America Is Coming Apart at the Seams

7 Dec

america coming apart

2012 Dec 5, 2014 3:39 PM EST

By Francis Wilkinson

It was the most Republican of times, it was the most Democratic of times.

That’s the U.S. right now, a nation heading in two diametrically opposed directions. Where you live in the country has always influenced how you live. But divergent public policy choices, rooted in sharp partisan conflict, are heightening the geographic distinctions.

House Republicans this week passed legislation designed primarily to channel conservative rage and secondarily to vaporize 11 million or so undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Republicans won’t provide funds to deport the immigrants, and they won’t provide a method of rationalizing those immigrants’ existence here. So they will simply pretend that they don’t exist.

In January, the first Republican legislative act of 2015 is expected to be another vote to repeal Obamacare, the health-care reform that has been working out better than even its proponents predicted.

Meanwhile, across the the continent, California Democratic Governor Jerry Brown also has immigrants and health care on his mind. Brown is analyzing whether the state can extend its version of Medicaid health insurance to undocumented immigrants who are covered by President Barack Obama’s executive action on amnesty.

OBAMACARE

“We’re still evaluating, but the president’s recent action on undocumented immigrants could perhaps open a door for more coverage of more people under Medi-Cal,’’ Nancy McFadden, the governor’s top policy aide, told the Los Angeles Times.

California is not just a blue state with a Democratic governor and legislature. It’s home to almost one in eight Americans. And it has by far the nation’s largest population of undocumented immigrants — one in four live there, according to the Pew Research Center.

So in the very near future, undocumented immigrants who reside in California (some by virtue of having snuck illegally over the border) may be covered by publicly-funded health insurance while many U.S. citizens living in Texas and the Deep South will have no access to health insurance of any kind, thanks to the Republican war on Obamacare. (In Texas, more than one quarter of the population lacks health insurance, a number that seems stubbornly resistant to the charms of the “Texas miracle.”)

The U.S. also looks like two different places when it comes to guns and abortion. In Washington state, for example, where abortion law was recently liberalized, there are no waiting periods, mandated parental involvement or limitations on publicly funded abortion. In Mississippi, restrictions are plentiful, and the state government has been working steadily to shut the sole abortion clinic in the state. On guns, Connecticut voters reelected a Democratic governor who supported sweeping gun regulations in the wake of the Newtown shooting. In Georgia, you can now legally carry a loaded firearm into a bar.

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Then there are voting rights. Legislators in red states, such as North Carolina and Texas, have been adding carefully crafted layers of difficulty to voting, from voter ID laws to reduced early voting and restrictions on student ballots. Illinois, meanwhile, appears poised to enact same-day registration for voting.

The Chicago Sun-Times:

Besides allowing people to register and vote on the same day at polling places, the bill would allow extended early voting, as well as make it easier for students to vote at college campuses.

Increasingly, the rights of many American citizens depend less on the U.S. Constitution and more on which state they live in. Again, this isn’t a new phenomenon — especially for blacks, who had no guaranteed rights in most of the South for most of American history. But the divergence is stark.

And growing. As Bloomberg News reporter Greg Giroux reported, many red and blue states are only deepening their partisan identities as voters increasingly abandon split-ticket voting:

If Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu loses her runoff election next week, the Senate that convenes in January will have 84 senators of the same political party that carried their state in the most recent presidential election. That’s the most in more than six decades, according to statistics compiled by Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego. There were 61 such senators in 1999, after the second midterm election of President Bill Clinton’s administration, and 43 in 1987.

There’s also more partisan alignment in voting for the House of Representatives and for president.

Polarization has its own logic. And as red and blue states pursue their sharply divergent versions of government, each increasingly presents a vision of Dickensian hell to the other.

progressives

To contact the author on this story: Francis Wilkinson at fwilkinson1@bloomberg.net

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Doug Smith: Bos Johnson leaves a legacy of integrity, honesty

7 Dec

FSP moderator:  While this column has a local flavor, historian Doug Smith takes us on a journey to a time when honesty and integrity were virtuous parts of journalism.  I think you’ll enjoy this piece and the photo gallery.

doug smith

Dec. 07, 2014 @ 12:01 AM

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I remember television. I was born in 1955, the first generation growing up with television, Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Cartoon. I grew up with fuzzy, black-and-white images, the test pattern, “This just in” and “Film at 11.” They really did develop “film” for the 11 o’clock news. And, they had Bos Johnson.

