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American reliance on government at all-time high .........

Big Dog

Large Member
Staff member
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............. ah duh and congress is working on legislation that will dole out more dependence. We're assisting more than we're taking in thanks to 6 million unemployed but congress is working on spending more on HC. These clowns need to pull on the reins!!!!!!!!!!!!

American reliance on government at all-time high

The so-called "Great Recession" has left Americans depending on the government dole like never before.

Without record levels of welfare, unemployment and other government benefits as well as tax cuts last year, the income of U.S. households would have plunged by an astonishing $723 billion — more than four times the record $167 billion drop reported last month by the Commerce Department.

Moreover, for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes.
The figures show the devastating results of the massive job losses last year and indicate that the economic recovery that began last summer is tenuous and has a long way to go before many Americans resume life as normal, analysts said.

Economic growth typically depends on consumer spending, which is fed by wages, rents, interest and other forms of income. But the tentative revival of consumer spending in the second half of last year appears to have been fed largely by an extraordinary flood of government spending, as growth in other kinds of income has disappeared.

"Governmental support was critical in keeping the economy, particularly consumer spending, from completely collapsing during the crisis," said Harm Bandholz, an economist at Unicredit Markets. He said he is concerned that so much of the economic rebound is a result of government spending rather than a revival of private income and jobs. That situation is unsustainable, he said, because the government has had to borrow massively to prop up the economy and cannot continue that binge for long.

While wages and other job-related income fell by a record $206 billion last year to $7.84 trillion, transfer payments from the government such as unemployment checks and Social Security burgeoned by $231 billion to $2.1 trillion. Meanwhile, the amount of taxes that individual Americans paid plummeted by $325 billion to $2.1 trillion as a result of middle-class tax cuts and because nearly 6 million people were thrown out of work and are no longer paying payroll taxes.

Commerce economists said last year's unprecedented drop of $256 billion in private wages — the mainstay of consumers in ordinary times — was particularly dramatic, and was more than 40 times larger than the drop in wages during the entire 2001 recession.

Equally dramatic, a measure of income that closely tracks the ravages of the recession also plummeted by an unprecedented $384 billion. That measure excludes transfer payments and adjusts for inflation. It has stabilized at $9.1 trillion since the middle of last year, in a sign that the worst of the job and income losses are over.

While most of the government benefits — including Social Security, welfare, Medicaid, food stamps and regular unemployment benefits — are sent automatically to those who qualify, Congress is debating an extension of some benefits enacted as part of the stimulus package last year. Those include jobless benefits and health insurance subsidies for the unemployed.

The Senate on Friday failed to pass an extension of jobless benefits for up to 99 weeks for workers in states with high unemployment rates. Long-term jobless benefits expired Sunday, leaving many Americans dependent on those payments in limbo. With more than 8 million workers laid off during the recession, unemployment benefits have quadrupled from $34 billion in January 2008 to $124 billion at the end of last year.

"Millions of Americans are now relying on unemployment benefits as their only source of income other than food stamps," said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute. "They are unable to find work because there are more than six job seekers for every opening. There is literally nothing that most of these workers can do to get a job today. Unemployment benefits are often the only way they can make ends meet for their families and keep a roof over their heads."

The proposed extension in long-term jobless aid was held up Friday by Sen. Jim Bunning, Kentucky Republican, who objected that it added $10 billion to the budget deficit. As a result of record U.S. government borrowing, total debt in the United States has soared to an all-time high of 370 percent of yearly economic output, far exceeding its peak of 300 percent during the Great Depression.

"If we cant find $10 billion somewhere for a bill that everybody in this body supports, we will never pay for anything," Mr. Bunning said.

Democrats vowed to renew the unemployment aid this week to minimize disruption for more than 1 million jobless people who would begin to exhaust their extended benefits on Monday.

"The simple fact of the matter is that this is an emergency situation and should be treated as such," said Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat. "The most vulnerable families in America are going to suffer because of this political decision by one senator. … We will be back, we will try to get this done. And to those families: Hang in there."

