Mitt Romney Just Lost My Vote

If anyone should quit the 2012 race it's Gov. Mitt Romney, not Rep. Todd Akin. Even with the clothespin on my nose I won't be able to do it.

Romney should quit not just for the good of the Republican Party, but for the good of the nation. Surely the Republican convention can come up with someone better than this man Romney, whose political convictions are as uncertain as Barack Obama's biography.

Otherwise Romney is certainly going to lead the Republican Party to defeat in November, just like John McCain did in 2008, and a bunch of us who haven't gone broke already will promptly do so while the likes of David Frum tell us it's no debacle. Only in the Republican Party can conservatism be transformed from opposition to the welfare state in 1965 into support for Medicare as a matter of principle in 2012. And you feared Barack Obama would transform America.

The only thing Romney is proving in the case of Rep. Akin is that Republicans once again don't know how to fight, and don't understand how politics works.

Winning parties like the Democrat Party rally around their own when they are in trouble, and at the minimum do not make things worse for themselves by joining in on the criticism of individuals who make mistakes. A good recent example is Rep. Charlie Rangel who has been censured by the US House but is still standing, and quite happily so. Republicans, by contrast, have a habit of rushing at the first sign of trouble to distance themselves from members who come under fire, and end up isolated and alone, resorting to their own devices to survive.

No one but a fool wants such for friends. The voters can smell that smell for what it is: lack of self-confidence. And then they vote accordingly.

My hunch is Missouri will have a new senator named Todd Akin come November, and America will have another four years of Barack Obama.

We deserve it.

Government Payments Like Social Security/Medicare Consume 89 Percent Of Tax Revenues

The government collects only $2.66 trillion in taxes but spends $2.36 trillion just on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and the like, summed up as Personal Current Transfer Payments.

If we ran a balanced budget, that would leave just $300 billion for everything else, such as defending the country from our enemies, for which we actually spend about $700 billion currently.

Total current expenditures are running at $3.8 trillion, nearly 41 percent more than we presently take in.

On 1/1/2011 Social Security/Medicare Payments Exceeded Revenues By $329 Billion

Social insurance revenues were $906 billion on 1/1/11, but outlays for Social Security were $703 billion and for Medicare $532 billion on that date, meaning the programs were not self-sustaining, running a deficit of $329 billion.

Romney Has Ryan Reassuring On Medicare Because He Really Needs Florida To Win

The projection (here) back in the second week of April was that 124 electoral college votes were up for grabs in 9 states, with Obama at 233 and the Republicans at 181, who needed at the time 70 percent of the remaining electoral college votes to win.

Today the picture (here) shows the toss-ups reduced to 110 (still in 9 states, though a different mix), Obama up slightly to 237, and Romney up from 181 to 191, who now needs to win almost 72 percent of the remaining toss-up electoral college votes to win, according to the analysis.

In 2008 John McCain lost to Barack Obama because McCain lost in George Bush's red states of Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia (112 electoral college votes) by 1.4 million votes.

A Southern/Western strategy concentrating on Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada would still leave Romney 7 electoral college votes short of 270 if he wins the currently projected 191 in addition.

Romney losing Florida would necessitate winning the 191 plus every one of the states in the toss-up category today, including New Hampshire, hence the recent Medicare emphasis in Florida where many seniors live.

An Eastern Time Zone strategy winning Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, New Hampshire and Ohio in addition to the 191 would give Romney exactly 270.

Rep. Paul Ryan Rejects Conservatism For The Government Dependency Culture

Quoted here:

"When I think of Medicare, it's not just a program, it's not just a bunch of numbers, it's what my mom relies on, it's what my grandma had."

"Medicare was there for our family, for my grandma when we needed it then. And Medicare is there for my mom, when she needs it now. And we have to keep that guarantee."

"But in order to make sure that we can guarantee that promise for my mom's generation, for those baby boomers who are retiring every day, we must reform it for my generation."

Another Voice Saying Rep. Paul Ryan Isn't Serious About Cutting Spending

Peter Schiff:

So what was the Ryan Budget's radical departure from the status quo that has caused such uproar? If enacted today, the Ryan budget would so drastically upend the fiscal picture that the U.S. federal budget would come into balance in just... wait for it.... 27 years! This is because the Ryan budget doesn't actually cut anything. At no point in Ryan's decades long budget timeline does he ever suggest that the government spend less than it had the year before. He doesn't touch a penny in current Social Security or Medicare outlays, nor in the bloated defense budget. His apocalypse inducing departure comes from trying to limit the rate of increase in federal spending to "just" 3.1% annually. This is below the 4.3% rate of increase that is currently baked into the budget, and farther below what we would likely see if Obama's priorities were adopted.