When Bos started on WSAZ, I was a kid, bored by the news, but not by Mr. Cartoon. I grew up watching Jule Huffman. But Bos meant the news and I didn’t care. I ate ice cream while Dad watched, and I heard that familiar voice say, “This is Bos Johnson, from Huntington. Good night.”

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When I was 8, one story touched me. I watched, stunned, as we heard our President was dead; as a little boy tried to be brave while his daddy’s body passed; as millions said a tearful goodbye. And again, that familiar voice,

“This is Bos Johnson, from Huntington. Good night.”

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Then there were reports from Da Nang, Saigon, and Hanoi. Boys little older than me were going to fight in mud and heat, halfway round the world in Vietnam. They were coming back hurt, broken, or not at all. Dad was glued to the reports on the war. I remember asking “Are we really in a war?” but I can’t remember Dad’s answer. But I realized that soon I would be old enough to go off with them. And I started to watch the news with him. Amid all this, I heard that familiar voice:

“This is Bos Johnson, from Huntington. Good night. ”

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There came that awful day for all of Huntington, when the plane crashed, killing our Marshall football team, our friends and our innocence. A wound opened in all of us. At the end of that day, for once, that familiar voice failed him.

That night, Bos could not say the words. It was OK, Bos; we didn’t have words either. The broadcast day just ended.

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In my senior year Watergate was the news. Our familiar voice asked the first question in the last press conference for Richard Nixon: “Mr. President, will you resign?” A week later President Nixon did just that. Soon afterward, I joined the Navy and left Huntington. I heard, for nearly the last time, “This is Bos Johnson, from Huntington. Good night.”

Two years later, while I was half a world away, Bos Johnson retired from WSAZ.

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I came home again and was glad to see Bos, along with his wife Dottie, briskly debating the issues of the day in a different format. A more weathered Bos, but still that same familiar voice that narrated so much of my life was there one more time.

And now, sadly, he is gone.

For decades of honest reporting, the integrity you brought to a new industry, and setting the bar for quality reporting in our small corner of Almost Heaven, thank you.

So, from all of us here in the Huntington viewing area, back to you, Bos Johnson, reporting from Heaven, good night.

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Doug Smith joined the Navy in Huntington, WV, and served aboard the Nuclear Fast Attack Submarine USS Gato, SSN 615,
and as an Instructor at the Naval Submarine School in Groton, Connecticut, where he achieved the rank of Chief Petty Officer.
He also served as a tour guide and docent at the Submarine Force Library and Museum.  He is an avid student of history, and writes on subjects touching military and political history of the United States.

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S.H. TOWNSEND: THE WAR ON WOMEN – CHIVALRY OR OPPRESSION?

6 Dec

S. H. TOWNSEND

This is part three in an ongoing series on the “War on Women” by author S.H. Townsend.

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Because of the many battles I have fought against my will, my perspective of men and women was even more distorted. I honestly didn’t want to fight, but I’m so glad I had the strength to do so, and I do thank my mother’s partner for that. She did groom me to be a strong woman, despite the other things she misrepresented to me in my young life. My mother was also a strong woman, but she didn’t find her strength until later in life, but I knew she had it in her.

 When I met my husband, to whom I’m still happily married, I told him point blank that the last thing I needed was another man to run my life. He was completely gob smacked by my forwardness and by what I had said to him. I was surprised he didn’t run away, and who could have blamed him? He stayed, much to my chagrin. I honestly tried to push him away and run him off, but he wasn’t budging.

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 My husband was raised by an older generation. His parents were fourteen years older than my parents when they had him. They were raised by an older generation as well. My husband was taught to open doors for women carry bags and other heavy objects for them, and in general how to conduct himself in the presence of the fairer sex. (This was another term I hated with a passion.) He was brought up to be a complete gentleman, but I was certainly no lady. (I’m still not, and that’s okay. I was made for war, not smelling salts.)

 The first time my husband opened the door for me, I looked at him and said, “My arms aren’t broken.” Again, he had a puzzled expression on his face similar to the one he wore when I told him the last thing I needed was another man to run my life. He insisted upon opening doors for me and paying for things, again much to my chagrin. I tried to put a stop to it, but I couldn’t. I even told him that he didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell with me, but he was persistent, and his persistence paid off.

war on women c

  I gave in to my feelings for him, the feelings I kept hidden behind the mask I wore. I was afraid he would hurt and betray me just like the other men in my life had done. Instead, he accepted the terms and conditions of me, my flaws, my distorted perceptions, and my issues, and he loved me. He still loves me.

