Senate Wins Big Victory for 2nd Amendment

Katie Kieffer / Townhall Columnist

Tired of depressing news? Smile, because here is some very positive news: 50 U.S. Senators—both Democrats and Republicans—have pledged to stop Obama’s latest attack on the Second Amendment.

Last week, all 50 senators wrote a letter to Obama pledging not to ratify the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty. In order for this treaty to be ratified, it would need 60 “yay” votes in the Senate. This means, gun owners will not need to forfeit their God-given right to self-defense and President Obama is on notice that his latest attack on the Second Amendment is dead on arrival in the Senate.

This fall, the Obama administration signed the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. As I warned gun owners in August, this treaty undermines your Second Amendment rights, places international law on a pedestal above our Constitution and encourages the creation of a national gun registry.

Obama pledged that he would never sign the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. In October of 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. would only enter the Arms Trade Treaty by “the rule of consensus decision-making.” However, these 50 U.S. Senators write that Obama broke this pledge, because: “in April 2013, after the treaty failed to achieve consensus, it was adopted by majority vote in the U.N. General Assembly. We fear that this reversal has done grave damage to the diplomatic credibility of the United States.”

These 50 senators write that this treaty: “encourages governments to collect the identities of individual end users of imported firearms at the national level, which would constitute the core of a national gun registry.” This means that Obama broke another promise to the American people by signing this treaty. On March 25, 2013, his spokesman told the press that Obama was absolutely not working to create a national gun registry. Apparently, he was.

U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe sponsored an amendment in the Senate to show opposition to the treaty. Now, this letter is a further sign that the U.S. Senate will not allow our President to subvert both the Second Amendment and our ability to, as this letter states: “conduct our own foreign policy.”

Obama’s own State Department has called the treaty “ambiguous” and so senators are very concerned that the terms of the treaty would severely restrict our ability to exercise our national sovereignty and conduct our own foreign policy. This treaty would effectively put global bureaucrats in charge of micromanaging our interactions with our own allies.

Here are the names of the 50 U.S. Senators who courageously took a stand for your freedom against the Obama administration:

Sen. Lamar Alexander, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Sen. John Barrasso, Sen. Mark Begich, Sen. Roy Blunt, Sen. John Boozman, Sen. Richard Burr, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Sen. Jeff Chiesa, Sen. Daniel Coats, Sen. Tom Coburn, Sen. Thad Cochran, Sen. Susan Collins, Sen. Bob Corker, Sen. John Cornyn, Sen. Mike Crapo, Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Mike Enzi, Sen. Deb Fischer, Sen. Jeff Flake, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Kay Hagan, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Sen. Dean Heller, Sen. John Hoeven, Sen. James Inhofe, Sen. Johnny Isakson, Sen. Mike Johanns, Sen. Ron Johnson, Sen. Mary Landrieu, Sen. Mike Lee, Sen. Joe Manchin III, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen. Jerry Moran, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Rob Portman, Sen. Mark Pryor, Sen. James Risch, Sen. Pat Roberts, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Tim Scott, Sen. Jeff Sessions, Sen. Richard Shelby, Sen. John Thune, Sen. Pat Toomey, Sen. David Vittor, Sen. Roger Wicker

If your senator is one of the above 50 who signed this letter to Obama, please write to them and say “thank you” for standing up for your natural, God-given right to self-defense as well as our country’s right to manage our own foreign policy.

Gun owners like you have been speaking up loudly and clearly against this treaty. By speaking out, you have encouraged these 50 Senators to take a strong stand for freedom. Even though this treaty is now dead on arrival in the Senate, if your senator is not one of these 50, you should write him or her and encourage them to get on-board. All Americans need to be on the same team: Team Freedom.

"Palestinians" fly Nazi flag over major Israeli thoroughfare

From Jihad Watch / Posted by Robert Spencer

And the Leftist enablers of jihad have the chutzpah to charge foes of jihad with neo-Nazism, when in reality the jihad is a quintessentially Nazi movement: Jew-hating, authoritarian, and brutal.

"Again: Arabs Fly Nazi Flag Near Road," from Israel National News, October 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):

For at least the second time in five months, Arab residents of Beit Umar in the Palestinian Authority (PA) have placed a Nazi flag over a major thoroughfare where Jews pass in their vehicles.

