Trillion

Heartland’s Donald Kendal is joined by Isaac Orr, Policy Fellow at the Center of the American Experiment, in episode #180 of the In The Tank Podcast. Today’s episode features work from the Foundation for Economic Education, the Pacific Research Institute, the American Action Forum, and the Institute for Energy Research.

The U.S. economy continues its Barack Obama Administration-long hobbled limp. President Obama will be our nations first tonever, ever have even one year of 3% or higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.

Everything in Washington, D.C. established to do X – ends up doing X, Y, Z, and triplets of every letter in the alphabet. This anti-federalism is fueled by several basic precepts. Of course DC wants as much power as it can grab. The more power it wields – the more it can lord over us and the more favors it can dole out. And the more coin it can spend – and the more coin it can justify taking from us.

The news is filled with the everyday zigzags of those competing against each other for the Democrat and Republican Party nominations to run for the presidency of the United States. But one of the most important issues receiving little or no attention in this circus of political power lusting is the long-term danger from the huge and rising Federal government debt.

Fiscal conservatives had mixed emotions, to say the least, about the $1.6 trillion omnibus budget bill that was corralled through Congress by Republicans and Democrats alike. Among the few bright spots of this pork-laden spending package was a provision to lift the crude oil export ban which has been in effect since the Carter administration.