We last week passed the $15 trillion national debt mark.  It continues hurtling upward, almost completely unabated.

We the People did our job and then some in the historic 2010 election, delivering more than 70 new Republicans to the Congress – on their promises to rein in out-of-control Washington spending.

We sent these folks to D.C. in large part to prohibit President Barack Obama and his Democrats from continuing to explode the budget – and the deficits and debt along with it – the way they had when exclusively in the Majority in 2009 and 2010.

So when President Obama campaigns asking for reelection and more D.C. Democrats – to undo this “do nothing” Congress – remember that stopping Obama and his Party colleagues was what We the People elected these “do-nothings” to do.

Serving as an impediment (modest though it may be) to the Democrat fiscal train wreck is, in fact, doing something.

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Reason’s Matt Welch, coauthor of the new book, The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong With America, talks with Emily Ekins, Reason’s polling director, about what the new Reason Rupe Public Opinion Survey tells us about how Americans think about federal spending, and debt.

Ekins argues that Americans primarily want to cut spending, not raise revenue, to deal with the debt crisis.

“[Americans] believe that [cutting spending] will…do more to help the economy than hurt,” Ekins says. “Fifty-seven percent believe that, where as only 20% believe that it would mostly harm the economy.”

The Reason-Rupe survey is online here and here (pdf).

This Reason Foundation project is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation.

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On Wednesday, President Obama attended a gala celebration in Chicago to celebrate his fiftieth birthday one day early. Attendees paid $35,800 a ticket to bask in the light of their Messiah, and to mingle with musical stars Herbie Hancock and OK Go.

Meanwhile, outside the Obama bubble, the stock market heralded President Obama’s 50th birthday with a 512 point decline — more than 10 points for each year he’s been alive. It was the Dow’s worst day since the 2008 financial crisis.

Many Americans find the President amiable and charismatic. That said, results are all that count, and by this measure, the President has fallen well short of the mark.

For those still blaming President Bush for an economy that has been all but stagnant for nearly three years of Obama’s management, the numbers speak for themselves:

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From The Associated Press:

An intensive endgame at hand, Republican leaders abruptly postponed a vote Thursday night on legislation to avert a threatened government default and slice federal spending by nearly $1 trillion.

“The votes obviously were not there,” conceded Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., after Speaker John Boehner and the leadership had spent hours trying to corral the support of rebellious conservatives.

The decision created fresh turmoil as divided government struggled to head off an unprecedented default that would leave the Treasury without the funds needed to pay all its bills. Administration officials say Tuesday is the deadline for Congress to act.

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From The Associated Press:

A fast-approaching deadline is bound to heighten anxiety. That’s what happening on Wall Street as investors grow increasingly uneasy about the political stalemate over raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

The Dow Jones industrial average has closed down for four sessions in a row. And the declines have been steeper each day, reaching almost 200 points Wednesday.

Lawmakers face an Aug. 2 deadline or risk triggering an unprecedented federal default and unpredictable fallout in the economy. As the contentious debate in Washington heated up, initially the stock market didn’t show much reaction. But recent days have reflected signs of greater concern.

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A recent “infographic” released by the White House tries to assign the blame for our massive debt and deficits to former President Bush and Republican Congresses.  However, the graphic conveniently omits President Obama’s record and his plans for the fiscal future of our country.  If the President had his way and his Fiscal Year 2012 budget proposal was enacted, here is what a comparison of the increase in public debt would look like:

As the graph above shows, the debt held by the public increased $2.4 trillion between 2000 and 2008, from $3.4 trillion to $5.8 trillion.  Under President Obama’s budget proposal, the debt held by the public is projected to increase $6.1 trillion between 2008 and 2012, from $5.8 trillion to $11.9 trillion.

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From Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post:

A Republican aide e-mails me: “The Speaker, Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell all agreed on the general framework of a two-part plan. A short-term increase (with cuts greater than the increase), combined with a committee to find long-term savings before the rest of the increase would be considered. Sen. Reid took the bipartisan plan to the White House and the President said no.”

If this is accurate the president is playing with fire.

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When Ronald Reagan ran for President in 1980, it was said of him that he was not the “sharpest knife in the drawer.” The old joke went that in his role in the 1951 role in Bedtime for Bonzo, the chimp that played Bonzo was smarter than the presidential hopeful.

It’s true that President Reagan, for all his charm, may not have been a rocket scientist. However, what he did have – and what many politicians today lack – were defined morals, principles, and ethics. More importantly, he relied on those assets to guide him through many troubling times as President.

In 1981 when Reagan took office this country was in dire straits economically. Stagflation that resulted from Jimmy Carter’s pursuit of altruistic ideals had led to high unemployment, an energy crisis that culminated in gas lines, and awful prospects for future economic growth. Sound familiar?

