Over the past few weeks, Obama has exhibited the intensity of a Navy SEAL in his execution of class warfare. He is trying to convince everyone that those who earn 17% of Adjusted Gross Income, yet pay 36.7% of federal income taxes don’t pay anything, while those who pay little or no taxes shoulder the entire tax burden. Obama will continue to toss out misinformation throughout the campaign about all these billionaires that supposedly pay little in taxes.
While he is prosecuting his class jihad, we should remind him of these facts and figures:
- Obama has accrued more debt in 3 ½ years than Bush did in 8 years – and Bush was a big spender. When President Bush was sworn in on January 20, 2001, the total federal debt stood at $5.728 trillion. On January 20, 2009, the day he left office, the debt had increased to $10.629 trillion, a jump of $4.9 trillion. Just 38 months later, the debt has increased another $4.992 trillion to a grand total of $15.621 trillion (as of April 9)!
- Amazingly, $4.577 trillion, or 91% of Obama’s debt increase comes from the public share of the debt, which now stands at $10.88 trillion.
- We are on pace to breach the $16.394 trillion debt limit before the November elections. That means that he will have amassed almost (or more than) $6 trillion in debt by the time he, God willing, leaves office next January. It took from our country’s founding until 2002 to amass $6 trillion in debt.
- The debt has increased $1.327 trillion in the past 9 months since we “solved” the debt crisis with the Budget Control Act. That’s about as much as the top 1% of income earners make in 12 months.
- When Obama took office, the gross federal debt was 76.5% of GDP, while the public share of the debt stood at 45% of GDP. Now, those numbers stand at 102% and 71% respectively.
- The debt per taxpayer stands at $137,751, up from $89,330 just 4 years ago.
- The monthly deficit for this past February was a record $232 billion. We didn’t start accruing annual deficits of $230 billion until this past decade.
- In February, we spent $335 billion in 29 days. It comes out to $11.5 billion per day; $480 million per hour.
Remember that none of this even begins to account for the $70 trillion+ unfunded entitlement liability and Obama’s new proposed spending that he wants to pay for with the “Buffett Rule.” Even Obama claims that he understands how massive tax increases would be counterproductive and that he only wants the rich to pay “a little more” to fulfill their “fair share.” The fact is there is no way the Buffett Rule, which would raise $46.7 billion in revenue over 10 years, will ever solve the debt crisis, even if you subscribe to the notion that we can and should raise some taxes.
Now that Mitt Romney has all but secured the nomination, he has an opportunity to combat Obama’s Buffett Rule with the Romney Rule. Government spending should not grow faster than the private economy. That is the only way to solve the debt crisis. Period.
Cross-posted from The Madison Project