State Budgets Are Starting To Face Deficits Due To Obamacare

Obamacare delivered the trojan horse of a debt bomb when it was implemented. Now state legislators are left to deal with actual budget consequences from expanded medicaid.

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How President Obama made America forget about government debt

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President Obama is the worst President we’ve had when it comes to the economics of our federal budget.

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National debt has grown $400 Billion in the last 90 days

This is unsustainable but most do not pay attention to the financial train wreck heading our way.  Continue reading →

Oil Stocks Outperform in State Pension Funds

WorldOil.com is showing interesting investment returns on state pension funds invested in oil. The study was done by Sonecon.

On average, $1 invested in oil and natural gas stocks in 2005 was worth $2.30 in 2013. By contrast, $1 invested in all other assets over the same period was worth $1.68.

While oil and natural gas stocks make up, on average, 4% of holdings in the top public pension funds, they accounted for, on average, 8% of the returns in these funds from 2005 to 2013, according to the Sonecon study.                                    

The report examines the top two public pension funds in 17 states, which collectively cover more than half (55%) of all workers in the U.S. who participate in state and local government pension plans.

States analyzed in the report are: California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and West Virginia.

2015 Medicaid Spending Up 21%

The numbers are staggering in how fast medicaid is growing and spending. This isn’t a sexy topic to talk about but that is the psychosis of America’s political landscape today. Here is some recent news pertaining to this federal government social program.

Via Wall Street Journal

    Medicaid enrollment has surged 19% nationally since ObamaCare’s expansion—50% in New Mexico, 65% in Oregon, 81% in Kentucky. The Congressional Budget Office reports that Medicaid spending rose 21% in the first five months of fiscal year 2015, “largely because of” ObamaCare.

Another source, The Heritage Foundation added more data to the topic of medicaid growth –

    This jump does not even include the Obamacare insurance exchange subsidies that are now in place—a $7 billion increase so far this year. Medicaid and the Obamacare subsidies account for $28 billion of the $88 billion in mandatory spending increases this year. The extent to which growth of Obamacare and other entitlements is responsible for this increase is even more pronounced than at first glance. Leaving GSEs out of the equation, increases in Medicaid and Obamacare subsidies accounted for half of the mandatory spending increase so far this year. Meanwhile, defense spending is down nearly 5 percent.

One more item from Heritage is the overall growth of entitlement spending.

    Chart 12 shows the growth of more than 80 welfare programs since 2007—including food stamps, unemployment insurance, housing aid, Medicaid, and disability payments. Some of these increases were results of the recession, while others were due to Obama policies that expanded eligibility and cancelled work requirements. Since 2008, spending has soared 37.2 percent in these programs. Since 2007, spending has mushroomed nearly 55 percent

entitlement spending