Stone Cupid Real

The Real Ron Paul.

Can you honestly support his positions on the Kyoto Protocol and ANWR, plus anti-choice, pro-gun, anti-immigrant? I’d like to see this man stopped, frankly.

By Peter Kaplan
Reuters

Tuesday 18 December 2007

Washington - The Federal Communications Commission narrowly approved on Tuesday a loosening of media ownership restrictions in the 20 biggest U.S. cities, despite objections from consumer groups and a threat by some U.S. senators to revoke the action.

The FCC voted 3-2, along party lines, to ease the 32-year-old ban on ownership of a newspaper and broadcast outlet in a single market.

In addition, the FCC action exempted 36 newspaper-broadcast ownership combinations that had been grandfathered under the previous rule. It also gave exemptions to six combinations that were pending before the agency.

The FCC's Republican chairman, Kevin Martin, called the move a "relatively minimal loosening of the ban" and said it "may help to forestall the erosion in local news coverage."

The vote came over the objections of the FCC's two Democratic commissioners and in the face of opposition from lawmakers in Congress.

The FCC action provoked an immediate rebuke from the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan.

Dingell said he was "greatly displeased" that Martin had gone ahead with the vote despite calls for him to take more time to study the issue.

"Despite specific bipartisan and bicameral opposition, the Federal Communications Commission acted arrogantly and brazenly today to weaken the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership ban," he said in a statement.

Before the FCC vote, Democrats on the commission reiterated past criticism that easing the ownership rule will lead to more consolidation in the industry, eliminate independent voices and degrade local news coverage.

They also said it created a loophole that would let media owners combine newspapers and broadcast outlets in many smaller markets around the United States, not just the top 20 cities.

"The FCC has never attempted such a brazen act of defiance against Congress," said Democratic Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. "The law does not say we are to serve those who seek to profit by using the public airwaves.

Existing FCC rules ban ownership of a newspaper, and a television or radio station in the same market, unless the FCC grants a waiver.

The vote came a day after a group of 25 senators sent a letter to Martin warning they would "move legislation to revoke the rule and nullify the vote" if the FCC went ahead with the ownership rule changes.

Ms. Feinstein,
I’m really disappointed in the lack of spine in the democratic Senate to do what you were voted in to do: End the Wars, and restore our rights. I’ve lost respect for the lot of you, but especially you, who have been in a unique position to help make changes in the judiciary and the attorney general’s office. Shame on you. As I’ve told you recently, you no longer have my support or my vote. I’m thoroughly disgusted.
--
Yours Truly,

Julie


Julie Christensen

Ojai, CA

PS: Thank goodness for Senator Dodd's effort to restore sanity and restraint in this matter. (see below) If you have any decency left in you, please follow that lead and strike the immunity measure down. The media in this country has been in collusion with these illegal occupations and oil- and power-grabs from the beginning!
By the way, can't you admit that the legislative branch has been in collusion as well, since all these illegal, unconstitutional, and morally bankrupt crimes have been made "legal" for the Executive Branch with the neglect of your elected body of colleagues, madam?
-J



From:
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:43:05 -0500
To:
Conversation: U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein responding to your message
Subject: U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein responding to your message




Dear Ms. Christensen:


Thank you for writing regarding the Bush Administration's request for legislation that would provide liability relief for telecommunications companies that are alleged to have provided assistance to the National Security Agency after September 11, 2001. I appreciate your thoughts on this topic, and welcome the opportunity to respond.



The Senate Intelligence Committee approved a bill on October 18th amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) by a vote of 13-2. That bill, among many provisions, would provide immunity for such companies if they were specifically requested or directed to provide assistance to the government.



The Intelligence Committee's report on the bill includes declassified text stating that the Executive branch provided letters to electronic communication service providers at regular intervals. These letters all directed or requested assistance and noted that the assistance was authorized by the President and was legal. The Committee's report can be found at http://intelligence.senate.gov/071025/report.pdf .



I voted for the FISA legislation that passed out of the Intelligence Committee by a bipartisan vote of 13-2. The Senate Judiciary Committee did not take action on the portions of the bill dealing with immunity. The bill is now scheduled to go to the Senate floor. I am keeping an open mind to whether some other legislative approach besides immunity would be best.



Rest assured that I will make every effort to ensure that new FISA legislation will protect the privacy rights of all Americans without restricting the intelligence community's ability to protect us from attack.



