The U.S. federal government has borrowed about $6 billion per day so far this fiscal year with little indication of slowing down.
The U.S. Treasury Department released its figures for the month of March showing it borrowed $236 billion in March alone, bringing the total to $1.1 trillion for this fiscal year, which runs from October to September.
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The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday released a bleak outlook for the federal government with new projections that show debt levels will reach their highest levels ever in five years.
“Debt held by the public, boosted by the large deficits, reaches its highest level ever in 2029 (measured as a percentage of GDP) and then continues to grow, reaching 166 percent of GDP in 2054 and remaining on track to increase thereafter,” according to the CBO report. “That mounting debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook; it could also cause lawmakers to feel more constrained in their policy choices.”
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The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) a budget watchdog group, found that President Joe Biden’s fiscal year 2025 budget would drive the national debt to $45.1 trillion or 106 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2034, from $27.4 trillion or about 97 percent of GDP at the present time.
The organization noted that those calculations are based on the Biden administration’s own internal figures. The current $27.4 trillion debt figure is the debt held by the public, not the total national debt including intragovernmental holdings.
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The Social Security Administration announced Thursday that benefits will increase 3.2% in 2024 for the country’s over 70 million recipients.
This will result in the average monthly check for a retired worker to rise to $1,907. That’s up $59 from $1,827 this year, according to Forbes.
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Declaring that it’s time for Washington to start working for Americans and not the other way around, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley laid out her economic “Freedom Plan in a speech Friday in New Hampshire.
The former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador is proposing a litany of middle-class tax cuts, regulatory relief and “third rail” entitlement reforms in a proposal she asserts will check communist China aggression through American prosperity.
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There’s enough revenue to pay interest on the debt even if the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling is reached.
Meaning, if the U.S. defaults on the debt on June 1, it will be because President Joe Biden chose not to make principal and interest payments on U.S. Treasuries out of existing revenue, for which there is more than ample revenues to service and refinance up to the current debt ceiling limit, $31.4 trillion.
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In Armageddon, Bruce Willis blows himself up on an asteroid to save his daughter and all of humanity. (Sorry for the spoiler, but the movie is 25 years old.) That theme—parents providing for, and sacrificing for, their children—is the deeply moral and moving story that Americans used to love.
I say “used to,” because something troubling has happened. We now accept that young people should be worse off for a lifetime in order to benefit those who have already lived full, comfortable lives. We saw this during COVID-19, when an elderly leadership class locked children out of classrooms, playgrounds, friendships, and sports, and wiped out jobs, training, and mentorship for young workers.
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As he moves closer to a presidential campaign announcement, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has scheduled a trip to the Badger State next month.
DeSantis, who is expected to officially launch his run for the White House after the Florida legislative session ends in early May, will speak at the Republican Party of Marathon County Lincoln Day Dinner on May 6.
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Nearly every U.S. state recognized increased backlogs for new Social Security disability benefit applications since 2019, And the Great Lakes states were no different.
In fact, Wisconsin’s backlog more than doubled, ranking in fifth nationwide for increased backlogs. From 2019 to 2023, Wisconsin’s backlog grew 130 percent, with an increase of 11,500 backlogged applications. It has the fifth highest backlog increase in the nation.
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Gross interest owed on the $31.4 trillion national debt — that is, interest owed on both the $24.9 trillion publicly traded debt and the $6.7 trillion debt in the Social Security, Medicare and other trust funds — will reach a gargantuan $1 trillion in 2024 for the first time in American history, according to the latest data gathered by the White House Office of Management and budget.
To put that into perspective, that is more than is spent on national defense related spending, currently $814 billion.
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Former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social Monday to fire another round at GOP rival and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, asserting that fellow GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will overtake “Ron DeSanctimonious” in the polls.
“Ron DeSanctimonious is dropping in the Polls so fast that he soon may be falling behind young Vivek Ramaswamy,” Trump wrote on his social network platform.
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U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Thursday grilled Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on whether she still believes inflation is a positive for Americans and the economy.
During the Senate Finance Committee hearing on President Joe Biden’s $6.9 trillion budget proposal, Grassley also asked Yellen whether her boss has it in him to rise about politics and lead on shoring up a troubled Social Security system headed down the road to insolvency.