Read the whole thing here.

Ryan Is No Conservative: He Voted For The Biggest Entitlement Program Since The 1960s

Rep. Paul Ryan, Republican from Wisconsin, Gov. Romney's VP nominee, is a huge friend of the welfare state and is no conservative.

Not only did he vote to bail out the banks and everyone else in 2008, in 2003 he voted for the largest expansion of government entitlement since the 1960s when he said "Yes" to Drugs For Seniors.

If he has any principles, they don't animate his votes when it's time to roll back liberalism. Instead, he rolls with liberalism when push comes to shove. Which is why Romney picked him. A man after his own heart he is.

Conservatives don't say "Yes" to Mitt Romney. Conservatives say what they said in South Carolina:

WE DESPISE MITT ROMNEY TO THE VERY CORE OF OUR BEING.

The Left's True Objective Is Higher Taxes On Middle Class: Citizen Cohn Admits It

Say whatever you want about Romney's tax numbers not adding up, the objective of the left in America is to raise taxes on the middle class, precisely because government spending as projected going forward cannot be paid for without it.

So Jonathan Cohn, here:

To reiterate something I've said before, I happen to support higher taxes for the middle class, at least over the long term, assuming they are part of a balanced deficit reduction approach that preserves Medicare, Social Security, and other critical programs. In an ideal world, Obama would make a case for precisely that sort of agenda, because without those higher taxes (above and beyond taxing the rich, as Obama has proposed) government won't have enough money to fund future spending obligations. But it's hard to fault Obama for not presenting the full facts about fiscal tradeoffs when the other side has shown repeatedly that it doesn't care about facts at all.

Conservatives need to make the point that government spending even at Rep. Paul Ryan levels is unaffordable without tax hikes on the middle class.

All the talk in the Republican Party about broadening the tax base is really about eliminating tax loss expenditures in order to raise revenues. In other words, taking away the deductibility of mortgage interest expenses, state and local income tax expenses, and the like. If it walks like a tax increase and talks like a tax increase, it's a tax increase, whether it's brought to you by the Gang of Six, the Gang of Twelve, or Mitt Romney.

The Stupid Party is about to vote for this again and the left knows it, which is why they are so happy. People like Jonathan Cohn know a Romney presidency will help achieve their goal, so it really doesn't matter if Obama loses. Unless conservatives take over the Republican National Convention and give the nomination to someone who will actually protect the middle class, taxes on the 66 percent of America which earns less than $100K per year are going up, up, up.

Conservatives need to remember what happened last time we fell for this gimmickry. Ronald Reagan agreed to eliminate deductibility of consumer interest in the 1986 tax reform in exchange for lower rates. We lost that deductibility and got the lower rates, but when Democrat Bill Clinton raised taxes in 1993, we didn't get back the deductibility. The same thing will happen again. We'll sacrifice deductibility of something else in exchange for lower tax rates, which liberals later will succeed in raising the next time they have power, putting the middle class even farther behind than it is now.

We didn't get back the deductibility lost in 1986 under George Bush in 2001, and we won't in future if we answer the siren call of broadening the tax base again.

Unfunded Liabilities Of State, Local Governments Could Be $4 Trillion Or More

That's what I read in the new State Budget Crisis Task Force Report, here:

Under current assumptions used by actuaries to value liabilities, state and local government pensions are underfunded by approximately $1 trillion. Economists and financial analysts generally believe that liabilities should be valued using “low risk” discount rates, which would lead to much higher liability estimates. Under this approach, estimated unfunded pension liabilities are $3 trillion or more. ...

Most state and local governments have promised, in addition to pensions, substantial retirement health care benefits to their workforces. These benefits have barely any funding. In addition to health care, sometimes there are other benefits provided in retirement, such as life insurance; in combination all of these are known as “Other Post-Employment Benefits” (OPEB). Until the Governmental Accounting Standards Board in 2004 issued standards requiring disclosure, governments did not regularly make these liabilities public. ...