Again, thank you for writing. I hope that you will continue to write on matters of importance to you. Should you have any further comments or questions, please feel free to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.


Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator


Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/

Dodd Wins Battle in Spy Bill Standoff
By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report

Tuesday 18 December 2007

After a full day of debate on Monday, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) prevailed in his effort to halt an Intelligence Committee bill that included legal immunity for telecommunication companies that may have broken the law in cooperating with the Bush administration's warrantless spying programs.

Ten hours of deadlock was enough for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada), the Senate Majority Leader. After hearing repeated speeches on the issue, Reid announced he had decided to hold off further consideration of the bill and to move on to other matters.

"Today we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not tolerate his abuse of power and veil of secrecy," Dodd said after Reid announced his decision to postpone the debate.

Dodd had threatened to stand and filibuster S.2248, a bill drafted by the Senate Intelligence Committee that would have changed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to make permanent greatly expanded executive branch spying powers and cutoff lawsuits against telecoms who were involved in spying.

Predictions that opponents of the bill would concede defeat were proved premature. The threatened filibuster was enough to put off consideration of any FISA update bill until January. The Senate faces multiple challenges in the days before the winter recess including spending packages for domestic programs and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With a handful of amendments to the FISA bill already on the table and others being considered, and with veteran Senators lining up with Dodd, the protracted fight will be saved for the next Congressional session.

Dodd said he remains committed to the fight and he plans to block any attempt to give immunity to telecom companies. "Over the coming weeks I will fight to build support for my amendment to strip immunity from the FISA legislation when the Senate once again considers this matter early next year. I will continue to use every parliamentary tool at my disposal to ensure that the Senate does not enact legal protections to shield from law suits those who violated the privacy rights of our citizens," Dodd said.

Senate rules allow a single Senator to stop proceedings and hold the floor in order to block a vote on pending legislation. This technique, called a filibuster, can only be stopped if 60 Senators vote to end debate. Because there were numerous amendments to be considered on the FISA bill, ending a determined filibuster would have been a long and drawn out process, and would have split an already fragile Democratic majority in the Senate.

A group of Democrats, supported Dodd, including Senators Barbara Boxer (California), Russ Feingold (Wisconsin), Patrick Leahy (Vermont), Ron Wyden (Oregon), Edward Kennedy (Massachusetts) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio), who took turns slamming the Intelligence Committee version of the bill for failing to protect civil liberties and for letting telecoms off the hook for their potentially illegal cooperation with the Bush administration. These Senators faced opposition from Republicans and members of their own party, who argued the Intelligence Committee bill was a compromise bill with bipartisan support and telecom immunity was needed to ensure future cooperation with the government intelligence agencies.

The debate in Congress over spy powers and telecom immunity has been smoldering since the Democrats took control of both the House and Senate in January, flaring up time and again as information about the Bush administration's surveillance activities leaked out. Just before the summer recess, administration officials, including the Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, demanded Congress pass legislation to ease spying restrictions and grant the executive branch expanded powers. A controversial bill that accomplished the administration's goals, the Protect America Act, was rushed through Congress amid warnings of a terrorism threat aimed at Washington, DC. That bill is set to expire in February.

Both the Senate and House have set out to craft a spying bill that would update FISA while restoring checks and balances that were done away with by the Protect America Act. The Bush administration has said any FISA legislation passed must include retroactive immunity for telecoms that participated in past surveillance efforts.

Two separate bills were developed by Senate Committees, one from the Intelligence committee and one from the Judiciary committee. The Intelligence committee bill included retroactive immunity for telecoms. The bill from the Judiciary committee made significant alterations to the Intelligence committee bill, including provisions to strengthen Congressional and Judicial oversight of surveillance. The Judiciary committee bill did not include immunity for telecoms, in part, because the committee ran out of time before considering the hotly contested issue.

One major complaint made by Senators speaking against the immunity provision on Monday was the denial of access to classified letters sent by the Bush administration to the telecoms asking for their cooperation in surveillance. Apparently, the letters lay out the justification for the ongoing cooperation with the surveillance program and were issued in place of a FISA warrant.

Only Senators on the Intelligence committee have been given access to these letters.

Senator Wyden, a member of the Intelligence committee, said that, in his opinion, the letters do not justify the claims of the administration. "I believe that a Senator that was allowed to read these materials, would be astounded to see how flimsy the government's case is on behalf of the warrantless wiretapping program," Wyden said on the Senate floor.

