Spending Surge On Financial System Pushing Deficit Towards $1 Trillion

Washington Post:

Congressional leaders and both presidential candidates are proposing billions of dollars in tax breaks and other measures to stoke economic growth, a surge in spending that could send the federal deficit soaring toward $1 trillion this year, creating the deepest well of red ink since the end of World War II.

The government already has embarked on an unprecedented spending spree to halt the implosion of the U.S. financial system and is borrowing money at levels that some economists fear could undermine the nation's economic security for years to come. Congress could consider additional spending as soon as next month, potentially digging the nation's hole even deeper.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[geobushono]

Yeah, well how about that 850bn$ the Dems just handed to Paulson...­..........­.....not only was it a bad deal for US, but the repugs will hit the ground running correctly pointing out that the Democrats were the ones pushing it.
That is why we need the Independent Voices in Congress.
Ralph Nader for President.­..........­...if Nader was even ALLOWED in the Presidential sideshow so-called debates, mccain and Obama would be answering some tough questions.

[avraamjack]

.
Obama will balance the budget.
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Everything will be cool until President Biden leaves office in 2025.
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[KillTheMessenger]

In a democracy you get the government you vote for.

"Four more years! Four more years!"

I can hear it like it was yesterday.

:-)

[Budokan]

Good job of fiscal responsibility, Republicans! Just one more example of why your party is going to be crushed and humiliated on November 4.

[PublicAdvocate]

While its true that Republican have approved gross and criminal mismanagement of our nation's economy and continue to squander $10 billion monthly on the discretionary Iraq war, and should be punished for their serial crimes.......they are not alone. Too many times Democrats have had weak spines and gone along with them to:
1:Continue to fund the Iraq War bleeding the Public Treasury of $10 Billion monthly
2:Rammed through the $700 Billion Wall Street bailout defying public sentiment and w/o even one public hearing
3:Continued to allow corporations to offshore American's jobs to pull the rug out from working families
4:Allowed the importation of illegal aliens to take low income jobs away from America's poorest workers.
5:Approved the Bush Tax Cuts for Billionaires program effectively driving up the budget deficit and increasing future taxes on the poor and middle class.
Ralph Nader has opposed ALL of these programs, has also called on Wall Street to stop this criminal activity, give back bonuses and wants to hold these CEO's accountable for their crimes. What will Barack do to restore integrity and accountability to the financial system if elected?

[FogBelter]

The bottom line is massive fraud by major world banks through leverage and playing the float of unregulated Credit Default Swaps and derivatives to the tune of hundreds of trillions of dollars.

When I was a bank teller in the late 70's early 80's I was trained on how to identify the main con that vexed the banks at that time ... check kiting. In that scam the criminal would create bank accounts at two different banks and deposit bogus checks, back and forth, between the accounts in order to use the float between the banks (the time it took the check to physically travel from one institution to another in order to clear) to leverage the value of his bank accounts and create money out of thin air. Once the crook built up enough fake money he would close both accounts, take the cash, and leave the banks to deal with the bouncing checks drawn on one another.

The banking industry institutionalized this practice in playing the float of swaps and derivatives, just like the check kiting con. In both cases the result is the same, the banks are on the hook for non existent money. In this case the bouncing "checks" are in the trillions ... so look to the deficit to continue to grow as the Government races to cover the losses and keep more banks from collapsing.

[ErnestineBass]

What's that old adage about "a fool and his money are quickly parted"?

[raker]

Once the deficit reaches $2 trillion or more, and we're still engaged in perpetual fake wars sucking down $billions a week, and maybe a new fake war in Iran sucking down billlions more each week, what will have to give? Get ready to say good-bye to most domestic spending, and especially Social Security. They're so close they can taste it. How they love suffering and misery and death, our friends in the red states.

[Acidreign]

Not a problem. McCain/Palin have promised to balance the budget by the end of their first term.

[ErnestineBass]

Bah Wahahahahahahaha

"A chicken in every pot!"..."Forty acres and a mule"!

[emily00011]

Up to its ears in debt were the headlines I read about the US on non-English news sites.

It appears that the Republicans favor the "borrow and spend" approach for the economy. After all, it pays not to be straightforward about where the money is coming from.

[MissingAmerica]

If we become unable to live up to our financial obligations, the bureaucrats kick us out of our homes and turn them over to someone else! Bush, on the other hand, has outspent and he just makes more money! It seems like we should be able to kick him out of his house a couple months early. After all, we Americans still own his house in Washington. In fact, we've been paying his mortgage for 8 long, miserable years. Time to foreclose on Dubya!

[AnalyzeIT]

APOLOGIES for the intrusion on this post.

Some early W.Va. voters angry over switched votes:
10-18- 2008 Paul J. Nyden Staff writer

Jackson County touch-screens switched votes, 3 residents say

"Jackson County is a Republican county. I am a registered Republican, but I have been voting Democrat since the 1990s."

Thomas, who brought his daughter with him to the polls, said she had the same problem.

"After I finished, my daughter voted. When she pushed Obama, it went to McCain. It happened to her the same way it happened to me. If the poll worker knew that, why didn't she tell me before I even pushed the button?"

"Sometimes machines can become miscalibrated when they are moved from storage facilities to early voting areas," Bailey said Friday. "We get a couple of calls about this each election year."
Most voting machines in most counties do work properly, Bailey added.

Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright said, "After we got a call from the Secretary of State's Office, we recalibrated the machine. We had already voted over 400 people with no problems."
Voting problems occur when voters touch the screen, Waybright said, but do not put their fingers inside boxes for their candidates.

Waybright blamed the problem on voters. "People make mistakes more than the machines," he said.

"Leaving the polling place," she said, "I wondered how many voters might not have noticed that their vote was switched on the machine."

[SailFree]

That's nothing! Wait till you see how high Democrats can push the deficit!

[tompoe]

Such nonsense! Bush was left with a budget surplus after 8 years of Democrats in office, despite Congress control by Republicans. Oh, and people had jobs.

It will be heartwarming, come January, when Obama's first executive order is to have the AG's proceed to disgorge the banks of all executive so-called bonuses. That should cover a big chunk of the national debt.

[ErnestineBass]

While that's a delightful and heartwarming fairytale, it's a fairytale nonetheless.

Bill Clinton, despite campaigning on an anti-NAFTA platform, signed NAFTA into law shortly after taking office. By 1995, U.S. jobs were already headed en masse south of the border and beyond. The fact that U.S. corporations posted tidy profits for their stockholders had as much to do with their use of cheap offshore labor as it did with increased exports to developing countries.

Sorry, but Bill Clinton had a hand in this mess, and since his wife remains a stalwart supporter of "free trade" deals, I could not support her candidacy.

[Ged2012]

The Iraq War cost almost 2 trillion dollars.

That war was a total waste. I'm beginning to feel that the war is one of the main causes of the economic collapse.

[Ged2012]

My bad. It's supposed to be almost 1 trillion dollars.