Beit Umar is located between Halhoul and the Etzion Bloc, not far from Hevron.

Soldiers from the Haruv battalion in Kfir Regiment tried to take down the flag Saturday, but encountered difficulty because it was placed very high up.

A similar event took place at Beit Umar in May, when hundreds of residents of Gush Etzion who drove down Highway 60 were astounded to see an oversized Nazi flag flying next to a mosque in the Arab town.

In a recent key seech [sic], Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu quoted numerous historical sources showing that the leader of the Palestinian Arabs in the first half of the 20th century, Mufti Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, was “one of the initiators of the Holocaust of the Jews of Europe,” and that he was constantly encouraging the Nazi leadership to annihilate the Jews, throughout the war. He cited evidence that the Mufti even visited the gas chambers at Auschwitz with Adolf Eichmann.

"The Mufti is still a greatly admired figure in the Palestinian national movement," said Netanyahu. "These are the weeds that need to be uprooted," he said. "The root of the conflict is the deep resistance among a hard core of Palestinians to the right of the Jewish people to its own state in Israel."

The Phony ‘Fight’ And The Real Story

by Bob Livingston / Personal Liberty Digest

PHOTOS.COM

At the 11^th hour and to the surprise of no one, right on cue, the self-proclaimed party of small government capitulated.

Anyone who remains lost in the false paradigm that there are two political parties is blind and divested from reality. There is only one party, and it is the government party.

The government shutdown that wasn’t was nothing more than so much theater. It was theater of the absurd.

The so-called compromise deal that reopened government signaled that the status quo big-spending, big-government, big-money-printing policies will continue straight through to collapse. Although a couple of politicians” took a stand” against big government (particularly against the Obamacare deathcare trap), there was no real appetite for fighting to shrink government or roll back any aspect of its increasingly intrusive power. In fact, the bill is laden with more pork than a bacon truck.

The so-called furlough of a few hundred thousand government employees became just a paid vacation for them. And in addition to a payoff to Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell in the form of increased funding for river construction project and other lucre, tucked into the bill is a charming nugget of $174,000 for the widow of deceased Senator Frank Lautenberg. Lautenberg was listed as the eighth wealthiest U.S. politician in 2011 (his net worth then stood at $55.33 million), so his widow is by now no doubt in terrible financial distress. Finally, the privileged elected class and their staffs will be exempt from Obamacare, while the more mundane among us are consigned to the death system of rationing and extortion. These facts all prove the system is set up to benefit the elites at the expense of the people.

House Weeper John Boehner signaled the shutdown was all for show in his post mortem comments: “We did everything we could to get [Democrats] to the table to negotiate. They just kept saying, ‘no. No, no, no.’ There’s just no reason for our members to vote no today.” He conveniently ignored the millions of Americans who were saying no, no, no to more spending in general and Obamacare in particular.

Most Republicans, particularly Senate Republicans, had signaled their capitulation early on. The “fight” was over before it began even though some, responding to voter support for Senator Ted Cruz’s efforts to defund Obamacare, at least gave lip service to the idea that they should attempt to try and delay if not defund the implementation of the deathcare system that is killing jobs and creating a part-time economy now and will be killing people soon.

The elected class and their bureaucratic enablers in the Washington, D.C., cesspool all suffer from a psychosis that allows them to lie and steal without compunction. They ginned up a crisis in order to keep Americans distracted while the Obamacare rollout collapsed, and they worked behind the scenes to craft a bill that will grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.

Then they all agreed to reopen government until Jan. 16 and lift the debt ceiling through Feb. 7.

Supposedly, House and Senate budget conferees are required to reach a budget deal by Dec. 13, but Washington found itself acting the part of fighting over the government shutdown precisely because there has been no budget agreement since 2009 and, therefore, no reign on government spending.

But with government funny money and phony accounting in play, a budget agreement is irrelevant. Additionally, all the sound and fury from the elected class resulted in only a 90-day “fix.” Crisis governance will resume after the first of the year unless some cataclysmic event occurs before then.