Reid has requested the Bush administration allow the entire Senate to review these letters before they vote on a future FISA update.

From the Associated Press
3:22 PM PST, December 12, 2007
WASHINGTON -- President Bush vetoed legislation today that would have expanded government-provided health insurance for children, his second slap-down of a bipartisan effort in Congress to dramatically increase funding for the popular program.

It was Bush's seventh veto in seven years -- all but one coming since Democrats took control of Congress in January. Today was the deadline for Bush to act or let the bill become law. The president also vetoed an earlier, similar bill expanding the health insurance program.

Bush vetoed the bill in private.

In a statement notifying Congress of his decision, Bush said the bill was unacceptable because -- like the first one -- it allows adults into the program, would cover people in families with incomes above the U.S. median and raises taxes.

"This bill does not put poor children first, and it moves our country's health care system in the wrong direction," Bush's statement said. "Ultimately, our nation's goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage, not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage."

Bush urged Congress to extend the program at its current funding level before lawmakers leave Washington for their holiday break.

In fact, congressional leaders had already said earlier Wednesday that they now will try only to extend the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, well into 2008 in basically its current form. Their comments signaled that they have given up efforts to substantially expand the program.

The bill passed the Democratic-controlled Senate by a veto-proof margin, but the same was not true in the House. Even after the bill was approved, negotiations continued to find a compromise version that would attract enough Republican lawmakers to override Bush's expected veto. A two-thirds vote in both chambers is required to override a presidential veto.

But that effort was unsuccessful.

The bill Bush vetoed would have increased federal funding for SCHIP by $35 billion over five years, to add an estimated 4 million people to the program that provides insurance coverage for children from families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford private insurance. The joint federal-state program currently provides benefits to roughly 6 million people, mostly children.

A major point of contention with the White House was Bush's demand that nearly all poor children eligible for the program be found and enrolled before any in slightly higher-income families could be covered. He originally proposed adding $5 billion to the program over five years but later said he was willing to go higher as long as his conditions were met.

The president also has opposed using an increased tobacco tax to fund the program expansion. The bill includes a 61-cent rise on a package of cigarettes.

Bush's veto in early October of a similar bill was narrowly upheld by the House.

But such votes are uncomfortable for GOP lawmakers. It is a popular program with the public, making some Republicans wary of sticking with Bush on such an issue with the 2008 elections looming. Of the 43 million people nationwide who lack health insurance, more than 6 million are under 18 years old. That's more than 9 percent of all children.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the House will take up the extension question Thursday in a bill that also will make adjustments to Medicare.

"We'll obviously need to put additional money" into the children's health insurance program, Hoyer said, because several states say they will have to remove recipients from their rolls if the current funding level continues into next year.

Hoyer declined to say how much new money would go into the program or how long it might be extended. In the past, top Democrats have suggested they might extend the program until September or October, allowing them to reconsider it shortly before the 2008 elections.

Leading up to Bush's quiet late-afternoon action, the White House and Democratic leaders sought the upper hand with the public -- with each blaming the other for causing the stalemate and being unwilling to give ground.

In his veto statement, Bush said: "The leadership in the Congress has refused to meet with my administration's representatives." White House press secretary Dana Perino said that "even on a staff level, we weren't invited to negotiate."

"They've instead been intransigent and sent us two bills that they knew he wouldn't sign," she scoffed.

Not so, said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

For instance, Reid approached Bush to ask for negotiations during a ceremony for the Dalai Lama in the Capitol Rotunda in mid-October, a couple of weeks after Bush's first SCHIP veto, he said. The president told Reid, "No, I'm not moving, meet with my staff," Reid said at the time.

"The fact is that Senator Reid and Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi asked to meet with the president to discuss giving children the health care they need, and he blew them off by telling them to talk to his staff," Manley said before the veto. "Now he's going to veto it for a second time without negotiating once."

By Jeremy Scahill
The Nation

24 December 2007 Issue

Gunning down seventeen Iraqi civilians in an incident the military has labeled "criminal." Multiple Congressional investigations. A federal grand jury. Allegations of illegal arms smuggling. Wrongful death lawsuits brought by families of dead employees and US soldiers. A federal lawsuit alleging war crimes. Charges of steroid use by trigger-happy mercenaries. Allegations of "significant tax evasion." The US-installed government in Iraq labeling its forces "murderers." With a new scandal breaking practically every day, one would think Blackwater security would be on the ropes, facing a corporate meltdown or even a total wipeout. But it seems that business for the company has never been better, as it continues to pull in major federal contracts. And its public demeanor grows bolder and cockier by the day.

