inflation since it was formed in 1914.
“What is new is the big tax on savings, again imposed by the Fed. By artificially holding down interest rates to lower-than-expected real market rates, the Fed is, in effect, expropriating interest income (an implicit tax) that savers normally would be expected to enjoy. This interest manipulation enables the government to fund its debt at less than what would be real market rates at the expense of savers, making the deficit appear much smaller than it really is.”
Can’t get more than 1 percent interest on your savings? Blame Washington.
Rahn’s conclusion is stark and foreboding. The deficit spending is simply too much to avoid a great inflation sometime in the future:
“The bleak outlook is that most Americans can expect a continued decline in their real, after-tax incomes. History shows that at some time, the monetary bubble will burst. The longer the Fed continues to mask what it is really doing, the bigger the bust will be — only the exact day of reckoning is uncertain.”
Crisis budgeting by Washington City leads me to think the end of the Fed is much nearer than many believe. The day may be very close.
The only difference is we will not need wheelbarrows to buy a loaf of bread, we now have debit cards.
You guys have been predicting imminent “runaway inflation” for several years. Dire prediction after dire prediction.
I’m sure it will be any day now.
“…most Americans can expect a continued decline in their real, after tax incomes. incomes.” Oh gosh! Do you mean that we have to actually pay the bill? Who wouda thought?
The nation and, by extension, it’s people are indebted to foreign and domestic investors, who are mostly upper class. The upper class has also gobbled up much of the nation’s income as well as it’s assets (see “income disparity” in Wikipedia). We insist on shielding them from paying their share of taxes (e.g., Mitt Romney’s 15% tax bill and Warren Buffet’s tax bracket being less than that of his secretary). With these conditions, the after tax income of the average guy has to drop like a stone – and you guys would have it no other way.
I’m not a big fan of the Speaker of the house (RINO John) but this did catch my eye:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/boehner-to-reid-go-fk-yourself/
Channeling MILLIONS of people when he uttered those words to so deserving a cretin!
Crisis budgeting and endless coining of money were the very indicators of failing economies throughout history. Even when the Spanish found silver in South America their money fell like a rock as it was all based on silver at the time. Too much of the main currency is what destroys it.
Course the Dollar is still the worlds reserve currency and 75% of investment in the Dollar is domestic, as long as these things remain true this could be cobbled together for quite a while.
Its this constant stop gap federal budgeting that really has me worried and I am far from alone.
Athos, it has been fun to watch Harry get sidelined over and over on these very public bills. The last one was raising the debt ceiling. Looks to me as though Obama and Biden have discovered Reid was useful for pushing a one sided Senate on ACA but had it not been Reid as majority leader I think ACA would have been easier for them to get ACA through the Senate, they had 60 votes on their side and I think Reid actually was pissing off his own party members during ACA. Its certain Reid has been sidelined on every major policy bill since then.
Athos, Boehner is fortunate the old pugilist from Searchlight didn’t flatten him. It was a waste of breath for both Boehner and Reid as Obama has sidelined both the House and Senate, there’s little else for the Congress to do but fight among themselves, it is defunct.
And they don’t even know it.
Hopefully there will be a new sheriff in the House, tomorrow. Go vote on Drudge (if it’s still up) and put more heat on Boehner to step aside.
Harry is such a vile creature. He’s like Robert Byrd without the charm. What a disgrace.