 Eventually, I got used to being treated like the woman that I am, and I began to like it. It wasn’t so bad, having someone open my door, carry my things, and do the things that I’m actually capable of doing, but it’s nice. Those things didn’t change who I am. It changed my attitude about myself as a woman, but it didn’t make me any less of a strong woman.

  I still have enough backbone for two people, and I am still woman, hear me roar.

 Now I just roar about different things.

 war on women d

 

 

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Labor Force Participation Remains at 36-Year Low

6 Dec

Obama administration continues to use “smoke and mirrors” on U.S. jobs status

December 5, 2014 – 9:17 AM
By Ali Meyer
Economy Jobs

FILE – In this Thursday March 13, 2014, file photo, job seekers line up to attend a marijuana industry job far in Downtown Denver.  (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

(CNSNews.com) – The labor force participation rate remained at a 36-year low of 62.8 percent in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
 The participation rate, which is the percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population who participated in the labor force by either having a job during the month or actively seeking one, was 62.8 percent in November which matches the percentage since March 1978.
 In November, according to BLS, the nation’s civilian noninstitutional population, consisting of all people 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution, reached 248,844,000. Of those, 156,397,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one.
 The 156,397,000 who participated in the labor force was 62.8 percent of the 248,844,000 civilian noninsttutional population, which matches the 62.8 percent rate in April, May, June, August and October of 2014 as well as the participation rate in March of 1978. The participation rate hit its lowest level of 62.7 percent in September 2014.
 Another 92,447,000 people did not participate in the labor force. These Americans did not have a job and were not actively trying to find one. When President Obama took office in January 2009, there were 80,529,000 Americans who were not participating in the office, which means that since then, 11,918,000 Americans have left the workforce.
participation rate
Of the 156,397,000 who did participate in the labor force, 147,287,000 had a job, and 9,110,000 did not have a job but were actively seeking one -– making them the nation’s unemployed.
 The 9,110,000 job seekers were 5.8 percent of the 156,397,000 Americans actively participating in the labor force during the month of November. Thus, the unemployment rate was 5.8 percent, the same as it was in October.
 The business and economic reporting of CNSNews.com is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold.

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Mark Caserta: US is ill prepared for a cyber attack

4 Dec

CAN AMERICA BE BROUGHT TO HER KNEES?

Dec. 04, 2014 @ 12:01 AM
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As the most powerful and the most “wired” nation in the world, we’re well beyond speculation of a cyber attack on the United States. In fact, according to the National Security Agency, such an attack is imminent.

The agency’s new director, Admiral Michael Rogers, says he expects a major cyber attack against the U.S. in the next decade. And that it’s only a matter of “when,” not “if,” we’re going to see something traumatic occur in our nation’s cyber space.

During recent testimony before a House Intelligence Committee hearing, Rogers revealed the NSA was watching multiple nations invest in this dangerous capability to hack into U.S. infrastructure systems. His testimony is the most specific warning from the government to date about the likelihood of such an attack and included a candid acknowledgment that the United States simply isn’t prepared to manage the threat.

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Rogers, who also heads the military’s U.S. Cyber Command, highlighted several emerging threats that will become significant problems in the coming year. One such threat involves nations such as China and “one or two others” that U.S. officials maintain are currently infiltrating the networks of industrial control systems behind infrastructure like our power grid, nuclear power plants, air traffic control and subway systems.

“There shouldn’t be any doubt in our minds that there are nation-states and groups out there that have the capability to do that,” Rogers said. “We’re watching multiple nations invest in that capability.” He added the U.S. needs to work more aggressively on deterring such attacks.

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NATO took the threat so seriously it recently organized mock cyber-war game trials in Estonia that indicated the western nations are aware of the need to fight on a new battlefield where the size or military prowess of a nation is insignificant.

In recent years, our enemies have witnessed how portions of our nation react during crises, which have included power outages and/or food and water shortages. We’ve had cities bordering the edge of anarchy. And these same enemies have made exceedingly greater progress in their sophisticated cyber-warfare techniques than we have achieved in defending ourselves.

Just as the United States is evolving its military strategies to include less physical presence in the theater of war, our enemies are as well. Consider the potential of a coordinated attack on the U.S. in which our infrastructure was paralyzed by a cyber attack while we simultaneously sustained numerous internal terrorist attacks of a physical or chemical nature.