Rather than hiding out and hoping for the scandals to fade, the Bush Administration's preferred mercenary company has launched a major rebranding campaign, changing its name to Blackwater Worldwide and softening its logo: once a bear paw in the site of a sniper scope, it's now a bear claw wrapped in two half ovals - sort of like the outline of a globe with a United Nations feel. Its website boasts of a corporate vision "guided by integrity, innovation, and a desire for a safer world." Blackwater mercenaries are now referred to as "global stabilization professionals." Blackwater's 38-year-old owner, Erik Prince, was No. 11 in Details magazine's "Power 50," the men "who control your viewing patterns, your buying habits, your anxieties, your lust.... the people who have taken over the space in your head."

In one of the company's most bizarre recent actions, on December 1 Blackwater paratroopers staged a dramatic aerial landing, complete with Blackwater flags and parachutes - not in Baghdad or Kabul but in San Diego at Qualcomm Stadium during the halftime show at the San Diego State/BYU football game. The location was interesting, given that Blackwater is fighting fierce local opposition to its attempt to open a new camp - Blackwater West - on 824 acres in the small rural community of Potrero, just outside San Diego. Blackwater's parachute squad plans to land at the Armed Forces Bowl in Texas this month and the Virginia Gold Cup in May. The company recently sponsored a NASCAR racer, and it has teamed up with gun manufacturer Sig Sauer to create a Blackwater Special Edition full-sized 9-millimeter pistol with the company logo on the grip. It comes with a Limited Lifetime Warranty. For $18, parents can purchase infant onesies with the company logo.

In recent weeks, Blackwater has indicated it might quit Iraq. "We see the security market diminishing," Prince told the Wall Street Journal in October. Yet on December 3 Blackwater posted job listings for "security specialists" and snipers as a result of its State Department diplomatic security "contract expansion." While its name may be mud in the human rights world, Blackwater has not only made big money in Iraq (about $1 billion in State Department contracts); it has secured a reputation as a company that keeps US officials alive by any means necessary. The dirty open secret in Washington is that Blackwater has done its job in Iraq, even if it has done so by valuing the lives of Iraqis much lower than those of US VIPs. That badass image will serve it well as it expands globally.

Prince promises that Blackwater "is going to be more of a full spectrum" operation. Amid the cornucopia of scandals, Blackwater is bidding for a share of a five-year, $15 billion contract with the Pentagon to "fight terrorists with drug-trade ties." Perhaps the firm will join the mercenary giant DynCorp in Colombia or Bolivia or be sent into Mexico on a "training" mission. This "war on drugs" contract would put Blackwater in the arena with the godfathers of the war business, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.

In addition to its robust business in law enforcement, military and homeland security training, Blackwater is branching out. Here are some of its current projects and initiatives:

Blackwater affiliate Greystone Ltd., registered offshore in Barbados, is an old-fashioned mercenary operation offering "personnel from the best militaries throughout the world" for hire by governments and private organizations. It also boasts of a "multi-national peacekeeping program," with forces "specializing in crowd control and less than lethal techniques and military personnel for the less stable areas of operation."

Prince's Total Intelligence Solutions, headed by three CIA veterans (among them Blackwater's number two, Cofer Black), puts CIA-type services on the open market for hire by corporations or governments.

Blackwater is launching an armored vehicle called the Grizzly, which the company characterizes as the most versatile in history. Blackwater intends to modify it to be legal for use on US highways.

Blackwater's aviation division has some forty aircraft, including turboprop planes that can be used for unorthodox landings. It has ordered a Super Tucano paramilitary plane from Brazil, which can be used in counterinsurgency operations. In August the aviation division won a $92 million contract with the Pentagon to operate flights in Central Asia.

It recently flight-tested the unmanned Polar 400 airship, which may be marketed to the Department of Homeland Security for use in monitoring the US-Mexico border and to "military, law enforcement, and non-government customers."

A fast-growing maritime division has a new, 184-foot vessel that has been fitted for potential paramilitary use.

