Federal Spending on Steroids

Today, the U.S. Senate approved a $1,100 billion (that’s $1.1 trillion) spending bill. The measure, a year-end package that covers about half of all federal programs for the rest of the year, goes to President Barack Obama for his signature. Included in this spending program were 5,244 earmarks for law makers’ pet projects. Relative to the overall economy, this year's spending and debt will be the largest incurred by the nation since 1946. This is after the federal government spending advanced by 8.3 percent in Quarter 3 of 2009 and 11.4 percent in Quarter 2 of 2009. As a result of this out of control spending, federal legislators will raise the debt ceiling from its current level of $12.1 trillion to $14 trillion this next week. As White House Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel recently said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Unfortunately, this rapidly increasing federal spending will create its own crisis. Ernie Goss