State-administered OPEB plans have unfunded liabilities of more than $600 billion. Similar liabilities for locally administered plans are likely even larger, since local workforces are almost three times as large as state workforces. The combined state and local government liabilities are likely to be well above $1 trillion. If the federal government increases the eligibility age for Medicare, OPEB liabilities could increase further, because state and local government retiree health plans generally provide substantial benefits for the transition period between retirement (usually under age 65) and eligibility for Medicare.

Most governments fund these benefits on a pay-as-you-go basis rather than contributing to a funded plan.

The New York Times discusses the report, as reproduced here.

Municipal bond investors will want to weigh seriously this language from the report:

Recently, the number of municipal bond downgrades for governments has outnumbered upgrades. States are finding it difficult to ignore their local governments’ increasing fiscal distress. A few states, including North Carolina, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, have well-established, effective procedures for monitoring and assisting local governments before they encounter acute fiscal distress . . .. More recently, Michigan has established significantly expanded oversight procedures. But most states wait until local governments approach fiscal insolvency or seek aid from the state before intervening. There appears to be growing recognition in the financial community and the states themselves that state monitoring, supervision, and early state involvement in solving local government fiscal problems is sound policy for both levels of government. But it will require skilled political leadership at the state level to overcome local government resistance to what localities often regard as intrusions on their right to self-government.

Ronald Reagan Was No Conservative: He's Responsible For The Healthcare Mess

Treatment regardless of ability to pay is all his fault, along with a number of other things:

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is a U.S. Act of Congress passed in 1986 as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). It requires hospitals to provide care to anyone needing emergency healthcare treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay. There are no reimbursement provisions. Participating hospitals may only transfer or discharge patients needing emergency treatment under their own informed consent, after stabilization, or when their condition requires transfer to a hospital better equipped to administer the treatment.

EMTALA applies to "participating hospitals." The statute defines "participating hospitals" as those that accept payment from the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) under the Medicare program. However, in practical terms, EMTALA applies to virtually all hospitals in the U.S., with the exception of the Shriners Hospitals for Children, Indian Health Service hospitals, and Veterans Affairs hospitals. The combined payments of Medicare and Medicaid, $602 billion in 2004, or roughly 44% of all medical expenditures in the U.S., make not participating in EMTALA impractical for nearly all hospitals. EMTALA's provisions apply to all patients, and not just to Medicare patients.

Bill Clinton's Middle Class Tax Increase Meant the Rich Got a Bigger Piece of the Pie

Mark Perry seems to have missed a good story.

He's been talking recently about how the income share of the top 20 percent has been FLAT since 1994, as shown here.

What's more interesting, however, is the oddity that his charts show that the income share of the top 20 percent experienced a pronounced spike up between 1992 and 1994, which includes the first two years of the Bill Clinton administration.

Why did the richer get a bigger share of the income pie after Bill Clinton raised taxes on them in 1993?

Top marginal income tax rates had declined from 38.5 percent in 1987 to 28 percent in 1988, as shown here, and in 1991 another higher rate of 31 percent was added under Bush 41. But under Clinton in 1993 an additional marginal rate of 39.6 percent was added with the help of the Democrat controlled Congress. So higher marginal income tax rates prevailed, but the richer nevertheless got a bigger share of the income.

That doesn't make any sense. How did that happen?

The answer is Clinton's middle class tax increases.

For one thing, the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes was raised. That bumped up the limit on incomes on which the tax was levied. A tax increase for all wage earners. For another thing, the cap on income subject to Medicare taxes was removed. That meant no ordinary income could escape the tax any longer. Another huge tax increase. And thirdly, Social Security income beyond 50 percent up to 85 percent became subject to income taxation. Anyone taking Social Security income felt this, not just the rich. Another huge tax increase.

These were massive tax increases on wage earners, as opposed to those richer Americans who could take their income differently if need be, often in the form of capital gains, or from tax-free municipal bonds, or from tax shelters.

The net effect of the Clinton tax increase was that just about everyone in the four quintiles below the top 20 percent lost ground on income, which meant that the rich appeared to spike up in their share of the income pie. The regimentation in law of the tax increases on everyone altered and froze the aggregate shares of the income pie going forward, hence the flatness of those charts since 1994.

The truth was that Clinton's tax increase on the richer, who ended up shifting income to avoid taxation, masked a massive tax increase on everyone else, who couldn't shift their income if they wanted to, and they've experienced a smaller bite of the income pie ever since.