The massive shift into dependence on the government, while essential in promoting an economic revival last year, has postponed a reckoning for many consumers who went too far into debt to maintain their lifestyles during the boom years, Mr. Bandholz said.
While the government was lavishing aid, banks were cutting credit to consumers by a record $250 billion, nearly as much as the amount consumers gained from government transfer payments.
"This shift only postpones a solution to the problem" by substituting government debt for consumer debt, Mr. Bandholz said. "These elevated debt loads will at least result in sluggish growth rates for the time being — and if the problem is not tackled with determination, it might very well lead to another crisis."

Some economists say the big shift toward dependence on government spending and borrowing is only temporary.

"Sure, temporary government transfers played a role this past year. But that's OK," said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group. He noted that Americans also accumulated a record amount of savings last year as they stowed away funds out of fear of losing their jobs.

The increase in savings now enables many consumers to increase spending, while the 90 percent of workers who still have jobs can spend more because they are accumulating more income from overtime hours, he said.

"It's a combination and interaction of all these forces — not just one — that will promote more future spending by households and keep the economy going later without government aid," he said.

Jobless benefits and other welfare spending for the unemployed will start to decline when job growth returns. Many economists predict that employment will increase this spring or summer in the next stage of the recovery. Because of bleak job prospects during the recession, some people were forced to go more permanently on the government dole.

In particular, many workers who were nearing retirement age and got laid off started drawing Social Security benefits. The number of retirees taking Social Security at age 62 grew by a record 19 percent in the past year, helping to push up Social Security outlays by $100 billion. Analysts expect those spending levels to stay high and continue to increase as more baby boomers retire.
 

Big Dog

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Staff member
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Sorta related .... current results from a poll being conducted on FOXnews.
 

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muleman

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
They don't care what they do to this country as long as they can ram their agenda through and create a whole new class of dependent voters. I applaud Bunting for demanding they quit spending money we don't have and cut some pork for the things we need.
 

joec

New member
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Ah the fact that we have the highest unemployment in recent history, that about a million jobs will be lost, etc have no point according to you. So what is the purpose of the government then according to you? If private enterprise can't keep people working long enough to help them keep their property then who does or do we simply let say to hell with people because they can't get a job due to none available. Now next you will be complaining about the higher crime rates demanding your police department handle it will 2 cops per 100,000. Good luck with that kind of thinking, screw my fellow citizens because they have fallen on hard times. Both senators will be replaced in my opinion as no one in this state thinks either has done a good job except those that are in their pockets.
 

Big Dog

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Staff member
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Joe, it's the government locking business from growing. I ask you one question ............. Would you start or expand a business in the current economy with the current congress and POTUS?

Answer that question and find the answer to unemployment. The government is handing out because they need the votes and at the same time the reason there is the unemployment we have!!!

The government is the problem, not the solution!
 

joec

New member
GOLD Site Supporter
Joe, it's the government locking business from growing. I ask you one question ............. Would you start or expand a business in the current economy with the current congress and POTUS?

Answer that question and find the answer to unemployment. The government is handing out because they need the votes and at the same time the reason there is the unemployment we have!!!

The government is the problem, not the solution!

No I wouldn't so if I don't then who has the ability to do it? Government is the only one with the means to borrow the money required to do it. It has nothing to do with votes it has to do with keeping the have not from feeding on the have. It is called serving the general good of the population really.
 

Big Dog

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No I wouldn't so if I don't then who has the ability to do it? Government is the only one with the means to borrow the money required to do it. It has nothing to do with votes it has to do with keeping the have not from feeding on the have. It is called serving the general good of the population really.

All government needs to do is quit threatening businesses with higher taxes, more restrictions, and allow profit. Then the government wouldn't have to dole out freebies.
 

muleman

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
Bunting was asking that they use money repaid by the banks or unspent in the stimulus bill instead of adding to the deficit. Those in charge don't want to use their piggy bank money(our money) on anything but their pet projects. They don't waste an opportunity to take advantages of a crisis to spend more money we don't have. It can not continue like this and the healthcare bill is just a bigger example than the UC extension.
 

joec

New member
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All government needs to do is quit threatening businesses with higher taxes, more restrictions, and allow profit. Then the government wouldn't have to dole out freebies.