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Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana accused the Biden administration of lying about its commitment to working with Congress to protect seniors’ social security benefits at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee Thursday.
Cassidy asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who was testifying about President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2024, if the president was aware that “when [Social Security] goes broke in nine years” there would be a 24% cut in benefits for current recipients.
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis may still be mulling over a run for president, but the Republican looked and sounded every bit a contender for the GOP presidential nomination Friday evening in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.
DeSantis joined fellow Republican, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. at a packed, standing-room only stop at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, ostensibly to promote his new book, The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.
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In her latest swing through Iowa, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley took aim at the nation’s financially troubled safety nets for seniors, telling Council Bluff Republicans it’s time to change the retirement age and check Social Security and Medicare benefits for wealthier Americans.
If the former South Carolina governor was sending out a trial balloon to see how reform ideas would fly in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, it seems said balloon may have hit the third rail.
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Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wasn’t alone Tuesday night in openly arguing President Biden in his State of the Union address misstated House Republicans’ position on the future of Medicare and Social Security.
“I think, because he lied, it was a frustration,” Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie told Just the News after Biden’s roughly 72-minute address.
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The federal government significantly and intentionally misreports income distribution, sparking bad policies and political divisions.
That’s the argument former senator Phil Gramm and two other economists, Robert Ekelund and John Early, lay out in their compelling and essential new book, “The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate.”
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The Social Security Administration will allow people to self-select their sex on social security documents without providing legal or medical documents to verify their sex, according to a Wednesday announcement.
The agency will accept individuals’ self-identification regardless of whether it matches their other documents and will supply Social Security cards accordingly, the agency announced. The move comes amid a push from the Biden administration to facilitate gender transitions and help transgender people change their sex on government records more easily.
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The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced the largest increase to the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment in over three decades due to high inflation.
The SSA announced that supplemental income benefits, which are paid to beneficiaries in addition to their regular benefits to offset inflation and other unexpected costs, would increase by 8.7%. This would, on average, increase benefits by $140 per month for most beneficiaries, beginning in January of 2023.
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The Social Security Administration announced Thursday it will start an “Equity Action Plan,” which will focus on gathering data on race and ethnicity and helping people who are “gender diverse” obtain Social Security cards.
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Christopher Cobb, 33, pled guilty to communicating a threat against a federal agency and being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to a press release by the Western District of Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s Office. Joseph C. Murphy Jr., United States Attorney, announced the guilty plea on Tuesday.
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Rep. David Schweikert (R-06-AZ), known as the wonky numbers member of Congress, gave a speech on the House floor a few days ago about runaway spending in Congress that has gone viral with over 1.2 million views. It’s on Social Security and Medicare running out of money and how the U.S. is headed for a dystopian future if it’s not fixed. He addressed several myths and offered solutions.
He began saying he’s about to say some things most people don’t want to hear, “We call it math.” The biggest threat over the next couple decades facing the country is demographics. “Getting older isn’t Democrat or Republican, it’s going to happen to everyone.” But he says he’s been booed for telling people the truth. “You don’t raise money telling people the truth about what’s going on.” Referring to Congress, he said, “We live in a financial fantasy world in this place … there’s a fraud around here.”
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On Tuesday, Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) released a statement in response to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), showing that consumer prices rose again in August.
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Rising inflation and the price increases that come with it may lead to the highest raise for senior citizens in decades.
The Senior Citizens League predicted Thursday that the annual cost-of-living adjustment for 2022 Social Security payments could be the highest since 1983. The prediction comes as federal data this week showed two major signs of inflation, continuing a trend that has worsened this year.
“The estimate is significant because the COLA is based on the average of the July, August and September CPI data,” said Mary Johnson, a Social Security policy analyst for The Senior Citizens League. “With one third of the data needed to calculate the COLA already in, it increasingly appears that the COLA for 2022 will be the highest paid since 1983 when it was 7.4%.”
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Some Latino adults are concerned to get a COVID-19 vaccine because they might have to provide identification or are worried it could affect their immigration status, according to a poll released Thursday.
Of the total number of unvaccinated Latino adults who were polled, 39% said they were concerned about potential requirements to provide a government-issued ID or Social Security number to be vaccinated, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation Vaccine Monitor poll. And 35% of respondents expressed concerns that receiving the vaccine could negatively impact their own or a relative’s immigration status.