The United States was never in any danger of defaulting on the debt, because there is no real U.S. debt and there is no intention for it to ever be paid. Government can and does create money out of thin air. With this ability there cannot possibly be debt. And if there is no debt, there is no possibility of default. Until this is understood by the American people, the elected class will continue to abuse the system and use fear and confusion to rule over and subvert the will of the American people.

For proof of this, the so-called debt, according to the Department of Treasury, remained at exactly $16,699,396,000,000 for 150 straight days. Were this a true and accurate accounting number, such a thing would be impossible. The numbers are much like the green strips you carry in your pocket: Created out of thin air. But people believe this sham and the media never questions it.

In May, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the Federal government would confiscate a record $2.7 trillion in tax receipts in fiscal year 2013, which would surpass the previous record of $2.6 trillion in 2007. Yet despite this, Democrats are already signaling they want to use the budget conference to raise taxes even more to support even more spending.

The CBO also said in May that government spending is expected to hit $3.55 trillion in 2013. That represents 22.2 percent of gross domestic product, the largest share in decades.

The Federal Reserve is throwing $85 billion a month into the air. Americans remain ignorant to its effects. The stock market is irrational. It spikes on bad news, knowing that the Fed will continue throwing $85 million into the air each month for the foreseeable future.

This money benefits the banksters and Wall Street, but it is devastating the holdings of the savers and retirees.

Corrupt political and monetary fiat systems always self-destruct, as they always spend out of control. The U.S. government is engaged in the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. Most Americans are oblivious. Government is stealing by devaluing the U.S. dollar. Creating these new dollars dilutes all the dollars in existence. This is economic war carried out in secrecy and under pretense.

Trust in government and its monetary system begins to give way as the facade of benevolency and democracy morphs into force, intimidation and confrontation.

The process is gradual except when the elite miscalculates and does things such as assess private bank accounts to pay for the corruption of the debt money system as happened in March 2013 on the island of Cyprus.

The increase of overt repression and intimidation — as we saw with the closing of the monuments during the “shutdown” — will alert more and more people to the crime of government.

Exchange controls are a sign of a failing regime. Chase Bank (aka JPMorgan Chase) has instituted exchange controls. Thousands of account holders received letters last week indicating they will no longer be allowing international wire transfers or cash deposits or withdrawals in excess of $50,000 monthly beginning on Nov. 17. JPMorgan Chase — along with the other “too big to fails” — is a primary shareholder of the Federal Reserve.

Then HSBC USA announced its clients will have to wait a minimum of five days to transfer funds to their own international accounts beginning Oct. 20.

These are the first signs that the collapse is getting closer. Exchange controls are emergency measures enacted to during times of economic distress and are precursors to wealth seizures by the State.

Your time to remove your money from banks is growing short. Get it out before the bank runs begin.

Protect yourself with gold and silver and stored food and supplies needed for survival. Guns and ammo are essential to own. We have very hard times ahead; but after the cataclysm, we can start anew.

Save the Knives for ObamaCare: Four Ways to Actually Defund the ACA 
Michael F. Cannon/ Townhall Columnist

So, a band of tea-party Republicans led by Senators Ted Cruz (TX) and Mike Lee (UT) – and backed by groups like FreedomWorks, Heritage Action, and Club for Growth – pushed a risky strategy to defund ObamaCare that led to a partial government shutdown. As a logical matter, President Obama and Senate Democrats were equally culpable for the shutdown; they could have avoided it by approving one of the House-passed bills that funded the government while amending the president’s health care law. But that was unlikely. The media and public saw the GOP as more culpable, and the GOP caved. ObamaCare glided away unscathed.

Then came the inevitable recriminations between “defunders” and their detractors. If I may paraphrase and/or embellish: The shutdown was a failure! No it wasn’t! You’re stupid! You voted for ObamaCare! Each camp blames the other for the outcome, and for not being sufficiently devoted to fighting ObamaCare.

To put my cards on the table, as a median-voter-theorem enthusiast who opposed the defund strategy before I supported it, I think it’s too soon to judge whether it was a failure. As of today, it has produced no gains, and ObamaCare opponents saw their poll numbers slip.