Please list the government threatening businesses with higher taxes. Please list them with a source. Show what restrictions on making profits as well. Freebies yes you are right we pay income tax to give to big business in subsidies such as oil, farming etc. All I've heard about is lower taxes for small business which they had until one senator put an end to it.
 

joec

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Bunting was asking that they use money repaid by the banks or unspent in the stimulus bill instead of adding to the deficit. Those in charge don't want to use their piggy bank money(our money) on anything but their pet projects. They don't waste an opportunity to take advantages of a crisis to spend more money we don't have. It can not continue like this and the healthcare bill is just a bigger example than the UC extension.

I have no problem with that money being used to pay down the deficit at all. It just strikes me as disingenuous now coming from Bunting since he voted against pay as you go, two unfunded wars, mandated give away to medicare, multibillion dollar tax cut for the ones that needed it the least and 8 years of not having a problem with pork spending. Funny now he has a worry about the deficient which he didn't seem to have over the last 8 years. The reason he is retiring is his own party doesn't want him to run and threatened to put a candidate against him. Oh and I just heard he folded on this and will let it go.
 

SShepherd

New member
Please list the government threatening businesses with higher taxes. Please list them with a source. Show what restrictions on making profits as well. Freebies yes you are right we pay income tax to give to big business in subsidies such as oil, farming etc. All I've heard about is lower taxes for small business which they had until one senator put an end to it.


well, here's a biggie:

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/re...nhouse_gas_emissions/cap_and_trade/index.html

The Senate measure was besieged in a broad political and lobbying struggle, as industry groups, environmental lobbies, local government officials, universities and advocates for the poor all scrambled for advantage in legislation that would rewrite the rules of the domestic energy economy. In the end, the legislation stalled, although its sponsors have said they will try again in the spring, which a revision will focus more on job creation.

http://www.americasbestcompanies.com/Blog/cap-n-trade.aspx

Today, during the worst economic downturn in living memory, with unemployment over 8.1% and the stock market plumbing new depths seemingly every day, this congress and this administration are about to add a new tax on energy in the name of global warming, a tax that will make it harder for businesses to survive as they have to make deeper cuts and raise prices on their already hurting customer base.
http://www.nfib.com/newsroom/newsroom-item/cmsid/49428/

Even President Obama admits current cap and trade proposals will cause energy rates to rise. “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,” he told The San Francisco Chronicle last year. At the same time, the House Committee on Ways and Means estimated we would lose anywhere from 1.8 million to 5.3 million jobs.

That’s because big businesses will pass the cost on to small businesses and consumers in the form of higher prices. An analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of a less-restrictive bill in the last Congress estimated electricity rates would go up at least 40 percent.

And that would be devastating to small businesses. Consider the stories we’ve already heard:
  • A trucking company owner in Ohio spends more than $4 million a year on his energy bills. If his costs increase 40 percent, he’ll be spending $5.6 million a year just on electricity and fuel. In order to absorb the new energy costs, he said he would have to raise his prices, as well as cut hours and employees.
 

joec

New member
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Ah Shep and which one of these have actually passed? Now I don't mean proposed legislation which means nothing but passed, and signed into law.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
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Joe, with all due respect, I think many business owners are afraid to spend money they have on growing their business out of fear of what may pass. The threat of passage of a bill that could destroy a business is enough to stop people from making some specific types of investments.
 

Deadly Sushi

The One, The Only, Sushi
SUPER Site Supporter
Republicans should stop bitching about spending. THEY are the ones that gave Bush the power to spend and spend and spend. If there is just ONE failure for Bush.... it was spending.
Democrats are at fault too. But since the repubs have been screaming foul, THEY are the ones that under scrutiny. I havent seen ONE..... not ONE thing Republicans have come up with on jobs creation. They sure know how to bitch though.
Democrats have consistantly said THEIR spending is heping create jobs. Really????? I dont see it. I just see MORE money spent on top of all the money the OTHER side of the isle spent.

