by: J. D. Heyes
Don't look now, but that ticking sound you hear is the massive debt bomb set for explosion at some point in the near future, thanks to the pandering, bought-and-paid-for political class that has been kiting checks on the U.S. Treasury to pay for all sorts of voter goodies for a generation.
While there isn't a politician in Washington today who doesn't bear at least some blame for our nation's massively expanding national debt, now in excess of $17 trillion, no one is more responsible than President Obama, as the debt, under his eight-year hitch, is on pace to double since he took office.
As reported by the Washington Times:
President Obama likes to say that raising the nation's borrowing limit "won't add a dime" to the federal debt, but he neglects to mention that the government already has borrowed the equivalent of more than 60 trillion dimes since he took office.
When Mr. Obama became president in January 2009, the total federal debt stood at $10.6 trillion. This week, it hit $16.7 trillion - an increase of 57 percent. In the same time frame under President George W. Bush, total federal debt rose 38 percent. Under President Clinton, it rose 32 percent.
'Unpatriotic' and 'irresponsible'
At this point, it's appropriate to remember that Obama was once Mr. Fiscal Responsibility - at least, he pretended to be when campaigning in 2008 when he called a $4 trillion increase in the national debt under President Bush's eight years "unpatriotic" and "irresponsible."
Since then, Obama has continued to use hyperbole, hypocrisy and falsehoods to justify heaping more debt onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. On Oct. 17, during a speech, Obama framed raising the limit yet again as one of being responsible.
Of raising the limit, "it does not increase our debt," Obama said. "It does not grow our deficits. All it does is allow the Treasury Department to pay for what Congress has already spent."
And yet, the day after the recent debt ceiling deal in Congress, the national debt rose a staggering $328 billion. What's that again, Mr. President?
And then there is this truth from the Times:
The president rarely mentions that he, by law, approves congressional spending, and his argument glosses over the nation's burgeoning total debt.
Oops.
"It's certainly not the whole story," Alex Brill, a budget specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, told the paper. "We've seen a dramatic increase in the debt held by the public in the last four or five years, and it's projected to only get worse."
Save your pennies, America
According to the paper, which quoted Factcheck.org, a watchdog project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, on Oct. 4, all debt held by the U.S. public - not to include Social Security and Medicare - had exploded 89.3 percent since Obama took office in his first term.
And the debt will continue to rise under Obama. The administration recently released figures projecting annual deficits of $750 billion and $626 billion over the next two years.
"At that rate, the debt owed to the public will more than double during the Obama presidency," FactCheck said in its quarterly statistical report on Obama's tenure in office.
Some lawmakers fully understand the fiscal time bomb this president and his allies on Congress are constructing.
"We are in trouble financially," Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, said. "We are $30 trillion in the hole, plus another $17 trillion in debt. Wouldn't it be smart if we started addressing that problem before we blankly allow an increase in the level of the credit card?"
According to other, independent analyses, the "in the hole" figure is closer to $124 trillion.
And now, with the addition of Obamacare, the liabilities will just keep on growing.
Save your pennies, America. You're going to need them.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/042602_Obama_administration_national_debt_budget_deficit.html#ixzz2iRxUHNQj
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