The CBO has come out with a bleak report on the nation’s economic future. The headliner is how badly Obamacare bends the cost curve – up!

CBO projects that if current laws do not change, federal spending on major mandatory health care programs will grow from roughly 5 percent of GDP today to about 10 percent in 2035 and will continue to increase there-after. Those projections include all of the effects of the recently enacted health care legislation, which is expected to increase federal spending in the next 10 years and for most of the following decade.

Check out this graph of Obamacare supposedly saving us health care money (H/T American Thinker)

America was sold a lie. A blatant, socialist, propaganda lie. We were told we could cut costs and cover the uninsured. Does this government report say we have succeeded? Too bad so many people fell for the schtick. And don’t think we can just undo the liberal Democrats mess and things will spring back into good shape. Sadly, once this amount of damage is done it takes a while to heal. But the CBO is clear, we must undo the damage if we ever hope to begin to heal:

Keeping deficits and debt from growing to unsustainable levels would require raising revenues as a percentage of GDP significantly above past levels, reducing outlays sharply relative to CBO’s projections, or some combination of those approaches. Making such changes while economic activity and employment remain well below their potential levels would probably slow the economic recovery. However, the sooner that long-term changes to spending and revenues are agreed on, and the sooner they are carried out once the economic weakness ends, the smaller will be the damage to the economy from growing federal debt. Earlier action would require more sacrifices by earlier generations to benefit future generations, but it would also permit smaller or more gradual changes and would give people more time to adjust to them.

The Democrats’ little fantasies about government control have been spectacularly shown to be garbage. Their outdated policy ideas have been tested and fallen short. They did not stimulate the economy, they did not fix health care costs, and they did not enhance the future of America.  So now we have to bite the bullet to undo decades of political double talk and inaction and two years of outright liberal madness.

So be it, but without any of the current cast of characters in office – a goal we can achieve in two short years. But one step can and must be taken in much less time, and that is extending or making permanent the Bush tax cuts. Because if we don’t, come January this country is going to get slammed with one hell of a tax hike:

But as of midnight Dec. 31, the death tax returns — at a rate of 55% on estates of $1 million or more. The effect this will have on hospital life-support systems is already a matter of conjecture.

Resurrection of the death tax, however, isn’t the only tax problem that will be ushered in Jan. 1. Many other cuts from the Bush administration are set to disappear and a new set of taxes will materialize. And it’s not just the rich who will pay.

The lowest bracket for the personal income tax, for instance, moves up 50% — to 15% from 10%. The next lowest bracket — 25% — will rise to 28%, and the old 28% bracket will be 31%. At the higher end, the 33% bracket is pushed to 36% and the 35% bracket becomes 39.6%.

But the damage doesn’t stop there.

Read the whole, scary article. What is coming in January is just plain crazy - Americans know it’s crazy:

Regardless of whether they have heard about the impending increases, a majority of these voters opposes bringing back the “marriage penalty” (87 percent), raising the tax rate on dividend income (79 percent), reducing the child tax credit (74 percent), raising income tax rate on all wage earners (73 percent), reviving the “death tax” (63 percent), raising capital gains tax (61 percent) and increasing the number of families paying the alternative minimum tax (50 percent).

If the Democrats who control Congress do not stop or delay these scheduled tax increases before the November election, 55 percent of the voters in these states would be less likely to vote for Democratic candidates for the House or Senate, including 57 percent of Independents.

America has been yelling at the top of her lungs for the DC liberals to listen up and stop. But the Democrat party is so delusional to pay attention. They are drunk with power and too busy playing God to listen to the little people.

But we know better. We have seen bureaucrats playing God with our money, and they are no saints. One example just jumped out at me recently at Wizbang blog. It is such a blatant example of politicians running amok that it should be the rallying cry for the next 5 election cycles, where we begin the decade of dismantling useless government. Here’s the tale:

The debate in Ann Arbor, where firefighters are being laid off due to a multimillion dollar budget deficit, is over an $850,000 piece of art.

That’s how much the city has agreed to pay German artist Herbert Dreiseitl for a three-piece water sculpture that would go in front of the new police and courts building right by the City Hall.

The city has the money to do it because in 2007, it agreed to set aside for public art 1 percent of money that went into capital improvement projects that were $100,000 or larger. Most capital projects involve streets, sewers and water.

Ann Arbor City Council member Stephen Kunselman, a Democrat, opposed the art deal.

“I think it is incredibly insensitive,” Kunselman said. “It is insensitive to the staff and their morale. It is insensitive to the community. There are people out there struggling financially, and here we are spending a large amount of money on a piece of art.”

Kunselman said the city is also eliminating the solid waste coordinator from the budget, which oversees trash pickup, and hiring an art coordinator.

…

Michael LaFaive, the director of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative said nonessential services are being funded throughout the state.

“Administrators cry poverty while lavishing money on the beautiful people,” LaFaive said. “The threat to dismiss firefighters often comes while officials protect golf courses, wave pools and art. No city can cry poverty while it defends recreation and aesthetics such as art.”

Remember, Michigan had the nation’s highest unemployment rate for months, and yet these bureaucrats are sending hard earned tax money to Germany for an overblown fountain while laying off firefighters??? Where is the sanity in that? Or how about that medium-income LA suburb town which was paying the city manager a ridiculous salary of $700,000-800,000 a year while laying off people?

This is the madness of liberals and bureaucrats. This is what these thieves do with our money – waste it on lame-brain ideas and themselves. They lavish themselves with perks and salaries and look down on the rest of us making an honest living in the private sector. It has become so repugnant 90% of this country disapproves of the Democrat Congress and 75% disapprove of their economic policies. It cannot happen too soon.

Update: Meant to add this gem from Q and O, where Treasury Secretary Geithner all but admits maybe its time to let the free market fix the economy:

Mr. Geithner’s comments on Sunday, which echo previous sentiments expressed by President Barack Obama, reflect a turning point in the government response to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, a period marked by deep federal intervention in the financial, housing, auto and other industries.

“We need to make that transition now to a recovery led by private investment,” Mr. Geithner said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

They should have thought about that in 2009 when they took office. Just cut taxes and let the economy do its thing.

Tags: 2010 Elections, Debt, Deficits, Democrats, Health Care Costs, Layoffs