Among Reagan’s actions as President that re-energized this country economically were tax cuts, deregulation, and interest rate hikes to kill inflation. All things considered, these policies worked phenomenally well, and the US entered a 20-year period of growth led by a manufacturing resurgence.

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Before taking questions during yesterday’s press conference, Barack Obama issued a rambling statement that ran the left wing gamut from class warfare to an implied lament that taxes are too low.  For the most part, it came across as a tedious tour through the failed Democrat’s playbook.  The only time the President seemed truly engaged was when he used his daughters’ superb scholastic abilities to scold Congress for not taking decisive action on the debt limit crisis.

“You know, Malia and Sasha generally finish their homework a day ahead of time,” the President told the press corps.  “Malia is 13 and Sasha is 10. It is impressive. They don’t wait until the night before. They’re not pulling all-nighters.  They’re 13 and 10. You know, Congress can do the same thing. If you know you’ve got to do something, just do it.”

Yes, according to the President, if only the members of congress could move as fast as a pair of 10 and 13 year old girls, they’d be able to fix the mess he’s created.

However, if the President is to be believed, they have no intention of doing so.  Congress is just too busy taking vacations.  Obama lashed out at this practice, claiming that while Senators and Representatives have been in and out of town, vacationing and partying like latter day F. Scott Fitzgeralds, he’s been left alone in Washington, doing all the work.

“They’re in one week. They’re out one week,” Obama scolded.  “And then they’re saying Obama’s got to step in – you need to be here, I’ve been here, I’ve been doing Afghanistan, bin Laden, and the Greek crisis. You stay here.”

Really?

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It all seems so remote, not just in geography, but as a unique economic issue affecting only Greece and, perhaps, the rest of the EU.  But it isn’t.  The world is very interconnected.  Many Americans directly or indirectly (through their banks or money market funds) hold Greek debt instruments, which are probably never going to be repaid, or, in some cases, Americans may be invested in funds that hold debt instruments that are, in turn, insured by European banks that have sizeable exposure to a Greek default or restructuring.

A default, restructuring or further downgrading of Greek debt or of the banks that have Greek debt exposure can ricochet through American financial institutions.  European finance ministers and the European Central Bank (ECB) have been wrangling over whether or when to release the final installment of the $157 million bailout loan granted last year when certain austerity measures were imposed on Greece.  Keep in mind that this final disbursement will only carry Greece into mid‑September.  The bigger issue is a fresh bailout loan of $100+ billion Euros, almost the same as the first loan.  In other words, this, in gambling terms, is a double down bet.  Few financial analysts, if any, believe Greece is going to escape an eventual default. So what is going on here? This is Extend and Pretend writ large.

Last year’s package depended on Greece enacting major spending cuts, and cracking down on tax evaders.  Instead the public took to the streets.  Prime Minister Papandreou has based his political future on ramming through a new and more draconian austerity budget, but he has only a five seat parliamentary majority and some members of his party have been on the fence.  Greek debt is now at a staggering 150% of its GNP.

As The Wall Street Journal notes, this is not a liquidity problem but a solvency crisis and that is not a difference without a distinction. Greece isn’t merely having cash flow problems.  Greece is insolvent, i.e., it currently has no prospect of meeting its obligations.

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From the Associated Press:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pulled out of talks with Vice President Joe Biden on a deficit reduction-debt ceiling deal, saying they had reached an impasse over Democratic demands for tax increases to be paired with spending cuts wanted by the GOP.

The Virginia Republican said in a statement that the Republican-dominated House simply won’t support tax increases, and that he wouldn’t participate in the budget meeting scheduled for Thursday. Cantor said that it’s time for President Barack Obama to weigh in directly on the budget because Democrats insist on negotiating some tax increases.

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This morning, Erick Erickson at RedState issued a much needed salvo against the latest wave of ‘this-time-we-really-mean-it” pledges to cut spending. He focused his ire on the many DC-based institutions and individuals who are peddling this new magic elixir, but I think the problem actually goes much deeper than that. Of course, he is already experiencing significant blowback and complaints. And, also, of course, Erickson is being urged to ‘be reasonable.’ That is always the last line of defense for those without the stomach for a fight.

I stand with Erickson on this one; the time for pledges is over.

For the past several decades we’ve had pledges, commitments, frameworks, understandings, ‘down-payments’ on reform and countless ‘baby-steps’ towards fiscal sanity. And, yet, here we are on the edge of an existential crisis. In addition to a looming fiscal collapse, our government has taken over auto companies, bailed out Wall Street banks, set in motion a government take-over of health care and so overburdened the economy with regulatory red tape that the private sector job engine is permanently stalled.

All these pledges have gotten us what, exactly?

This raises a question that has puzzled me for the last few years. What has the conservative movement been good for?

