David
Budget crunch, laying people off, cutting programs
Mon Sep 29 17:52:17 2003
64.140.158.74

Here's another.

Every State, City, County and local government in the nation is currently in a budget crunch, laying people off, cutting programs and services, or borrowing money. But most of them do not see how any of this is related to what the federal government has deliberately done to them.

On February 20, 2003, the federal government hit its self-imposed national debt limit of $6.4 trillion and did absolutely nothing about it for 92 days.

A few years ago, we would have welcomed a complete stoppage of borrowing new money, adding additional debt or going beyond simply replacing treasuries that mature. It would have been a sign of fiscal prudence. But this year it definitely was not a good sign.

An administration that established a budget far in excess of its expected revenue, an administration that set out to run a $304 billion deficit in fiscal 2003, was doing one of the worst and manipulatively evil things possible when it suspended its ability to borrow for more than a full quarter, three months of the fiscal year.

The federal government was cutting back on promised funding for education, agriculture, health, housing, and all of the elements of the discretionary budget except defense.

The national debt limit should have been raised immediately, if not on February 20th or shortly thereafter, it should have been raised ahead of time. To not do so was fiscal irresponsibility of the highest order.

And what did we hear from the Fourth Estate, the "war drum" media, the watchdogs of government spending—not a peep. Not until the last days of May, three months later, did newspapers and television even mention the debt limit, and then only to report that it was being raised almost one trillion dollars. And we had a war in-between.

One month, almost to the day, after hitting the limit on February 20th, President Bush began the invasion of Iraq. We had been staging our troops and killing machines, bombing their communications facilities, dropping leaflets, and trying to encourage insurrection for months, but now we started the full fledged "shock and awe" invasion of a pipsqueak nation that offered little resistance.

The money to conduct everything after February 20th and beyond had to be taken from discretionary budget accounts. No money could be borrowed.

This put an undue stress on cities and states already suffering shortfalls in their own tax receipts. Most federal money for health care, housing, education and every item in planned discretionary spending went into the war and these funds were unavailable to the people on the home front. And it didn't change much after the debt limit was finally raised.

Once the borrowholics in Washington had their credit card renewed, they immediately replenished their larder and returned to the $2 billion-a-day borrowing they had been doing prior to February 20th. As of September 5, 2003, the national debt has increased $584 billion and the deficit as Washington defines it, not counting money borrowed/stolen from Social Security and 17 other entitlements, is now predicted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to be around $400 billion.

The trouble with this CBO prediction is that as of September 5th the U.S. Treasury's Bureau of Public Debt is already showing borrowing from investors at $426 billion with more than three weeks to go in the fiscal year.

In April of 2003, the President asked Congress for $75 billion to carry out things in Iraq and got it. This seems to have formally authorized the use of discretionary monies already underway.

Bush is now asking Congress for an additional $87 billion to "carry on the war against terrorism." Columnists claim that this is money for Iraq and Afghanistan, even that $70 billion will go towards the Iraqi quagmire and $17 billion to Afghanistan.

The real question is whether President Bush needs the authorization of Congress in order to borrow money from investors through the sale of Treasury securities, especially in times of war. If he does require permission, then why do the numbers not add up to our current deficit?

If he does not need authorization from Congress, then the fact that he is asking for it adds up to only one thing. We are left to wonder if this new amount is coming out of next year's discretionary spending, squeezing the states and local governments even further.

Not recognizing what has been happening is a classic case of "the Emperor's clothes."

References

Table III-C, Debt Subject to Limit, page two of Daily Treasury Statement for:

February 20, 2003
http://www.uncle-scam.com/Breaking/sept-03/03022000.pdf

March 20, 2003
http://www.uncle-scam.com/Breaking/sept-03/03032000.pdf

April 21, 2003
http://www.uncle-scam.com/Breaking/sept-03/03042100.pdf

May 21, 2003
http://www.uncle-scam.com/Breaking/sept-03/03052100.pdf
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IRRESPONSIBLE AND STILL CONSIDERED INNOCENT
http://www.uncle-scam.com/Breaking/sept-03/br-7.html

by Ed Henry

For 27 years, Project Censored http://www.projectcensored.org/ has been collecting under-reported stories from around the country and this year they compiled a list of the top 10 "censored stories" as well as 15 runner-ups. About 200 students and faculty from Sonoma State University compiled and reviewed the latest censored stories. Worthy as this list is, they missed some of the most important cases.

The hallmark of a successful cover-up or hushed-up operation is that nobody notices, not even the watchdogs on the lookout for such concealment.

Surpluses in the hundreds of billions that are still with us and come from entitlements like Social Security, your payroll overtaxes, are one such example. In the best of times, these entitlements accounted for more than 60 percent http://www.uncle-scam.com/Breaking/sept-03/br-4.html of any surplus and are still one of the government's best kept secrets.
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You may also download each Daily Treasury Statement http://www.fms.treas.gov/dts/index.html from the Archives of the government's own web pages or email ctzcrank@mindspring.com me for most of them.
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The Bankruptcy of the United States
A 39 part Series of documents, pertaining to:
The receivers of the United States Bankruptcy are the International
Bankers, via the United Nations, the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund. All United States Offices, Officials, and Departments are now
operating within a de facto status in name only under Emergency War Powers.
and much more...
http://www.apfn.net/DOC-100_bankruptcy.htm

U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/