By Greg Hunter
Barack Obama addressed the country for the third State of the Union address of his Presidency this week. In broad terms, he talked mostly about innovation, education and jobs. To be fair, he also briefly touched on the deficit, the two wars we are fighting and unity. But because so much emphasis was put on education, it sounded more like an address to a local PTA and not an SOTU speech. The financial problems the country is facing now are so enormous it was startling they were glossed over or not mentioned at all.
The country is deeply in debt, and it will sink deeper when Congress raises the debt ceiling in a few months. Experts say it has to be expanded by a trillion dollars a year for the foreseeable future; otherwise, the U.S. will default on its commitments. This is a minimum of $1,000 billion of new debt ($1 trillion) added on top of the record national debt of $14.3 trillion. The American people deserve, at least, an explanation and a plan on reducing it. By the way, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced yesterday this year’s deficit will hit an eye popping $1.5 trillion (another record), which means we will borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend.
The CBO also announced this week that Social Security will slip into the red this year and pay out $45 billion more than it collects in payroll taxes. The report claims Social Security will stay underwater and be flat broke by 2037. I’m betting it will go under a lot sooner. This, too, deserved a frank discussion.
I also cannot see why the President chose to ignore the ongoing foreclosure crisis in this country. A record one million people were thrown out of their homes in 2010, and housing experts say a new record will be set again this year. By 2013, six million homes will have been foreclosed on and this didn’t even rate a mention?
A record 43 million Americans are surviving on food stamps. That’s nearly 20 million more people getting a government handout than in 2007. By the way, JP Morgan runs the program for the government; and the more people go on food stamps, the more the bank makes. I don’t know how bad this has to get to be mentioned in the State of the Union?
Read more:
http://www.midasletter.com/index.php/state-of-denial/
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