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The 56 Trillion Dollar Deficit | Bill Maher Interviews Fmr. Comptroller General David Walker
Bill Maher Interviews Fmr. Comptroller General David Walker about the huge deficit in America.
(CNN) -- The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act contains plenty to make lawmakers on the left and right shudder. On the right, it's the apparent abandonment of free-market principles. On the left, it's the absence of punishment for high-flying Wall Street CEO's.
Looking down the middle, what I found downright unnerving was how hard Washington struggled to pass a bill that, in reality, represents less than 1 percent of our current federal financial hole.
Don't get me wrong. Congress and the Bush Administration are to be commended for acting to relieve the credit crunch and trying to minimize any immediate, adverse effect on our economy and by consequence, on American jobs and access to credit.
The ultimate cost of the act should ring up at less than $500 billion, less than the advertised $700 billion because of anticipated proceeds from the government's sale of the assets it will acquire with the appropriated funds.
The nation's real tab, on the other hand, amounted to $53 trillion as of the end of the last fiscal year. That was the sum of our public debt; accrued civilian and military retirement benefits; unfunded, promised Social Security and Medicare benefits; and other financial obligations -- all according to the government's most recent financial statement of September 30, 2007.
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The rescue package and other bailout efforts for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and the auto industry, escalating operating deficits, compounding interest and other factors are likely to boost the tab to $56 trillion or more by the end of this calendar year.
With numbers and trends like this, you might ask, "Who will bail out America?" The answer is, no one but us!
Since we're going to have to save ourselves, recent events could hardly be called encouraging. It took an additional $100 billion in incentives -- some would call them "sweeteners;" others might call them bribes -- to get lawmakers to pass the rescue package. Regardless of what you call these incentives, ultimately the taxpayers will have to pick up the tab, with interest.
The process that was employed to achieve enactment of this bill was hardly a model of efficiency or effectiveness. The original proposal represented an over-reach and under-communication by the administration.
Neither lawmakers nor ordinary citizens had enough information to properly assess the real risks, the need for action and what an appropriate course of action might be. Furthermore, the key players allowed the legislation to be characterized as a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, which was neither an accurate nor a fair reflection of the legislation.
Passage of the credit-crunch relief provisions in the act was understandable, not just because of what risks and needed actions the Treasury and the Federal Reserve were aware of, but more importantly, because of what policymakers didn't know and eventually might have to address.
Let's face it -- the regular order in Washington is broken. We must move beyond crisis management approaches and start to address some of the key fiscal and other challenges facing this country if we want our future to be better than our past.
A good place to start would be for the presidential candidates to acknowledge our $53 trillion (and growing) federal financial hole and commit to begin to address it. Their endorsement of the need for a bipartisan fiscal future commission along the lines of the one sponsored by Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tennessee, and Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, also would make sense.
Any such commission should, at a minimum, address the need for statutory budget controls, comprehensive Social Security reform, a first round of tax reform and a first round of comprehensive health care reform. It should hold hearings both inside and beyond the Beltway. And, its recommendations should be guaranteed to receive an up-or-down vote by Congress if a super-majority of the commission's members can agree on a comprehensive proposal.
Editor's Note: David M. Walker served as comptroller general of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from 1998 to 2008. He is now president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
Our fiscal time bomb is ticking, and the time for action is now!
DAVID WALKER
Length: 361
Rating: 4.90 (225 ratings)
Tags: Maher Economy Bill Wall Street David Walker Comptroller general Bailout Deficit Iraq Taxes Tullycast 56_Trillion Bababooey Broadcatching Palin Biden Credit_Default_Swaps Dow Jones Nasdaq McCain Obama Election 2008 Alaska Wasilla Politics PNAC Feith Cheney Kristol
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DEFICIT at AFI FEST 2007 presented by Audi
DIR: Gael Garcia Bernal
SCR: Kyzza Terrazas
PROD: Pablo Cruz, Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, Luciana Kaplan
DP: Eugenio Polgovsky
ED: Alex Rodríguez
PROD DES: Mily Moreno
CAST: Luz Cipriota, Tenoch Huerta Mejía, Camila Sodi, Gael García Bernal, Ana Serradilla
Actor Gael García Bernal's directing debut is infused with an infectious, youthful energy, voyeuristically following his complex characters at a house party just outside of Mexico City.
Bourgeois, rich kid Cristobal (García Bernal) is having his friends over for a barbecue at his parents' weekend home. His younger sister (Camila Sodi) and her hippie, pill-popping friends are also staying at the house, and the clash between the two groups of friends, brother and sister, and their childhood friend who works for the family is just the beginning of the story.
Bernal uses subtle undercurrents of tension to seamlessly interlace characters, time and place. Both comic and reflective, DEFICIT is an elegant allegory for current Mexico on the brink of change. Shot in an immediate, improvisational style that emphasizes the class chasms, Bernal elicits layered performances from his young cast, proving himself to be a gifted director as well as a charismatic actor.
Length: 103
Rating: 4.60 (19 ratings)
Tags: Latin Cinema Series AFI Fest Deficit Feature Luz Cipriota Tenoch Huerta Mejía Camila Sodi Gael García Bernal Ana
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Trade Deficit Surges, Jobless Claims Remain Hig
The U.S. trade deficit soared in July to the highest level in 16 months as oil imports hit an all-time high. Meanwhile, new applications for unemployment benefits fell less than expected last week. (Sept. 10)
Length: 59
Rating: 4.80 (4 ratings)
Tags: economy trade deficit surges jobless claims remain hig
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My Smart Puppy: Catch My Drift with Deficit Dog
This is Milo and Melissa working in a winter parking lot. Milo is a "deficit dog" meaning he started his life in a feeding trial - he had never been out
and about before coming to us at 10 months of age. With work, his happy intelligent personality has shown through. One trick with such dogs - deficit or sensitive - is to teach them to look to you when anxious/distracted.
Enjoy!
Sarah Wilson
www.mysmartpuppy.com
Length: 115
Rating: 4.00 (3 ratings)
Tags: dog training shy sensitive deficit attention distraction walking on lead heel Sarah Wilson smart puppy
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Nutrition For Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD - Educational Video
The Film, "Is Your Child's Brain Starving?"
Lecture on how diet can contribute to ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) by Dr. Michael R. Lyon, MD. Shot at Mount Royal College, Calgary, Alberta. Dr. Lyon - "As the director of a medical & research centre, I have explored a variety of potential treatments to improve brain function in children and adults, without the use of drugs like Ritalin. Although I believe there is promise in certain herbal medicines and in non-drug treatments such as biofeedback, I have seen the most profound improvements in learning and behaviour through an intelligently applied nutritional program." Notes from cameraman (Gordon McDowell):
Dr. Lyon later emailed me a copy of his Power Point presentation , which I've incorporated into the video.
Director: Gordon McDowell
Producer: NA
Production Company: NA
Contact Information: Dr. Michael R. Lyon, MD is Medical and Research Director of FunctionalMedicine.Ca
Gordon McDowell created the video.
Creative Commons license: Attribution-ShareAlike.
Length: 4771
Rating: 4.40 (32 ratings)
Tags: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD diet nutrition brain function ritalin herbal medicines chemistry treatment
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