“Among unvaccinated Hispanic adults, those who are potentially undocumented, those without health insurance, and those with lower household incomes are more likely to express potential access-related barriers or immigration-related concerns to vaccination,” according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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For decades, Democrats have been trying to terrify American seniors by falsely claiming that Republicans would take away their Social Security. The fear mongering has only gotten worse in the age of Donald Trump.
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President Donald Trump traveled to Fort Myers, Florida Friday to give a speech focusing on health care costs, Social Security and other issues that impact senior citizens. In his speech, the president sought to reassure elderly voters, who have borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, that he cares about them, and is doing do everything he can to protect and defend them.
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Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN-06), alongside Congressman Tim Walberg (R-MI-07), secured survivors benefits for homeschooled children. Prior to this, Minnesota and Michigan blocked homeschoolers over 17 and 18 respectively from attaining benefits.
According to the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), both states were cutting off Social Security Administration (SSA) survivors benefits to homeschoolers due to “lack of proof” of their status as full-time students. In both states’ eyes, the students didn’t meet state compulsory education laws.
Our nation’s pension systems are in trouble. Underfunded with outsized promises to beneficiaries who are living longer, the death rattles of the defined benefit pension system, which promises a fixed amount of money per month for retirees, are now audible.
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Every year, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) audits the Social Security Administration (SSA) and publishes its findings.
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by Edward Ring It is fashionable to refer to the job market of the future as “the gig economy.” In this enlightened, technology enabled wonderland, everyone will be free to balance work and leisure as they see fit. When they want to earn more money, they get online, find a “gig,” and when the job’s performed the money flows into their checking account. Not quite the utopia of Galt’s Gulch, but tantalizingly closer. The problem with the “gig economy” is the troublesome intervention of reality. Tell an Uber driver who has two hungry children, a wife home with the flu (unable to “gig”), who makes $20 per hour and has no health insurance that he’s living in utopia. You may have to duck. In 2017, the opinion section of the New York Times ran a guest editorial that included a graphic entitled “Our Broken Economy, In One Simple Chart.” That chart was drawn from data gathered by a team of economists that included Thomas Piketty, author of the 2014 bestseller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Each dot on the chart below represents an income percentile. They form two lines, the grey line showing income growth by income percentile between 1946 and 1980, and the red…
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by Will Racke The Trump administration will move forward with regulatory changes that could make hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals living in the U.S. ineligible for green cards if they use any one of a wide range of public assistance programs, immigration officials announced Saturday. The draft regulation expands the definition of “public charge” to include users of many non-cash aid programs such as food assistance and Section 8 housing vouchers. The change restores the definition of public charge to its original meaning under a federal law that aims to block the admission of immigrants likely to become a drain on public resources, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. “Under long-standing federal law, those seeking to immigrate to the United States must show they can support themselves financially,” Nielsen said in a statement. “The department takes seriously its responsibility to be transparent in its rulemaking and is welcoming public comment on the proposed rule. This proposed rule will implement a law passed by Congress intended to promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers.” Under the current interpretation of immigration law, non-immigrant visa holders who receive cash welfare…
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by Spencer P. Morrison Ask any Democrat why they support open borders and invariably they will respond with one of two pre-packaged answers: because “diversity is our strength” or “we need immigrants to pay for our pensions.” The first argument is a sham: if liberals valued diversity they would welcome conservatives to college campuses and tolerate them online. They don’t. Instead, they protest when anyone to the right of Marx dares speak on campus – remember the “progressive” response to Milo Yiannopoulos at Berkeley? It was an orgy of violence and rioting. Likewise, the Left enthusiastically de-platforms conservative voices on social media. For Democrats, diversity means intellectual and political homogeneity – with a smattering of ethnic restaurants. Exposing this hypocrisy sufficiently rebuts this nonpoint. The second argument – that immigrants will pay for our pensions – is far more persuasive. Most people instinctively defer to the “experts” when it comes to economics: “because Milton Friedman said so” is a compelling statement, despite being a perfect example of the call to authority fallacy. Who cares what economists think? What do the data say? On this point the data are conclusive: immigration will not save America’s welfare system, it will bleed it dry. Worshipping Ponzi In an article for the New…