Where is the increase in taxes? We need to increase taxes and lower the damn spending just to pay for these huge spending sprees! (and to save our Nation) And spend on things that actually HELP people directly!!!
Hell if Obama gave every household the money he gave to the Banks THAT would have jump-started spending and then manufacturing ... all the way up the damn food chain!!!!!!!!!!!! IDIOT!!! :hammer:
 

jpr62902

Jeanclaude Spam Banhammer
SUPER Site Supporter
Please list the government threatening businesses with higher taxes. Please list them with a source. Show what restrictions on making profits as well. Freebies yes you are right we pay income tax to give to big business in subsidies such as oil, farming etc. All I've heard about is lower taxes for small business which they had until one senator put an end to it.

Kind of ironic that you're insisting someone else should post a source, eh Joe?
 

SShepherd

New member
Ah Shep and which one of these have actually passed? Now I don't mean proposed legislation which means nothing but passed, and signed into law.


The Senate measure was besieged in a broad political and lobbying struggle, as industry groups, environmental lobbies, local government officials, universities and advocates for the poor all scrambled for advantage in legislation that would rewrite the rules of the domestic energy economy. In the end, the legislation stalled, although its sponsors have said they will try again in the spring, which a revision will focus more on job creation.
 

JEV

Mr. Congeniality
GOLD Site Supporter
Joe, with all due respect, I think many business owners are afraid to spend money they have on growing their business out of fear of what may pass. The threat of passage of a bill that could destroy a business is enough to stop people from making some specific types of investments.
AMEN! Nobody in their right mind (without gubment payola for income) is going to budge with all this talk of rising taxes on businesses to fund already unsustainable programs for the poor so the democrats can buy more votes with our money. We need to exorcise this demon of deficit from these whack job politicians before we end up like Greece.
 

joec

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Did I disagree with you on that B_Skurka, if so please pointed out. All I'm saying is if business in this country can't do it then government has no choice to step in and keep the population going until things are settled until private enterprise can. As for the reasons perhaps it is the fact that both sides can't seem to do anything but run us into the dirt with their petty politics. As I've said before if I was king for a day, half of both houses of the congress would be summarily executed within hours of me taking over and the other half would have exactly 48 hours to come up with solutions but then as I also said this won't happen.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
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Republicans should stop bitching about spending.
Sushi I disagree. They should continue to bitch about it even if they are just as much to blame.

The reality is the GOP is no better than the Dems. Whichever one is in power is at fault because both are guilty.

HOWEVER, there is clearly a movement in the US and it is impacting the GOP at its core. It is the anti-tax/anti-spending/fiscal restraint movement. It has a very long way to go, but it is making a dent in some areas and there are a few GOP members who have gotten the fiscal restraint religion. Now does that mean the GOP is fiscally responsible? Hell no. But maybe we can move it to the fiscal restraint side of the political spectrum.
 

joec

New member
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The Senate measure was besieged in a broad political and lobbying struggle, as industry groups, environmental lobbies, local government officials, universities and advocates for the poor all scrambled for advantage in legislation that would rewrite the rules of the domestic energy economy. In the end, the legislation stalled, although its sponsors have said they will try again in the spring, which a revision will focus more on job creation.

As I said many times before if it passes and becomes law then I'm willing to discuss it, till then it is nothing really but talk. In all honesty I don't think it will pass as both sides have groups against it.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
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Did I disagree with you on that B_Skurka, if so please pointed out. All I'm saying is if business in this country can't do it then government has no choice to step in and keep the population going until things are settled until private enterprise can. As for the reasons perhaps it is the fact that both sides can't seem to do anything but run us into the dirt with their petty politics. As I've said before if I was king for a day, half of both houses of the congress would be summarily executed within hours of me taking over and the other half would have exactly 48 hours to come up with solutions but then as I also said this won't happen.
Disagree all you want but you'd be wrong.