That's what expanding the tax base in tandem with raising rates will do.

Republicans, take note.

Herman Cain Comes Closest to a True Flat Tax

So says Stephen Moore for The Wall Street Journal, here, pointing out that FICA taxes do go in the shredder under Cain's 999 plan:

But the candidate who comes closest to a true flat tax is Herman Cain, the former Godfather's Pizza CEO. His argument for a "9-9-9" plan puts the current income and payroll taxes in the shredder and replaces them with a 9% personal income tax with no deductions, a 9% net business income tax, and a 9% national sales tax.

That would be rocket fuel for the economy, though the combination of a federal sales tax and an income tax is a big worry. But at least Mr. Cain has super-sized solutions to an economy with super-sized problems.

Solution? In 2008 Cain's 999 plan would have meant 900 billion fewer dollars in receipts for federal social insurance. I don't see how he could make up that difference, let alone an additional $300+ billion he comes up short compared to what was actually collected in 2008.

It looks more like a stealth plan to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare by ignoring it.

• A 9 percent tax on $8.50 trillion in adjusted gross incomes in 2008 comes to $765 billion (actual collected in 2008 was $1.03 trillion).

This is actually a huge tax cut on the wealthy and a big tax increase on everyone else. And does Cain intend to do away with deductions even for IRAs and 401Ks? If so that AGI number would be much higher, and the tax revenue higher, along with your tax bill. At least the billionaire will pay the same rate as the janitor, as Obama now famously says he wants.

• A 9 percent tax on $1.25 trillion in corporate profits comes to $113 billion (actual collected was $309 billion).

This is a huge tax cut on business, which is why Stephen Moore calls Cain's plan rocket fuel.

• A 9 percent tax on $4.40 trillion in total retail and food service consumer spending in 2008 comes to $396 billion. 

Does Cain intend this to be wider in scope than indicated? It is often said that 70 percent of the economy is consumer spending. In a $15 trillion economy, that's $10.5 trillion. A 9 percent tax on that would boost the receipts of a national sales tax to $945 billion.

But all told, Cain's plan would have collected only $1.274 trillion in federal revenue for 2008 when the government actually collected $2.5 trillion and still ran a deficit of close to $400 billion anyway.

We're currently spending $3.8 trillion in this country under Obama, $1 trillion more than in 2008. The 999 plan doesn't look up to the task.

'Social Security's Long-Term Shortfall Grows About $1.2 Trillion Annually'

And by "long-term" the meaning is about 18 years.

So said Dennis Cauchon late in the spring for USA Today, here:

Social Security's long-term shortfall grows about $1.2 trillion annually — a sign of an imbalance between the number of young workers and older beneficiaries, according to the Social Security trustees' annual reports. The $21.4 trillion unfunded liability represents the difference between all taxes that will be paid and all benefits received over the lifetimes of everyone in the system now — workers and beneficiaries alike. This is the measure corporations and insurance companies use to assess financial adequacy of their retirement programs.

What this means is that this year and every year for the next two decades or so social security will be in the red annually to the tune of about $1.2 trillion, and government will have to borrow the funds to pay for that annual deficit spending.

Put another way, the social security scheme is a Ponzi scheme writ large. The pool of early fools putting up the dough for the few early, and very lucky, investors has now dried up so much that the program will run in deficit mode annually going forward, just like the rest of government has for years.

This will add significantly to the national debt, driving up interest payments on that debt and severely crimping the government's other spending options without massive injections of new revenues, aka higher taxes on the people.

In the short term, the $2.6 trillion in the social security trust fund (intragovernmental debt) would disappear in relatively short order under this analysis, say roughly in just over two years from now, except that the monies are invested in a mix of shorter and longer US Treasury securities which will reach maturity over a more or less longer period of time and thus force the program into deficit much sooner because redemptions are barred, compounding the pressure on the availability of funds for current year government spending.

Obama Talks Again of 'Balanced Approach' Meaning New Taxes, Market Tanks

CBS News reported here at 2:36 pm on the president's remarks made today after the lunch hour:

Mr. Obama noted that S and P attributed its downgrade in part to doubts about the U.S. political system's ability to act to reign in the nation's ballooning deficit and debt, and called for a "balanced approach" to deficit reduction - one that includes both tax increases on high earners and "modest adjustments" to Medicare and other health care programs.

