Obama finances equal madness

In a recent letter I asked, concerning the national debt and budget deficits, the rhetorical question “Are we mad?” To my surprise, there appeared in the paper, alongside my letter, an answer written by Mary Zhu. Her answer seemed to be, “yes.”

This requires some critical analysis. Zhu is an unofficial spokeswoman for the Democratic Party who frequently writes on political issues. Her current set of Obama statistics regarding budget savings are pure garbage, but, I will use them along with other Obama documents to make my point.

Start with some facts taken from Obama’s fiscal year 2012 budget. Expenditures are divided into two basic parts, discretionary and mandatory. Discretionary is budgeted for $1.3 trillion and includes the bulk of the federal government, defense, CIA, education, energy etc. Mandatory is budgeted for $2.5 trillion and includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, pensions, debt interest and other entitlements. Obamacare is not yet included. The total is $3.8 trillion in expenses.

The income side of the budget shows $2.5 trillion from taxes, fines, fees and forfeitures. Subtract the $2.5 trillion income from the $3.8 expenditures and you have the fiscal year 2012 annual budget deficit of $1.3 trillion. Multiply this over the four years of Obamahood (FY 2008-12) and you have a rough approximation of the Obama deficit of $5 trillion to date. Add to this the approximate $4 trillion debit that Obama proposes for FY 2013-17 and we have a total Obama debt of about $9 trillion to the end of his term in office.

To lessen the burden of this huge debt, the president, per Zhu, proposes to institute a series of tax increases in the amount of $1.6 trillion over 10 years. This comes to $160 billion per year in new revenue. Thus, in the four years at the end of his term in office in FY 2017, he will have lessened his $9 trillion deficit by $640 billion, leaving a debt of $8.3 trillion. At this rate, we will be paying the Obama deficits for about 50 years.

That is just the good news. The Obama deficits, plus Obamacare, will continue to pile up indefinitely until our system collapses. Ergo, Obama finances equal madness.

Jim Stevens

Davis