Frankly, I’m uneasy putting this in writing, but the solution must begin with discussion. This isn’t an attack we’ll see coming on a radar screen. There will be no reaction time. Understand, the depth of a cyber attack isn’t contingent upon military strength and in fact “levels” the playing field of battle. Only a proactive approach to strengthening our cyber defense systems will protect our nation.

We recognize our vulnerability and so does the enemy. Let’s expeditiously contract our nation’s brightest minds to prepare for this impending onslaught against America before it’s too late.

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Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

Secure the border now! Sign the petition here:

3 Dec

https://secure.teapartypatriots.org/endthebordercrisis/radio714

DOUG SMITH: LYING – A CULTURAL PHENOMENA

2 Dec

lieslies 2

Not that you lied to me, but that I no longer believe you, has shaken me

Friedrich Neitzche

Lying doesn’t matter. It’s ok, especially if you are telling a lie in order to further something you believe. Even if what you believe is also a lie. Any of us can say anything we want, and it never matters. There are no consequences for being an untruthful person. That is the lesson of modern America.

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In 1988, a 15 year old girl in New York created a story about being raped, assaulted, and smeared with feces by a gang of white men. A civil rights huckster named Al Sharpton accused a police officer who had recently committed suicide and a prosecutor named Steven Pagones. When asked what proof he had, Sharpton huffed “I have Tawana Brawley’s words.”

The NY Attorney General had a security guard from the lawyers “advising” Brawley who testified before the grand jury that they all knew from the start she was lying. As it turns out, none of them had anything but a sensational story, with racial overtones, which brought them a lot of attention. Tawana Brawley made up the story to cover being out late with her boyfriend.

Steven Pagones sued for defamation of character, and was awarded 85,000, which Sharpton did not pay. It was paid for him by Johnny Cochran and other supporters.

Brawley is a nurse in Florida.   She was ordered to pay 450,000 in damages, but refused until 2013 when a judge ordered her wages garnished. 26 years after the fact she has paid less than 4, 000 dollars

Today, Sharpton is worth millions. (Even counting the 1.2 mill in back taxes he refuses to pay. Someone call Lois Lerner. ) He gets paid 6 figures by MSNBC. He has been to the White House 85 times. Not bad for a boy Pentecostal preacher from Brooklyn. Guess the Gospel was not paying him so well. Hate, it seems, sells better.

Dorian Johnson began the mythical story “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.” Given the way of things. It will be in history books in 20 years. The problem of course, is that it never happened.

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Reports proved  that Brown was not shot in the back, did not have his hands up, and had been shot at close range on one hand (consistent with Wilson’s story about a struggle for his gun in the patrol car). He also had enough THC in his body to cause hallucinations.

Johnson has not been charged in the robbery, or for his false reports.

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Bill Clinton’s now infamous “I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Miss Lewinsky” is the stuff of legend.  Impeached, but not convicted, he is still the Grand Old Man of the Democrats.

Barack Obama: Keep your plan and 6 years of lies, and his consequences?  The Democrats lost both Houses of Congress, but not him.  The GOP withheld funding, then caved. He is very unpopular, which no longer matters.

Brawley, Sharpton, Clinton, Obama, Johnson, all liars; all without consequence, apparently better off for the lie than without it.

Lesson for our culture: Lie.

Truth doesn’t matter. Truth and integrity are outdated social mores.

“That I know longer believe you, has shaken me.”  And it has shaken our society, not for the better.

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PLANNED PARENTHOOD FULFILLING FOUNDER’S VISION

2 Dec

Nov. 19, 2009 @ 12:00 AM

When Margaret Sanger, famous birth control activist, founded Planned Parenthood in 1916, her vision for society was not unlike another notable historical figure of the past who believed in the self-direction of human evolution.

Adolph Hitler.

A controversial eugenicist, Margaret Sanger believed, “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

The following quote appeared in the introduction to Margaret Sanger’s 1922 book, “The Pivot of Civilization”:

“We want fewer and better children who can be reared up to their full possibilities in unencumbered homes, and we cannot make the social life and the world-peace we are determined to make, with the ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens that you inflict upon us.”

In her book, Sanger went on to refer to blacks, immigrants and indigents as “… human weeds,’ reckless breeders,’ and ‘spawning … human beings who never should have been born.”

Sanger’s vision has in large part come to fruition with the institution of Planned Parenthood.