At 1:47 pm the S and P 500 was down 56 points. At 2:18 pm it was down 67 points. By the close it stood at nearly 80 points down for the day:

Another Voice Wrongly Claiming 'The Money is in the Middle'

Brian Wesbury at The DC, here:

What most people don’t realize is that the U.S. has gorged so much (boosting spending from roughly 18% of GDP in 2000 to 24% of GDP today), that the only way to pay for it is to tax the middle class. ...

The money is in the middle. And the only way our politicians can get it is to follow Europe’s lead and institute a national sales tax or Value-Added Tax (VAT). This is the elephant in the room that is never talked about. Those who are using the debt ceiling in an attempt to cut spending are actually saving the middle class from tax hikes — not the millionaires and billionaires.


It's a frequently repeated claim that the money is in the middle, but it's just not true, no matter how often  it is said.

If all the (reported) income in America were poured into a giant hour glass, you'd have to start it and wait about twenty minutes to begin to visualize how all the money is actually distributed.

A snapshot taken at that moment would show $5.7 trillion in adjusted gross income still in the top, and $2.8 trillion in AGI in the bottom. The kicker is that 35 million tax returns split what's on top, while the remaining 105 million tax returns, 75 percent of the total, divvy up what's on the bottom.

The money's definitely not "in the middle."

It's hard to get agreement on what's middle class in America, especially since it is a conceit of our society that everyone is middle class. The rich aspire down to it to escape notice, the poor up to it to escape the indignities of dependence.

But no matter what smoke anyone tries to blow up your bottom, the biggest single pile of money remains with the top 25 percent:

Top 10 percent = 14 million tax returns (10 percent of the total) = $3.9 trillion in AGI
The next 25-10 percent = 21 million tax returns (15 percent of the total) = $1.8 trillion in AGI

The next 50-25 percent = 35 million tax returns (25 percent of the total) = $1.7 trillion in AGI
The bottom 50 percent = 70 million tax returns (50 percent of the total) = $1.1 trillion in AGI.

It's ridiculous to think that a VAT tax will somehow generate huge piles of new tax revenue on the backs of the middle class.  The VAT will hurt them just like Social Security and Medicare taxes hurt them because it's regressive, not because they have a lot of untapped money they're going to be parting with.

Considering how much tax evasion there already is in America of the unreported income variety, variously estimated (here at $2 trillion, resulting in a tax gap of $500 billion), a VAT will fail simply because it will drive more and more of the economy underground where cash is king and credit cards, checks, invoices and receipts are anathema. Think of it as the inverse of how the rich escape high rates of taxation, for example by shifting to capital gains away from ordinary income. A quicker way to become Greece I cannot think of.

Setting money free to move around openly is the key to an effective tax policy. But bringing it out into the open where it can be captured and taxed depends on perceptions of fairness.

As long as too many people think some people should pay taxes at a higher rate just because they have more, we're not going to get there. 

Will Government Be Short $134 Billion In August as Bob Brinker Claims Today?

He made the claim on his radio show, "Money Talk." See the recap here.

Others, as for example here, maintain there's plenty of cash flow to pay for everything critical both in law and for creditworthiness:

"The Daily Treasury Statement for June 30—which any American, including the president, can look up on the U.S. Treasury Department’s website at this link—says the government took in $196.994 billion in revenue during the month ... more than enough to pay not only all Social Security benefits and veterans benefits and programs for the month, but also, on top of that, the interest on the federal debt, Medicare, Medicaid, the Indian Health Service, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, all federal workers’ salaries, federal workers’ insurance benefits, Justice Department programs, and Defense Department venders.

"The combined costs for all of these federal expenditures in June was $195.502 billion.

"That means that out of the federal government’s $196.994 billion in revenue in June, the government would have had a surplus of $1.492 billion after it had paid the interest on the national debt, plus all Social Security benefits, veterans’ benefits, veterans’ programs, Medicare, Medicaid, the Indian Health Service, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, federal workers’ salaries, federal workers’ insurance benefits, Justice Department programs, and Defense Department vend[o]rs."


Isn't it the potential of cutting off the cash cow for extraneous government spending which really has liberals like Brinker in a fit? After all, he called Senator Harry "The War is Lost" Reid of Nevada "a good man" more than once on his show. Brinker loves the guy.