On the other hand, ObamaCare justifies drastic measures. Opponents spent political capital taking a principled stand against a law whose roll-out has been a two-week-long train wreck. Even die-hard supporters like Ezra Klein have called it a “disaster.” Former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs has said heads should roll, and nobody knows whether the administration can get its act together before the health insurance “Exchanges” crater. If it can’t, the defund strategy will make all ObamaCare opponents appear prescient.

Finally, no one has focused on an undeniable success of the shutdown: for one brief, shining moment, my paycheck was larger than my wife’s.

In the end, the defund strategy may prove to be a disaster. Or helpful. As the Zen master said, we’ll see. Here’s the video
 
What’s clear is that the recriminations are unwisely distracting ObamaCare opponents from adding momentum to strategies that are already defunding the law. Here are four things opponents would be better off doing than fighting among themselves:

1. Stop Medicaid expansion in the states.
As envisioned by the ObamaCare’s authors, the Medicaid expansion would account for roughly half of the law’s $2 trillion of new entitlement spending over the first 10 years. After the Supreme Court blocked Congress’ attempt to coerce states into implementing it, however, 25 states refused to do so.

As a result, those states have already defunded almost a quarter of ObamaCare’s new entitlement spending. They are also helping to increase dissatisfaction with the law among hospitals and other providers, who now won’t be receiving the subsidies they were promised in return for their support.

If Cruz, Lee, FreedomWorks, Heritage Action, Club for Growth and the rest really want to defund ObamaCare, they should be fighting to block the Medicaid expansion in the 25 states that have already authorized it. Wanna squash Republicans who are soft on ObamaCare? Come visit Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich (R) has all but claimed that Godwants Ohio to expand Medicaid, and is literally trying to do it without the support, and over the objections, of the legislature.

2. Get states, employers, and citizens to challenge the IRS’s illegal ObamaCare taxes.
ObamaCare authorizes Exchange subsidies only through state-established Exchanges, not the 34 Exchanges created by the federal government. As a result, those 34 states that refused to establish Exchanges by law have defunded a further one-third of that $2 trillion dollars. Since those subsidies trigger penalties under both the employer mandate and individual mandate, those states have by law also exempted all of their employers and about 8 million individual residents from those penalties.

Unbelievably, contrary to the clear language of the statute and congressional intent, the IRS is trying impose those taxes and issue those subsidies in those 34 states anyway. The IRS is literally trying to tax, borrow, and spend more than $700 billion without congressional authorization — a more egregious example of taxation without representation than the Stamp Act.

State attorneys general, employers, and individual taxpayers have so far filed four lawsuits challenging those illegal taxes. A federal judge has rejected the Obama administration’s attempt to dismiss the challenge filed by Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt. More than a dozen Indiana school districts filed suit alongside that state’s attorney general Greg Zoeller. A federal court in Washington, D.C., will hear oral arguments on another challenge on Monday.

As National Review editorializes:

may not have a great deal of power in Washington, where they control, in John Boehner’s words, one half of one third of the federal government; but we have 50 states for a reason, and Republican governors lead 30 of them. Republican governors, attorneys general, and state legislators looking to use their offices to the significant benefit of the nation as a whole should be lining up to create a 30-state united front with Oklahoma. Scott Pruitt is fighting for the rule of law, and Republican governors might trouble themselves to give him a hand.

If anti-ObamaCare groups really want to defund the law, they should get governors, attorneys general, employers, and their own members to file additional challenges.
 
3. Educate states about how to block the IRS’s illegal taxes legislatively.
The 34 states that have refused to establish Exchanges can actually block the IRS’s illegal ObamaCare taxes legislatively by suspending the licenses of insurers that accept the illegal subsidies. Since no insurer would then accept one, not a single employer in the state could be hit with the employer-mandate penalties those subsidies trigger.

Legislators in Ohio and Missouri have already introduced legislation based on draft language I offered in my Cato study “50 Vetoes.” The American Legislative Exchange Council has given this “Health Care Freedom Act 2.0” its seal of approval and offers its own model legislation.
 
