American Debt Greater Than Collective Networth, Budget Birddog Group Forecasts

American Debt Greater Than Collective Networth, Budget Birddog Group Forecasts

Subsidies, Savings Highlighted as Sinners and Saints

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Recent calculations forecasting that America's debts and other financial commitments will soon exceed the collective networth of its citizens, marks a historic first at precisely the wrong time, when the escape hatch out of a long, rough recession calls for massive new spending by a new president and congress.

The foreboding prediction of America under financial water came from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (PGPF), the eponymous budget birddog group that's riding like Paul Revere to warn us about our financial crisis and how to avoid the disaster it will bring if presidents and other leaders don't act with dispatch.

In its latest newsletter, the group who made "I.O.U.S.A," a tale of how America accumulated its sky-high debt that was recently nominated for the Critics' Choice Awards for Best Documentary, said unfunded promises for social insurance programs such as Medicare, when combined with a drop in the networth of Americans due to lower home equity values, has brought the world's reigning super power to it s financial knees.

The foundation's dire warning is based on new consolidated federal financial statements as of September 30, 2008, numbers that do not reflect the additional toll taken by more recent market declines, bailout packages, and record October and November deficits.

Hard to fathom but all too true, the group's math show that $56.4 trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded promises for Medicare and Social Security is for the first time in the nation's history more than a total of household networth, which it pegged at $56.5 trillion.

"Given more recent developments, it's clear that America now owes more than its citizens are worth," said Foundation President and CEO David M. Walker, writing for the group's newletter. "Passing this shocking milestone highlights the need for President-elect Obama and the next Congress not only to turn the economy around and boost consumer confidence, but to put a process in place that will lead to tough choices getting made to strengthen the government's financial condition once the economy begins growing again."

In a related piece called "The Breadth of Brokeness" about the extent of government's problems, author Gene Steuerle outlines a dozen areas where President-elect Barack Obama and a new Democratic-led Congress can make changes.

Many government programs were created decades ago for a different economy, a different family and industry structure, and even a different understanding of our economic and cultural opportunities, says Steuerle, who observes that "many of the agonizing debates over the past three decades have represented a see-saw battle, more often over symbol than substance, leaving in place agencies and programs often moribund and incapable of meeting many modern needs."

Concerns expressed by Steuerle on various topics - health care, tax policy, social security, disability, environment, housing, consumer protection, antitrust, justice, transportation, education, pension policy - may appear on first glance as curmudgeonly, but seem eminently foresighted in their practicality and ability to plan ahead rather than react to.

But the sheer size of the financial picture it paints will be troubling to art lovers, who will come to realize that the rich paying more and individuals saving more are fundamentals to reaching the surface so America can again breath on its own, without resorting to artificial aid like foreign borrowing.

In a separate story on Ohio's worsening budget picture, Policy Matters Ohio, a non-partisan economic think tank, argues that the "roots of the current staggering financial catastrophe lie in over-reliance on the market, excessive deregulation, and our economy's failure to deliver for most families." PMO researchers say wages have been essentially stagnant for the typical worker since the late 1970s, despite rising productivity and tremendous growth in incomes at the very top. The group says "many families went deep into (poorly regulated) debt, which was "not sustainable, for individuals or the economy, and we're all now paying the price. With Obama's selections for various cabinet posts and regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, PMO's call for better regulation and better wages may be realized.

Focusing on the Buckeye State's budget hole of $7.3 billion, the largest in its history, PMO says "failure to fill it will lead to devastating cuts to essential services, services that currently provide the basics to children, families and communities." Further more, not filling it now will "suck money out of our economy just when we need to stabilize, leading to a deeper and longer recession." The research group says only the federal government can come through with aid to cities and states now. But criticizing a five-year incomee tax cut plan Ohio Republicans pushed through in 2005, PMO advises Gov. Ted Strickland and a split legislature to "stop further implementing tax cuts that were ill-advised in any economy and will deepen the crisis."

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Pro-Democratic Alignment Possible, Vote Turnout Report Posits

Pro-Democratic Alignment Possible, Vote Turnout Report Posits

African-Americans, Anger, Fear Drivers for Obama in 2008

Mobilization Good But Candidate, Issues Better

OhioNewsBureau

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: A final report on voter turnout in the 2008 election found that a possible pro-Democratic alignment is underway, propelled in part by a historic high level of support among African Americans, while Republicans lost ground as the demographic sun sets on their go-to sub-group of whites, who in coming decades will become a minority.