I have money to invest. I have told my employees that I will not expand our operations BECAUSE of government regulations that are NOT YET imposed but threatened.

I met with some business owners today, they are in some ways sitting on the sidelines too. I know many other businesses that have cut back out of fear of potential regulation. I know of business owners who have intentionally scaled their business so that it stays UNDER some of the government regulations. If you don't think the threat of looming legislation is a job killer then you need to really sit down and look at the costs to business owners and the risks they take. I know of doctors who are retiring early because of medicaid payment cuts, they are closing their practices, leaving their staffs unemployed. It affects ALL types of business in ALL sectors.

As for the government moving the economy, please explain how they will to that? With borrowed money? As for paying down the deficit with unspent stimulus money, since that was borrowed money it would only pay back what was just borrowed, less interest, which we would still owe.
 

Av8r3400

Gone Flyin'
Disagree all you want but you'd be wrong.

I have money to invest. I have told my employees that I will not expand our operations BECAUSE of government regulations that are NOT YET imposed but threatened.

Amen, amen, amen! This is what the anti-business, pro government people don't understand.

I met with some business owners today, they are in some ways sitting on the sidelines too. I know many other businesses that have cut back out of fear of potential regulation. I know of business owners who have intentionally scaled their business so that it stays UNDER some of the government regulations. If you don't think the threat of looming legislation is a job killer then you need to really sit down and look at the costs to business owners and the risks they take. I know of doctors who are retiring early because of medicaid payment cuts, they are closing their practices, leaving their staffs unemployed. It affects ALL types of business in ALL sectors.


Joe, what you must not understand is that operating a business is partially forecasting the future. If the government keeps threatening this type of action, no one in business will move.


HOPE FOR CHANGE IN 2010!!
 

joec

New member
GOLD Site Supporter
You seem to forget I own a business and not my first either. I do understand that but which side is causing the problem, those that are trying to get stuff done or those that are standing in the way with the BS. I know you can't handle that your beloved side is strictly the party of no way even when the majority of most of the legislation is their ideas but they won't back when it comes for a vote.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
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Joe I know many business owners who, like you, don't talk in any specifics and just ramble on. So please sir, provide us some facts.

Tell us how doctors/hospitals won't continue to close down/or cut back when medicaid payments have been going down and most of those procedures have been money losers all along.

Tell us how threatened tax increases won't change investors plans to open or expand businesses when they cut directly into the potential return an investor can earn on the money he clearly risks.

Tell us how YOU are taking YOUR money and EXPANDING YOUR business and hiring more employees and IGNORING all potential regulations that may likely.
 

joec

New member
GOLD Site Supporter
Where did that come from, attack me because I stated what I felt so now you want me to explain with fact of why I feel this way. No one has showed me what you base your statements on except proposed bills which mean nothing as thousand of bills get proposed over a life of a congress and few come to the floor to even be voted on.

Now I'm not ignoring anything and didn't disagree that private business won't take chances in the current environment due to uncertainty in lending which isn't helped by a government that doesn't function at all. The minority has too much power which has finally come to pass.

I simply asked to show me documentation of taxes to be passed along to small businesses since I've only seen tax cuts with no sign of anything going up at this time. I suppose because you listen to pundits telling people what might happen if this or that legislation will pass makes it so. Any business owner that listens to that crap should go out of business. Oh and I'm doing well if you must know aside from that it is none of your business about my business.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Joe, no attack implied or intended, just asking.

You keep saying that you want to see documentation of PASSED rules/regs and I have illustrated my personal examples of how it doesn't matter if something is PASSED it is enough that they THREATEN. So since I shared my business I ask you to share yours.

If you won't or can't, in a very compelling way, then I'm sorry but I will have to continue to believe that what I have seen and experienced first hand are true and what you are saying is simply not.
 
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