Meanwhile, Blackwater is deep in the camp of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney...READ MORE at The Nation


 
    Gang Rape Cover-Up by US, Halliburton/KBR
    By Brian Ross, Maddy Sauer and Justin Rood
    ABC News
    Monday 10 December 2007
KBR told victim she could lose her job if she sought help after being raped, she says.
    A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.
    Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.
    "Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.
    In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave.
    "It felt like prison," says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming "20/20" investigation. "I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened."
    Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.
    "I said, 'Dad, I've been raped. I don't know what to do. I'm in this container, and I'm not able to leave,'" she said. Her father called their congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas.
    "We contacted the State Department first," Poe told ABCNews.com, "and told them of the urgency of rescuing an American citizen" - from her American employer.
    Poe says his office contacted the State Department, which quickly dispatched agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Jones' camp, where they rescued her from the container.
    According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by "several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally."
    Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by Army doctors showed she had been raped "both vaginally and anally," but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.
    A spokesperson for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security told ABCNews.com he could not comment on the matter.
    Over two years later, the Justice Department has brought no criminal charges in the matter. In fact, ABC News could not confirm any federal agency was investigating the case.
    Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.
    "It's very troubling," said Dean John Hutson of the Franklin Pierce Law Center. "The way the law presently stands, I would say that they don't have, at least in the criminal system, the opportunity for justice."
    Congressman Poe says neither the departments of State nor Justice will give him answers on the status of the Jones investigation.
    Asked what reasons the departments gave for the apparent slowness of the probes, Poe sounded frustrated.
    "There are several, I think, their excuses, why the perpetrators haven't been prosecuted," Poe told ABC News. "But I think it is the responsibility of our government, the Justice Department and the State Department, when crimes occur against American citizens overseas in Iraq, contractors that are paid by the American public, that we pursue the criminal cases as best as we possibly can and that people are prosecuted."
    Since no criminal charges have been filed, the only other option, according to Hutson, is the civil system, which is the approach that Jones is trying now. But Jones' former employer doesn't want this case to see the inside of a civil courtroom.
    KBR has moved for Jones' claim to be heard in private arbitration, instead of a public courtroom. It says her employment contract requires it.
    In arbitration, there is no public record nor transcript of the proceedings, meaning that Jones' claims would not be heard before a judge and jury. Rather, a private arbitrator hired by the corporation would decide Jones' case. In recent testimony before Congress, employment lawyer Cathy Ventrell-Mo
nsees said that Halliburton won more than 80 percent of arbitration proceedings brought against it.
    In his interview with ABC News, Rep. Poe said he sided with Jones.
    "Air things out in a public forum of a courtroom," said Rep. Poe. "That's why we have courts in the United States."
    In her lawsuit, Jones' lawyer, Todd Kelly, says KBR and Halliburton created a "boys will be boys" atmosphere at the company barracks which put her and other female employees at great risk.
    "I think that men who are there believe that they live without laws," said Kelly. "The last thing she should have expected was for her own people to turn on her."

    By Maya Schenwar
    t r u t h o u t | Report

    Tuesday 04 December 2007

    Despite the Bush administration's warnings renewed Iraq funding is immediately necessary, a November Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, obtained by Truthout, states preexisting funds can easily finance the war through February, and probably beyond.

    While the Army cites January as the deadline for replenishing funding for the "global war on terror," the CRS notes the Department of Defense (DOD) could reasonably slow its "non-readiness-related spending," stretching money transferred from the general defense budget to last another month.

    The report, published on November 9, also indicates the DOD is not reporting all available war funds. It criticizes the DOD's lack of transparency in accounting for war spending, stating the department failed to include about $45 billion in remaining funds in its estimate of how much money is left to finance the war. The monies, left over from previous years' defense budgets, "raise questions about whether additional funds are urgently needed," according to the CRS report.

    These questions come as President Bush chastises Democrats for refusing to back his 2008 war supplemental spending bill, which he calls an "emergency request."

    "Although the administration classified both requests [for 2007 and 2008] as emergency funds, much of the funding would not seem to meet the traditional definition of emergency - as an urgent and 'unforeseen, unpredictable, and unanticipated,' need," the CRS report states.

    The DOD's "incomplete" data-recording methods make it impossible to know exactly how much war money is left, and how much has been used to fund undisclosed projects, according to the report.

    The grounds were set for such a lack of disclosure: A year ago, the DOD changed its requirements for war supplemental bills, allowing them to apply generally to the "longer war on terror" instead of specifically to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other targeted operations. This expansion of the funds' targets makes it easier to request large sums of money without explaining what they will be used for.