How is it that Brinker can assert, as he did today, that advocating against raising the debt ceiling, as certain Republicans are doing presently, disqualifies one for the presidency when Obama actually voted against raising the debt ceiling in 2006, along with all the rest of his Democrat colleagues in the Senate? The Roll Call vote is here.

The minions of liberals in the federal workforce might actually have to THINK going forward and prove their competence for their exorbitant salaries by PRIORITIZING spending for a change if Republicans muster the courage to force them TO DO THEIR JOBS and leave the debt ceiling where it is. Raising the debt ceiling is the true default: It means you can't pay your bills without more borrowing.

Maybe Bob Brinker is afraid the Democrats are not really up to it. They certainly haven't been in the past. We're still waiting for a budget proposal from the Senate. The Senate under Reid hasn't passed one in over two years.

'If Obama Cuts Medicare or Social Security, I'll Vote Communist'

Chicagoan Mary Ellen . . . Croteau was asked if she would still vote for Obama, "No I won't . . .. Not if he cuts Medicare and Social Security. I'm 61. I'm looking at retirement in a few years."

". . . I will vote for someone. Whether it's a Green candidate, whether it's a Communist, I don't care. Somebody who's going to stand up for people. This is disgusting. [Obama] has given away everything he pledged to stand for."

Read the full entry here.

Treasury's Own Figures Show It Has Plenty of Cash Flow To Pay Seniors

[A]ccording to the Daily Treasury Statements published by the U.S. Treasury Department, the ongoing flow of federal tax revenue since the Treasury declared that it had hit the debt limit on May 16 has been more than sufficient to cover the combined costs of federal spending on interest payments, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the Veterans Affairs department and federal workers wages and insurance benefits (including wages and insurance benefits for military personnel).

All the figures follow at the link here.

Liberal Bizarro World Bait and Switch Tax Math

Just when I thought the headline "Payroll tax cuts rob the poor to feed the rich" meant that I was going to read a fine story by a liberal lamenting how the richest Americans, everyone making about $106,800 a year and "to infinity and beyond," don't pay Social Security taxes on all their income, I was met with this instead, that the present and proposed cuts in the payroll tax do nothing but finance the extension of the Bush tax cuts which, evidently, benefit only the rich:

Specifically, I'm talking about a new proposal to rob from Social Security to fund a continuing tax break for people who don't need Social Security — the wealthy. ...

It started back in December, when President Obama capitulated to the GOP on a budget deal by cutting the payroll tax, which funds Social Security. Advocates for the program pointed out then the shortcomings of this approach: It was targeted inefficiently and unfairly, skewing to the upper middle class and hurting lower-income families in comparison with the Making Work Pay tax credit it replaced.

Nevermind that the ten year Bush tax cut regime is responsible for the sorry state of affairs in which we presently find ourselves, with over 45 percent of the population paying nothing in federal income taxes, and a sizeable minority actually enjoying a negative tax rate whereby they receive government welfare through the tax code.

Nevermind that the latter is specifically designed as a subsidy to offset the regressivity of Social Security taxes on the poorest wage earners.

And nevermind that the future solvency of Social Security isn't really front and center in the author's mind, either.

What is Michael Hiltzik's greatest fear?

[O]nce you've cut a tax, it's ever harder to restore it.

You mean like abolishing the Bush tax cuts and thereby raising taxes on the poor by 50 percent?

I'll say.

Or how about this one?

In 2008, the top 14 million tax returns had AGIs totaling $3.8 trillion. If a liberal were really serious, he'd be advocating taxing all this income to make not just Social Security solvent, but Medicare, too. At 6.2 percent, we're talking an extra $236 billion of foregone tax revenue annually.

As tax loss expenditures go, it's the largest one I know of, by a long shot. But try getting people to focus on that one instead of my measly mortgage interest deduction, a tax loss expenditure of $88 billion.

Liberals are so caring.

States of Disaster Depended on $316 Billion of Federal Stimulus in Last Fiscal Year

And that help for current operations is coming to an abrupt end as the new fiscal year begins on July 1.

The Associated Press reports, adding these staggering numbers on top of the current budget data:

The 50 states have a combined $689.5 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and $418 billion in retiree health care obligations.

Read the complete details here.

ObamaCare, Medicare, and Social Security aren't the only back-breakers out there. The individual states have plenty of their own which they can't pay for, either. The whole country is stuck on stupid spending.