| While the Bush administration trots out cheery economic numbers, Americans feel the pinch of the real economy. |
| [T]he Census Bureau recently reported that the percentage of uninsured children rose last year for the first time since 1998.
Appalling, but not surprising. Congressional Republicans rammed through spending cuts in domestic programs last February, most of them in programs for low-income Americans. The ostensible purpose of the cuts was deficit reduction. But three months later, in May, they worsened the deficit by slashing taxes, which will mostly benefit wealthy households. On top of that, they tried repeatedly this year to gut the estate tax, which would only have benefited America’s richest families. Source: "Unfinished Budget Business" - NY Times - October 1, 2006 Since becoming president, George Bush has presided over one of the steepest peacetime rises ever in the federal debt. The gross federal debt now exceeds $8.3 trillion. ...And if projections from the Congressional Budget Office turn out to be correct, we are just a decade away from a $12.8 trillion debt — more than double what it was when Bush took office. [B]y requiring larger interest payments, big public debts devour revenue that could be spent on other programs. They may crowd out private investment by pushing up long-term interest rates. They may also have a regressive distributional impact, transferring economic resources from taxpayers to bondholders or from future generations to the present generation. The average American has an income of about $40,000 a year and has, as we have seen, a personal savings rate of zero. The average Chinese earns around $1,500 per year but has personal savings of 23 percent of his income — and is lending a large chunk of these savings, via the People's Bank of China, to the average American. As a result, there has been an immense rise in foreign ownership of American securities of all kinds, but especially government bonds. Foreign ownership of the U.S. federal debt passed the halfway mark in June 2004. About a third of corporate bonds are now in foreign hands, as is more than 13 percent of the U.S. stock market. One analyst has half-seriously calculated that at the current rate of foreign accumulation, the last U.S. Treasury held by an American will be purchased by the People's Bank of China on Feb. 9, 2012. Source: "Reasons to Worry" By NIALL FERGUSON - NY Times - June 11, 2006 The rising costs [of adjustable-rate short-term mortgages] have contributed to a 38 percent increase nationally in home foreclosures in the first quarter of this year [2006] over the same period in 2005. Florida had the second-largest number of foreclosures in the nation during that period — 29,636 — behind Texas, which had 40,236. Further, following a requirement three years ago by the federal comptroller of the currency to raise minimum monthly payments on credit cards, some banks have recently gone as far as to double those payments. Source: "Statistics Aside, Many Feel Pinch of Daily Costs"By JENNIFER STEINHAUER - NY Times - May 6, 2006 |
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