According to its recently released annual report for 2007-2008, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the largest abortion provider in the United States, was responsible for performing 305,310 abortions in 2007, an increase from 289,750 the previous year, coinciding with an increase in government funding, from $337 million to $350 million.

Sanger, who was officially endorsed by the American Eugenic Society (AES) in 1932, was also recognized “under the radar” by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a Planned Parenthood function.

“The 20th century reproductive rights movement, really embodied in the life and leadership of Margaret Sanger, was one of the most transformational in the entire history of the human race,” Clinton stated upon receiving an award from the organization that Sanger founded.

Clinton dubiously acknowledged she was in “awe” of Sanger.

Others stand in “awe” of creation.

In September, a former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas, Abby Johnson, quit her job after watching an ultrasound of an abortion in which she witnessed a fetus “crumple” as it was vacuumed out of a patient’s uterus.

“When I was working at Planned Parenthood, I was extremely pro-choice,” Johnson told FoxNews.com. But after seeing the procedure for the first time on an ultrasound monitor she said, “I would say there was a definite conversion in my heart … a spiritual conversion.”

In an interview with World Net Daily, Johnson revealed it became all about the numbers at her workplace.

“Every meeting that we had was, “We don’t have enough money … we’ve got to keep these abortions coming,” she said.

Since the clinic offered surgical abortions only every other Saturday, they sought to increase the availability of abortions by offering RU-486 chemical abortions throughout the week, according to Johnson.

RU-486 chemical abortions kill the lining of the uterus, cutting off oxygen and nutrients, resulting in the death of the unborn baby.

In Sanger’s dream of ridding society of “human weeds” and “reckless breeders,” Planned Parenthood, no doubt, has helped facilitate the murder of some beautifully created children with the potential to become real champions in life.

Mark Caserta is a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald- Dispatch editorial page.

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Conservatives Work to Block Obama on Immigration

1 Dec

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WASHINGTON — Dec 1, 2014, 6:37 PM ET
By ERICA WERNER Associated Press

Conservatives circulated draft legislation Monday aimed at blocking President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration from taking effect, as Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson prepared to offer GOP critics a full-throated defense of the new policies.

Obama’s move to shield some 4 million immigrants here illegally from deportation amounts to “simple common sense,” Johnson was to tell the Republican-led House Homeland Security Committee Tuesday in the administration’s first testimony on the issue since Obama announced the changes two weeks ago.

“The reality is that, given our limited resources, these people are not priorities for removal,” Johnson said in prepared written testimony. “It’s time we acknowledge that and encourage them to be held accountable.”

Republicans have vowed to stop Obama’s moves from taking effect, but how they will do so remained unclear as they returned to Capitol Hill on Monday after a weeklong Thanksgiving break. GOP leadership in the House planned to discuss options in a closed-door meeting with the rank-and-file on Tuesday morning.

The issue is tied in with the need to pass a government funding bill by Dec. 11, or risk a shutdown. Conservatives have been agitating to use any government funding bill to block Obama’s moves, and on Monday conservatives on and off Capitol Hill circulated bill language that would stipulate that no money or fees “may be used by any agency to implement, administer, enforce or carry out any of the policy changes” announced by Obama.

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White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday Obama would veto any government spending bill that undid his executive actions on immigration.

“What the president announced about 10 days ago was entirely consistently with the precedent that was established by previous precedents — by previous presidents and is well within the legal confines of the law as it relates to prosecutorial discretion,” Earnest said.

Others in the Republican Party have warned that including such language would court a government shutdown that could backfire on the GOP, since Obama would be certain to veto it. Lawmakers were casting about for other approaches, including a full-year spending bill for most government agencies combined with a shorter-term measure for departments that deal with immigration.

All agreed they must stop Obama in the wake of November midterm elections where they retook control of the Senate and increased their majority in the House.

“The president’s decision to bypass Congress and grant amnesty to millions of unlawful immigrants is unconstitutional and a threat to our democracy,” the Homeland Security Committee chairman, Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, said in a statement. “I will use every tool at my disposal to stop the president’s unconstitutional actions from being implemented, starting with this oversight hearing.”

Obama’s deportation deferral applies to people who’ve been in the country more than five years and have kids who are citizens or legal permanent residents. He also expanded an existing program that grants work permits and deportation deferrals to immigrants brought here illegally as kids, and reordered law enforcement priorities to focus on new arrivals and people with criminal records.

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———

Associated Press writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this report.