The 25-page report, authored by Curtis Gans of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, based on final and official returns from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, reached a conclusions that the only way that the Republican Party can restore its majority status is if President-elect Barack Obama fails utterly, and "they win via the negative vote or if they reconstitute their advocacy and actions (and not with symbols) so that they have some programmatic appeal to an increasing diverse America."

Democrats, on the other hand, can solidify their hold on the future only if the Obama administration "is seen as effectively responding to the many deep crises of today in a manner that recalls Roosevelt facing the depression or Lincoln with respect to slavery and secession."

Highlights of the Gans report showed that:

In all, 131,257,542 Americans voted for president in 2008, nine million more than cast their ballots in 2002 (against only a 6.5 million increase in eligible population).

The turnout level was 63 percent of eligibles, a 2.4 percentage point increase over 2004 and the highest percentage to turn out since 64.8 percent voted for president in 1960. It was the third highest turnout since women were given the right to vote in 1920.

Overall turnout increased in 37 states and the District of Columbia. The greatest turnout increases occurred in the District of Columbia (13 percentage points), followed by No North Carolina (10.3), Georgia
rth (7.6), South Carolina (7.4), Virginia (7.1), Colorado (6.3), Mississippi (5.9), Alabama (5.5) and Indiana (5.2).

Overall turnout records were set in Alabama, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

Democratic turnout, as measured by their share of the aggregate vote for U.S. House of Representatives increased by 5.4 percentage points to 31.6 percent of the eligible vo vote, their highest share of the vote since 33.4 percent voted Democratic in 1964 and the largest year-to-year increase in Democratic turnout since women were enfranchised in in 1920. Democratic turnout increased in 46 states and the District of Columbia and declined in only four.

Drivers that pushed Obama into the White House were polling data showing 90 percent of citizens seeing the nation on the wrong track, fear of a deep recession with personal implicatons and the organizing efforts of college-educated youth.

From a geographic perspective, the report showed the GOP out of contention in New England and the West, where Obama won states like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico that George W. Bush won in 2004.

The GOP is loosing ground in the industrial and agricultural mid-west, where former Republican states like Ohio and Indiana flipped to Democrats this year.

Gans says that the only place where the GOP enjoyed a "durable advantage" are Idaho, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Oklahoma and Texas, which is forecasted to be a "toss-up state" within the next ten years.

"It is virtually certain that African-Americans were a major factor in the Democratic turnout increase," Gans said of where the enormous rise in Democratic turnout and where those turnout increases occurred.

Two reasons Gans gives about why Democrats had an 8.8 percentage point spread over Democrats were that Republicans didn't see Arizona Sen. John S. McCain as "one of their own," while he said GOP moderates were "appalled by the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin" as McCain choice for vice president.

Another factor discussed was whether some "Reagan Democrats," who shared Democratic economic concerns but were driven to the GOP by 1970s Democratic excesses and cultural issues, just didn't vote.

Cultural issues this year, Gans says, "took a back seat to economic concerns" while some who didn't vote did so based on racial concerns or the perception of elitism, which were emphasized by McCain and Obama's primary candidate New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Youth participation, while it was only one percent above 2004, provided energized bodies, especially among college-educated students who were in part responsible for the large increase in Democratic turnout.

The Republican Party motivated more voters to vote early and on election day in 2004, but the Democrats won that contest in 2008. This dynamic suggests that no matter how sophisticated they are and how comprehensive their reach, mobilization efforts "are as successful as the ground they till in terms of affirmative voter sentiment."

Contrary to how it's been sold, Gans sayd that so-called convenience voting -- mail voting, no excuse absentee voting, early voting and even election-day registration -- not only does not help but may hurt voter turnout.

Of the dozen states that had turnout declines in 2008 when compared to 2004, 10 had some fort of convenience voting. Of the 13 states which had the greatest increases in turnout, seven had none of the forms of convenience voting.

While Gans cited a number of reasons why convenience voting doesn't increase voter turnout, he said The United States should consider adopting what Mexico has done, which is a "biometric identity card which would at one and the same time enfranchise every citizen, eliminate the forms of fraud the GOP biennially claims which lead to intimidation and suppression, and eliminate much of the cost and complexity of election administration."

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com