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On May 16, 2011, the United States reached the current debt ceiling, $14.3 trillion. In essence, that number represents our national credit limit – the United States government is unable to borrow any more money unless Congress increases the debt ceiling. Thanks to a few short term accounting tools, the Treasury Department says that current funds will last until August 2nd. If the debt ceiling is not increased by that time the Administration warns of serious consequences, since other countries and individuals who have invested in U.S. debt may fear that they won’t recoup their investment.

Usually, when the federal government is about to reach the debt ceiling, Congress just raises the ceiling and continues spending dollars that future generations will have to pay back. That’s why I’ve voted “no” the last seven times the House has considered raising the debt ceiling, under both President Bush and President Obama. I voted “no” last year. I voted “no” again last month, when the House considered legislation requested by President Obama to increase the debt ceiling by $2.2 trillion without any reductions in spending.

The call to raise the debt ceiling is an obvious indicator of our national spending addiction. It is also a warning that our national credit card bill is coming due.

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Like a wily serpent lurking in the dark corners of unsuspecting places waiting to strike, so is the personality of the collectivist mind that is rotting America both socially and economically. Those of a conservative or libertarian mind are aware and on guard for the frontal attack of this beast when it tries to strike using direct government schemes and programs. And we are aware of how the entitlement programs and welfare state are a direct assault on the American philosophy of individual liberty and free market capitalism. But what if this snake is attacking us from dark corners that go unnoticed?

Let’s take two big issues, health care and long term financial security or retirement funding. These are two of the biggest issues we face as people, because they are critical and significant areas of life that concern everyone. For a long time we’ve had social security, Medicare and Medicaid crammed down our throats and washed down by some liberal progressive dogma, and are now told that two of the biggest concerns we face in our lives are no longer a concern because big brother has our back. Well the bill is coming due on this scheme, and it’s coming due on state and local government pension promises. It came due in the private sector with companies like GM, which was being crushed under an unsustainable health care and union pension system until we bailed them out. And it’s going to come due at your company soon, at least as it relates to your healthcare, because prices cannot continue to exponentially go up and companies be expected to pay.

The issue lost in the rhetoric of the traditional left/right argument is not about circumstances and poor people, but rather one of philosophy. Collective systems operate on a kind of “parent-child” philosophy. Citizens are told they are children who cannot take full responsibility for themselves and instead are taught to rely on their parents. Bureaucratic systems take care of them, decide the right choices for them, and always tell them that the system has their best interests at heart. The parent tells the child that they can’t be trusted. That the enemy out there will not protect their future but destroy their future. To the collective the enemy is the individual. And the individual is you! What has happened to the responsibility and empowerment of “doing it yourself”? We are not children and the parental control system is not taking care of us!

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Political advantage can be fleeting. A couple of months ago, during the winter quarter, job gains looked to be picking up, unemployment was easing lower, and President Obama’s reelection hopes looked more secure. But things sure have changed.

In recent weeks, a whole bunch of new economic stats have been pointing to a sputtering economy — maybe even an inflation-prone, less-than-2-percent-growth recession. Stocks have dropped five straight weeks, as they look toward slower growth, jobs, and profits out to year end. And Friday’s jobs report didn’t buck these trends.

“Anemic” is the adjective being tossed around the media. According to the Labor Department, nonfarm payrolls increased a meager 54,000 in May, while private payrolls gained only 83,000. A week or two ago, Wall Street expected 200,000-plus new jobs. Didn’t happen.

Perhaps the most telling weakness in the jobs report comes from the household survey, which is made up of self-employed workers. Think of mom-and-pop owned stores and small businesses. Think of the Main Street entrepreneurial families who make up the backbone of the economy, and for the matter the country. And they vote, too.

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Late yesterday, the highly respected credit rating firm, Moody’s Investor Services, officially warned that if there is no imminent progress in Congress on the debt ceiling fight, the United States of America’s Aaa credit rating would be cut. Understanding that such a draconian event as a U.S. credit downgrade would infuriate voters; it should not come as any surprise that the media was distracted today over news that the Manhattan Attorney’s office happened to issue a criminal subpoena to Goldman Sachs for insider trading and securities fraud earlier this morning.

Goldman Sachs is the perfect scapegoat to blame for America’s credit woes. The firm is the largest investment bank in the world and its history of ethics violations are legendary. Goldman agreed to pay $550 million to settle Federal claims that it misled investors in a subprime mortgage product just as the housing market began to collapse. Essentially the company recommended to its individual, hedge fund, bank, and money manager clients that they make investments in sub-prime mortgages loans Goldman Sachs was betting were already failing. The settlement was among the largest in the 76-year history of the Securities and Exchange Commission, but it represented only a small financial hiccup for Goldman, which reported a profit of $13.39 billion for 2009, the worst period of the credit crisis.