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by Anders Hagstrom A federal government transparency website had been unwittingly displaying at least 80 full or partial social security numbers (SSN) for weeks before taking them down, CNN reported Sunday. The error came in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request portal, causing many people who submitted FOIA requests to have their SSNs revealed on the website, CNN reported. In many cases, the website, foiaonline.gov, revealed more information than just an SSN, also publishing dates of birth, immigrant identification numbers, addresses and contact details. The government was unaware of the problem and cited a glitch when CNN reached out for comment. “Recently it was discovered that [SSN] information in some records was exposed to the public,” an internal email obtained by CNN read. “The PMO [Primary Management Office] has identified the cause of this issue and this afternoon implemented program fixes that resolved the problems. This issue will shortly be publicized by the press. It will also be reported that after our fix, that some names and addresses still do appear in publicly available FOIAonline records. A review by the PMO has found that this information has been marked as publicly viewable by the reporting agencies. It is requested that partner…
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by Robert Osburn Celebrated this past July 4, America’s founding story of freedom is truly remarkable: unity, courage, integrity, and national integration (incorporating people from around the world). In most other places, the freedom story is bloody, exclusive, and, ultimately, tyrannical. Take Nicaragua, for one example: In 1979, the Sandinistas overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza. Nearly four decades later, hundreds are dying because the very people who led the Sandinista revolution (Daniel Ortega and friends, now in power) are behaving exactly like Somoza. It’s déjà vu all over again for our Central American neighbors. In an age when democracy is clearly retreating, will America eventually succumb to autocracy while waving sayonara to democracy? It’s a question that National Review’s JonahGoldberg once very handily dismissed. He now admits that American totalitarianism is a real possibility. Utilizing a scenario-building skill that I learned during my doctoral studies, let me offer what I consider a very plausible scenario that takes America down the rathole of tyranny: Sometime between 2028 and 2034, America’s president will use executive or emergency powers to solve the nation’s Social Security trust fund crisis. As Americans celebrate that presidential act of courage, we will begin the long road to tyranny because we cannot rule ourselves. Does this remind anyone of the books of Judges and I Samuel when, because everyone did what was right…
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By Robert Romano 2026. That is when the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will be depleted, according to the Board of Trustees for the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds. That is down from 2029. After that, the share of benefits paid for by revenues will drop until 2039, when payroll taxes will only be enough to pay 78 percent of benefits. Then, benefits would rise to 85 percent by 2092. The most obvious culprit is the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, which overwhelmingly passed Congress and which former President Barack Obama signed into law. That was the bill that ended the sustainable growth rate that had been the centerpiece reform of the GOP Congress and President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s to balance the budget. The sustainable growth rate was a 1997 reform intended to put the failing program on a sustainable footing before its trust fund was exhausted. Before passage of the 2015 repeal, which sent costs spiraling out of control, the draining of the Medicare trust fund was said to have been in 2030. Then it dropped to 2029 and then to 2026. To be fair, even if the bill had not passed, the trust…
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by Mimi Teixeira Wisconsin is taking the lead on welfare reform. In February, the state Legislature passed nine bills, which Gov. Scott Walker is expected to sign. The state government is taking advantage of record-low unemployment and strong job creation numbers to help all of its able citizens enter the workforce. Among other measures, Wisconsin’s bold plan implements these four important pillars of welfare reform: 1. Establishing work requirements for housing programs. Of the more than 80 means-tested federal welfare programs, only two have substantial work requirements: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. In addition, only 39 out of 3,000 federal housing authorities require any sort of work as a condition for housing assistance. Wisconsin’s plan would expand work requirements to all work-capable individuals who receive federal housing assistance. The generosity of federal housing subsidies and the expense of the program make it a good target for reform. This measure will help those who utilize housing vouchers to reduce their dependency on government. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more } 2. Strengthening existing work measures in food stamps. Work requirements are a tested policy…
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Social Security beneficiaries will receive a 2 percent cost-of-living payment increase next year, the agency announced Friday. The increase is based on rising wages and prices, and is the highest since 2012. Benefits rose less than half a percent this year, and didn’t rise at all in 2016, because inflation was stagnant. The agency also said…
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Most illegal immigrants who pay taxes have stolen someone else’s legal identity, and the IRS doesn’t do a very good job of letting those American citizens and illegal immigrants know they’re being impersonated, the tax agency’s inspector general said in a new report released Thursday. The theft creates major problems for the American citizens and legal…
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