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Fed takes record $341,591,000,000 in revenues from taxpayers – still not enough

1 Dec

Ponzi: Treasury Issues $1T in New Debt in 8 Weeks—To Pay Old Debt

November 28, 2014 – 2:37 PM

By Terence P. Jeffrey

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew (AP Photo)ponzi 1

The Daily Treasury Statement that was released Wednesday afternoon as Americans were preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving revealed that the U.S. Treasury has been forced to issue $1,040,965,000,000 in new debt since fiscal 2015 started just eight weeks ago in order to raise the money to pay off Treasury securities that were maturing and to cover new deficit spending by the government.

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During those eight weeks, Treasury took in $341,591,000,000 in revenues. That was a record for the period between Oct. 1 and Nov. 25. But that record $341,591,000,000 in revenues was not enough to finance ongoing government spending let alone pay off old debt that matured.

The Treasury also drew down its cash balance by $45.057 billion during the period, starting with $126,568,000,000 in cash and ending with $81,511,000,000.

The only way the Treasury could handle the $942,103,000,000 in old debt that matured during the period plus finance the new deficit spending the government engaged in was to roll over the old debt into new debt and issue enough additional new debt to cover the new deficit spending.

This mode of financing the federal government resembles what the Securities and Exchange Commission calls a Ponzi scheme. “A Ponzi scheme,” says the Securities and Exchange Commission, “is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors,” says the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“With little or no legitimate earnings, the schemes require a consistent flow of money from new investors to continue,” explains the SEC. “Ponzi schemes tend to collapse when it becomes difficult to recruit new investors or when a large number of investors ask to cash out.”

middle class

In testimony before the Senate Finance Committee in October 2013, Lew explained why he wanted the Congress to agree to increase the federal debt limit—and why the Treasury has no choice but to constantly issue new debt.

“Every week we roll over approximately $100 billion in U.S. bills,” Lew told the committee. “If U.S. bondholders decided that they wanted to be repaid rather than continuing to roll over their investments, we could unexpectedly dissipate our entire cash balance.”

“There is no plan other than raising the debt limit that permits us to meet all of our obligations,” Lew said.

“Let me remind everyone,” Lew said, “principal on the debt is not something we pay out of our cash flow of revenues. Principal on the debt is something that is a function of the markets rolling over.”

The vast amount of debt that the Treasury must roll over in such a short time frame is driven by the fact the Treasury has put most of the debt into short-term “bills” and mid-term “notes”—on which it can pay lower interest rates—rather than into long-term bonds, which demand significantly higher interest rates.

At the end of October, according to the Treasury’s Monthly Statement of the Public Debt, the total debt of the federal government was $17,937,160,000,000.

Of this, $5,080,104,000,000 was what the Treasury calls “intragovernmental” debt, which is money the Treasury has borrowed and spent out of trust funds theoretically set aside for other purposes—such as the Social Security Trust Fund.

The remaining $12,857,056,000,000 was “debt held by the public.” This part of the debt included $517,029,000,000 “nonmarketable” Treasury securities (such as savings bonds) and $12,340,028,000,000 in “marketable” Treasury securities, including bills, notes, bonds and Treasuring Inflation-Protected Securities.

But only $1,547,073,000,000 of the $12,857,056,000,000 in marketable debt was in long-term Treasury bonds that mature in 30 years. These bonds carried an average interest rate of 4.919 percent as of the end of October, according to the Treasury.

The largest share of the marketable debt–$8,192,466,000,000—was in notes that mature in 2,3,5,7 or 10 years, and which haf an average interest rate of 1.807 percent as of the end of October.

Another $1,412,388,000,000 of the marketable debt was in Treasury bills, which carry “maturities ranging from a few days to 52 weeks,” says the Treasury. These $1.4 trillion in short-term Treasury bills had an average interest rate of 0.056 percent as of the end of October, according to the Treasury.

The continual rolling over of these short-term, low-interest bills helped drive over the $1-trillion mark the new debt the Treasury had to issue in the first eight weeks of this fiscal year.

The Treasury has taken out what amounts to an adjustable-rate mortgage on our ever-growing national debt.

If the Treasury were forced to convert the $1.4 trillion in short-term bills (on which it now pays an average interest rate of 0.056 percent) into 30-year bonds at the average rate it is now paying on such bonds (4.919 percent) the interest on that $1.4 trillion in debt would increase 88-fold.

The business and economic reporting of CNSNews.com is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold.

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