Goldman Sachs has shown its appreciation to each of America’s political parties by donating handsomely to their elections success.

As a show of appreciation, U.S. taxpayers have been very good to Goldman Sachs.

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I am a successful small businessman and a patriot who loves America and always sees its greatness. I am also an optimistic, positive thinker who always sees the glass half full.

But not this time.

I predicted doom if Obama was elected. Sadly the results are far worse than imagined. The economy is in shambles. America is staring at economic disaster — Armageddon. Even me, the eternal optimist is scared at what the future holds. We are the Titanic, headed straight for the iceberg.

America has always been a land of boom and bust. It’s just part of business cycle. But Obama and his socialist cabal have channeled Hoover and FDR, who turned an ordinary bust into The Great Depression with a toxic strategy of more government, more spending, more debt, more rules and regulations strangling business, higher minimum wages, more power to unions, more entitlements, higher taxes, more printing of money by Fed, and trade tariffs. This is the Obama blueprint squared.

The question this time is, is Obama doing it because he understands nothing about business? Or does he understand exactly what he’s doing? Is Obama’s goal to overwhelm the system, incite crisis, sow doubt about capitalism, and force the citizens to beg for government to save them, thereby opening the door to Socialism? Is Obama’s plan to redistribute the wealth, and at the same time to bankrupt the people with wealth and power, thereby crippling his political opposition?

Does it really matter?

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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor turned the policy temperature down on austerity this week by rolling out a strong economic-growth agenda. Headlined by a 25 percent top tax rate for individuals and business, the Cantor package includes regulatory relief, free trade, and patent protection for entrepreneurs. It’s job creation and the economy, stupid.

Sounds Reaganesque? Well, Eric Cantor has a lot of Reagan blood in him. Back in 1980, while Cantor was still in high school, his father was the Virginia state treasurer of the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign. So the apple never falls far from the tree.

In fact, it looks like Cantor is restoring the supply-side incentive model of economic growth. Forget tax-the-rich class warfare. Throw out wild-eyed government-spending stimulus and dollar-depreciating Fed money-pumping. Make it pay more after tax to work, produce, and invest. Go for a growth spurt, something the economy badly needs. And — my thought — crown such a growth strategy with a stable King Dollar re-linked to gold.

When I interviewed Cantor this week, he made it clear that faster economic growth was crucial to holding down spending, deficits, and debt. As scored by the CBO, every 1 percent of faster growth lowers the budget gap by nearly $3 trillion from lower spending and higher revenues. “Grow the economy,” Cantor said. “It will help us manage-down the deficit and it will help get people back to work.”

This is not to say that spending cuts and structural entitlement reforms aren’t necessary. They are. But it is to argue that lately the GOP has forgotten the growth component that is so essential to spending restraint and deficit reduction.

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The news media in this country are in a stupor. Either out of ignorance, or complete leftist bias and fraud to protect their socialist hero Barack Obama, the mainstream media has turned a blind eye toward the enormous disaster facing our economy. The greatest Ponzi scheme in world history is coming to an end, leaving America on the precipice of economic Armageddon. Here are the facts the mainstream media does not want you to see- hiding in plain site just like Osama bin Laden was.

Bill Gross is the world’s biggest bond trader. He runs the PIMCO bond fund with over $250 billion under management. He recently disclosed through financial filings that PIMCO has sold every single U.S. bond in its portfolio. Local, state, federal bonds- all sold off. Gross knows bonds are about to default in record numbers. And most importantly, he knows that the last resort of the Federal Reserve buying our own government’s bonds at auction is a certain sign of Armageddon. When no one is left to buy your own debt but you, you have reached the end of a Ponzi Scheme.

Then there is legendary Wall Street investor Stanley Druckenmiller. He, too, is calling the Fed’s bond purchases a fraud and a Ponzi scheme. Druckenmiller says, “There is a phony buyer of $19 billion per week of Treasury Bonds.” The phony buyer he refers to is the U.S. government. Druckenmiller knows that when a country resorts to buying its own debt, we are seeing the last days of the Roman Empire.

Another Wall Street legend, Jim Rogers, spoke out at a business conference last week. He said he plans to short sell (bet against) U.S. bonds with both hands. Rogers added, “If any of you have bonds, I would urge you to go home and sell them. If any of you are bond portfolio managers, I would get another job…if I were you, I would think about becoming a farmer.”

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From the Associated Press:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is telling Congress that he will halt investments in two big government pension plans Monday to allow the government to continue borrowing money for the next few months.

Geithner says the government will reach its $14.3 trillion borrowing limit on Monday. Republicans have held back supporting an increase in the borrowing limit, saying they want Congress first to approve more spending cuts.

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