Sen. Voinovich's fiscal predictions come true

[The Straight Story]

SEN. VOINOVICH'S FISCAL PREDICTIONS COME TRUE

August 28, 2008

Dear Friend:

Five years ago, Sen. George V. Voinovich – the Senate’s top debt hawk – made national news in his fight for fiscal responsibility. He chose to be intellectually honest with the American people about the state of our nation’s fiscal house and predicted that our debt would hit $9 trillion by 2009 (unfortunately, our debt rose even faster than that).

Brushing off the chides of the administration and some of his colleagues, Sen. Voinovich pushed hard for a responsible tax cut package that would have given the economy a needed shot in the arm while keeping the total deficit cost of the package to $350 billion. In the end, he successfully educated his colleagues on the fact that a fiscally responsible $350 billion stimulus plan was enough to create needed jobs, grow the economy and bring relief to families and businesses.

The national attention paid to him during this critical time hit a climax when, on April 27, 2003, he appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press with the late Tim Russert. This was an important turning-point in the tax cut debate, with a compromise plan based on Sen. Voinovich’s $350 billion figure being settled on by the Senate Finance Committee 10 days later. CLICK HERE to view the clip of his Meet the Press appearance.

As a former mayor and governor, Sen. Voinovich had the foresight to anticipate the budgetary train wreck that would have resulted from passage of the $700 billion plan. Today – half a decade later – this public stand against fiscal irresponsibility becomes even more important given our current dire fiscal situation.

The Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) updated deficit projection for 2008 is $357 billion. And in the last few weeks, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) revised their deficit estimate for 2009 to the tune of $482 billion – the highest deficit ever reported for a single year in dollar terms. Both the OMB and the CBO numbers do not include borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund and other trust funds to the tune of $197 billion. So the real operating deficit is actually projected at $610 billion, which is almost as much as we have spent in the Iraq war during the last five years combined.

And we cannot overlook our ballooning national debt. In 1992, when Ross Perot ran for president and was sounding the alarm, the national debt then was about $4 trillion. He projected that by 2007 the debt would increase to $8 trillion. Ross Perot’s doomsday predictions turned out to be too rosy! In the last 15 years we have added more to the national debt than in the previous 200 years. As of 2007, the national debt stood at almost $9 trillion. As of today the national debt is at $9.4 trillion, with each American owing more than $31,000.

Worst of all, 51 percent of the privately owned national debt today is held by foreign creditors – mostly foreign central banks, up from just six years ago. Foreign creditors provided more than 70 percent of the funds that the U.S. has borrowed since 2001, according to the Department of Treasury. And who are these creditors? According to the Treasury Department, the three largest foreign holders of U.S. debt are China, Japan and the oil-exporting countries known as OPEC.

While we cripple our own economy, we send billions of dollars overseas for oil to pad the coffers of many nations that do not have our best interest at heart – as well as to some like Venezuela, whose leader has threatened to cut off oil to the U.S. In fact, last year, we spent more than $327 billion to import oil, and 60 percent of this, or nearly $200 billion, went to OPEC nations. And in 2008, the amount we will spend to import oil is expected to double to more than $600 billion – nearly equal to our entire 2008 defense budget!

As the senator is famous for saying, this insanity has to stop. Sen. Voinovich has been speaking to these issues for nearly a decade in the Senate and is shocked that there hasn’t been more outrage over the dismal state of our fiscal health. We are running out of time to face reality and do what is right and Sen. Voinovich believes Congress has an obligation to share with the American people the dire condition of our fiscal health. He is hopeful that his colleagues will step up to the plate when they return in September and work to tackle the extreme fiscal crisis our nation faces with the type of intellectual honesty Americans deserve from their elected leaders.

Sincerely,

Chris Paulitz
Senior Advisor and Communications Director
United States Senator George V. Voinovich

http://voinovich.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsCenter.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=095b225e-c216-771d-1d4e-d890611bea92&Region_id=&Issue_id=

[peace13]

1. George, you were right there making it happen!

You must be so proud!

[Doremus]

2. Lockstep George is the next to go as we kick the bums out of Ohio, woot!

2010, folks. Mark your calendars. The last of the bleed 'em dry repukes to have his ass handed to him on his own silver platter.

Heh, they're already crapping their pants. Two-plus-year campaigns tend to be expensive, lol.