    "This new definition appeared to open the way for including a far broader range of requirements particularly since the needs of the 'longer war' are relatively undefined," the report says.

    The prospect of funding a "longer war" became more imminent last week, when President Bush announced an agreement to negotiate a "long-term" occupation of Iraq, retaining around 50,000 troops on the ground indefinitely, according to Iraqi officials.

    The DOD's change in war supplemental requirements also makes requests for projects beyond Iraq and Afghanistan fair game, according to Matt Lewis, a fiscal policy analyst with OMB Watch.

    "They're basically opening the floodgates, saying, 'request anything you want and we'll put it in the war supplemental,'" Lewis said. "Now there's no pressure to separate the wheat from the chaff."

    Since the CRS reports in previous years admonished the administration for the murkiness of its supplemental war appropriations expenditures, allocations within the last two years' supplemental bills have been more clearly delineated, according to the report.

    However, the CRS report also notes using "emergency supplementals" may be in itself a misleading practice. A November 6 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report states that by breaking up war monies into different accounts, the DOD fuels mismanagement and unaccountability.

 Read More...

    Monday 03 December 2007

    Washington - Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen. It's expanding by about $1.4 billion a day - or nearly $1 million a minute.

    What's that mean to you?

    It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States.

    Even if you've escaped the recent housing and credit crunches and are coping with rising fuel prices, you may still be headed for economic misery, along with the rest of the country. That's because the government is fast straining resources needed to meet interest payments on the national debt, which stands at a mind-numbing $9.13 trillion.

    And like homeowners who took out adjustable-rate mortgages, the government faces the prospect of seeing this debt - now at relatively low interest rates - rolling over to higher rates, multiplying the financial pain.

    So long as somebody is willing to keep loaning the U.S. government money, the debt is largely out of sight, out of mind.

    But the interest payments keep compounding, and could in time squeeze out most other government spending - leading to sharply higher taxes or a cut in basic services like Social Security and other government benefit programs. Or all of the above.

    A major economic slowdown, as some economists suggest may be looming, could hasten the day of reckoning.

    The national debt - the total accumulation of annual budget deficits - is up from $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office in January 2001 and it will top $10 trillion sometime right before or right after he leaves in January 2009.

    That's $10,000,000,000,000.00, or one digit more than an odometer-style "national debt clock" near New York's Times Square can handle. When the privately owned automated clock was activated in 1989, the national debt was $2.7 trillion.

    It only gets worse.

    Over the next 25 years, the number of Americans aged 65 and up is expected to almost double. The work population will shrink and more and more baby boomers will be drawing Social Security and Medicare benefits, putting new demands on the government's resources.

    These guaranteed retirement and health benefit programs now make up the largest component of federal spending. Defense is next. And moving up fast in third place is interest on the national debt, which totaled $430 billion last year.

    Aggravating the debt picture: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates could cost $2.4 trillion over the next decade

    Despite vows in both parties to restrain federal spending, the national debt as a percentage of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product has grown from about 35 percent in 1975 to around 65 percent today. By historical standards, it's not proportionately as high as during World War II - when it briefly rose to 120 percent of GDP, but it's a big chunk of liability.

    "The problem is going forward," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard and Poors, a major credit-rating agency.

    "Our estimate is that the national debt will hit 350 percent of the GDP by 2050 under unchanged policy. Something has to change, because if you look at what's going to happen to expenditures for entitlement programs after us baby boomers start to retire, at the current tax rates, it doesn't work," Wyss said.

    With national elections approaching, candidates of both parties are talking about fiscal discipline and reducing the deficit and accusing the other of irresponsible spending. But the national debt itself - a legacy of overspending dating back to the American Revolution - receives only occasional mention.

    Who is loaning Washington all this money?

    Ordinary investors who buy Treasury bills, notes and U.S. savings bonds, for one. Also it is banks, pension funds, mutual fund companies and state, local and increasingly foreign governments. This accounts for about $5.1 trillion of the total and is called the "publicly held" debt. The remaining $4 trillion is owed to Social Security and other government accounts, according to the Treasury Department, which keeps figures on the national debt down to the penny on its Web site.

    Some economists liken the government's plight to consumers who spent like there was no tomorrow - only to find themselves maxed out on credit cards and having a hard time keeping up with rising interest payments.

Read more...