Historic Debt –> Historic Tax Increases –> Historic Unemployment
“[I]t would be very helpful, even to the current recovery, to market confidence, if there were a sustainable credible plan for a fiscal exit.”
—Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, February 24, 2010
Democrat policies have resulted in the worst unemployment in more than a generation—at or above 8 percent for 25 consecutive months, the longest such streak since the Great Depression. In the Pelosi-Reid Congress, Democrats ballooned the gross national debt from $8.67 trillion to $14.1 trillion, an increase of $5.43 trillion or 63 percent. From the presidencies of George Washington to Bill Clinton, the federal government amassed as much debt as Democrats added in just four years in power (2007-2011).
The Heritage Foundation’s 2011 Index of Economic Freedom noted that government spending correlates to economic growth. The data indicates that countries with better scores in the “Government Spending” category also have faster-growing economies. Sadly, the U.S.scored a 56 in this category, eight points below the world average.
The president’s FY2012 budget included combined deficits between 2012 and 2021 totaling $7.2 trillion. In order to completely eliminate our projected budget deficits through tax increases, everyone in the country—including small business owners that file at individual rates—would have to pay an additional $23,180. Even Treasury Secretary Geithner admittedin recent Senate Budget Committee testimony that this is an “unsustainable” path for our nation’s finances.
As Drs. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff point out in their latest book, Growth in a Time of Debt, when a nation’s gross debt reaches 90 percent of GDP, the median loss of economic growth is 1 percent.
With most economists predicting growth for the U.S. in the range of 3 percent, the threat of continuing on the deficit- and debt-fueled path of President Obama and the Democrats would mean reducing our growth potential by one third. Countless jobs that would otherwise be created in an economic recovery will be choked by the leviathan government overspending.
Continue reading: http://www.gop.gov/policy-news/11/04/14/historic-debt
