I was surprised that so few people picked up on President Obama’s admission at Tuesday’s all-star game that the United States of America is “… out of money.” Partly because he made the crack in the midst of enormous, unprecedented efforts to spend taxpayer money that hasn’t been collected yet – first for the porkulus bill then cap ‘n trade and now to take over the health care industry.
Just today the Congressional Budget Office admitted that “Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run.” According to the CBO, this will lead to:
… growing budget deficits … [that] would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress economic growth in the United States. Over time, accumulating debt would cause substantial harm to the economy.
This will hurt the economy “over time”? How high does unemployment have to go to recognize that job-producers already know the Obama administration is heading the wrong direction, and as a result are pulling back, hunkering down and just trying to survive?
This notion of increasing spending when you are out of money could only make sense to one person — a long-time Senator who has spent his entire career in public office spending other people’s money — Vice President Joe Biden. Biden told the AARP yesterday:
Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’ The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.
We already know Biden is a serial plagiarist and finished near the bottom of his law school class. Apparently his undergraduate grades were pretty bad too, and I’m guessing economics was not his best subject.
And he’s in charge of monitoring stimulus spending. Great.