Tag: Budget

Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette!

There are times when this gig is so rewarding…it usually comes in the form of humor or the absurd.

A Chinese local governmental office issued a decree which stated citizens must smoke at least half a million packs of cigarettes to help in bettering the local economy.

The Chinese province of Hubei had issued this decree. All citizens who smoke cigarettes from international or non local brands would be fined. Smoking quotas were also issued to professors at Hubei regional schools.

This move will help protect Hubei’s local cigarette companies as well as fill in the budget gaps of the local administration.

China has around 350 million smokers, of which 1 million die annually from smoking related diseases.

Hubei’s local authorities have taken their recently issued decree very seriously. New ‘smoking patrol’ unit has been formed that will watch out for smokers, how much they smoke and which brands.

Ya gotta love the Chinese…they have an answer for everything.

Problems Facing The Next President

No matter who gets the nod from the voters, there are parts of the of thew whole picture that will be a thorn in the next presidents side.  But the question should be can the new president really be up to the challange?

BUDGET

The U.S. budget deficit burgeoned under the Bush administration because of several rounds of tax cuts that slashed revenue while the government pursued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost $11 billion a month.

Bush could leave his successor a record $500 billion budget deficit, compared with the $128 billion surplus he inherited when he took office in 2001.

Under Bush, the national debt has nearly doubled to $10 trillion. That requires interest payments of roughly $200 billion each year — more than any other single category of government expenditure except defense, the Social Security retirement fund and Medicare for the elderly.

With the budget already stretched, finding revenue for new spending programs or to offset further tax cuts could be especially difficult.

ECONOMY

The next president will inherit a sluggish economy hobbled by high energy prices and a housing slump, brought on in part by the Bush administration’s drive to expand home ownership.

Hard times for businesses and consumers means the government collects less tax revenue. Revenue from taxes on corporations dropped 14 percent over much of last year and tax revenue from workers’ paychecks recently has been flat, according to a research note by Goldman Sachs.

McCain has proposed a gas-tax holiday over the summer and other tax cuts to boost the economy. But he will probably have a hard time getting them through a Congress expected to remain under Democratic control.

Obama has said he might defer his proposed tax increases on the wealthy if the economic picture remains grim.

MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY

Ballooning payments to the elderly through Social Security and Medicare will pose a growing problem with the retirement of the country’s 77 million Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964.

By 2017 when a second Obama or McCain term would end, each household would have to pay an additional $2,000 a year in taxes to cover these costs, according to Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the Heritage Foundation.

Medicare, the $400 billion health-insurance program for the elderly, began paying out more than it takes in this year.

The Medicare program that pays for hospital visits is expected to go bankrupt in 2019 and a program that covers prescription drugs, added during Bush’s tenure, will increase costs as well.

These are just the major problems that will be nibbling at the butt of the new president.  Ask yourself which candidate will be capable of handling these—and there will be your vote.

Will Democrats Cave Again?

Democrats in the Congress, who came to power last year on a call to end the combat in Iraq, will soon give President George W. Bush the last war-funding bill of his presidency without any of the conditions they sought for withdrawing U.S. troops, congressional aides said on Monday

Lawmakers are arranging to send Bush $165 billion in new money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enough to last for about a year and well beyond when Bush leaves office on January 20.

A House of Representatives vote on the war-funding bill was expected this week. Anything the House passes would have to be approved by the Senate before the legislation is sent to Bush.

With the Pentagon running out of money to continue fighting the two wars, Congress is trying to approve new funds before its July 4 holiday recess.

With this bill, Congress will have written checks for more than $800 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with most of the money going to Iraq.

Since January, 2007, when Democrats took majority control of the House and Senate, they have tried to force Bush to change course in Iraq, mostly through troop withdrawal timetables and requirements that U.S. soldiers be more thoroughly trained, equipped and rested before returning to combat.

Just what did you vote for in 2006?  Whatever it was–it is not getting accomplished.