4. Urge House investigators to subpoena all materials related to the IRS’s illegal taxes.
The House Committees on Oversight & Government Reform and Ways & Means have been investigating the IRS’s illegal taxes for more than a year. This August, House Oversight committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked an IRS witness:

Where the hell is the paper on that?…Where’s the analysis? Congress doesn’t agree with you, at least the House of Representatives, that your rule is consistent with the law. We asked for the analysis. You’ve stonewalled us…Where are the notes, recommendations, [and] analysis that we asked for?

Issa called the IRS representative “pretty close to a useless witness” and threatened that if the agency is not forthcoming, “Not only will I issue a subpoena, but I’m going to have to do a lot more.” Here’s the video:

Yet the Treasury department has still refused to hand over many emails and other communications that, according to my source, show the IRS did almost no analysis of the law before deciding to tax, borrow, and spend $700 billion without congressional authorization. If ObamaCare opponents want to defund the law, they should urge Issa to follow through on his threat to issue a subpoena, and “do a lot more.”

A good test of whether defunders or detractors are more committed to stopping ObamaCare will be which side is the first to put away the knives and get to work.

'Fast and Furious' is Ok, But The Innocent Gun Buyer Goes to Prison

Michael Schaus / Townhall Columnist

 

It might seem like idiocy on steroids, but that’s kinda how our Federal Government operates. Ever thought about helping out a family member by buying them that hunting rifle they’ve been looking at, or that Glock 19 they’ve been talking about getting?

Well, prepare for prison if you buy it for them. A well established, and yet often ignored, law that was designed to stop criminals from getting their hands on guns through a third party might actually make more criminals than it catches.

Anyone here remember the “Fast and Furious” scandal? Ya know, where the ATF and Department of Justice decided to help straw purchasers walk guns into Mexico for drug cartels? Thousands of guns were handed over, with the Fed’s knowledge and consent, to cartels that take hostages, kill civilians, and proliferate drug related violence in the US and Mexico.

Apparently, as evidenced by the agency’s disinterest in conducting investigations into the operation, such government run straw purchases – that benefit drug cartels – are not a terrible threat to public safety. But letting family members purchase each other guns? Whoa. . . We can’t permit such dastardly, and potentially lethal, activity to go unchecked. . .

Last week the Supreme Court heard the case of a Virginia man who legally purchased a gun – then resold it to another legally eligible individual. According to the Washington Times, “Both men were legally entitled to own a gun. Both passed the required background checks. As an ex-cop, Mr. Abramski bought a Glock 19 and obtained a law-enforcement discount. He consulted three federally licensed dealers to make sure he did everything by the book when he transferred the gun to his uncle in Pennsylvania.” Thank heaven the ATF caught that retired police officer who had the audacity to buy a gun for his law-abiding uncle. I know I’ll sleep better tonight.

The intent behind prosecuting straw purchases (unless conducted in conjunction with Mexican drug lords and ATF informants) is supposed to be to keep lawful citizens from purchasing a gun for people who are disallowed from owning a firearm. The High Court is expected to make a decision in regards to whether or not this federal law should apply to situations where the straw purchaser (in this case Mr. Abramski) purchased a firearm for a person who is legally allowed to own a firearm.

The stunning part of the Abramski saga, is that he only became the focus of an ATF investigation because he’s an otherwise law abiding citizen. He just as easily could have driven to Pennsylvania, given the gun to his uncle in exchange for cash with no paperwork or background check, and no-one other than the two family members would have had any knowledge of the deal.

The case should serve as an example of government’s inability to regulate away criminal behavior.

The recent batch of gun control laws passed in states like Colorado and New York, for instance, routinely create criminals out of ordinary citizens rather than preventing deliberate criminal activity. With a stroke of his Mayors-Against-Illegal-Guns fountain pen, Governor Hickenlooper (D-CO) signed a law that turned many of his state’s citizens into potential criminals.

For example, as the great state of New-New-York struggled with recent floods, thousands of Coloradoans found they were running afoul of the state’s newest gun control laws. As homes were left abandoned, and entire communities were cut off from aid, the newest batch of state laws made it illegal for gun owners to have friends or family members “babysit” their legally obtained firearms. Local District Attorneys decided not to pursue any charges.

But not all examples of unintentional (or maybe intentional) criminalization of gun owners have such happy endings. The state of New Jersey convicted an otherwise law-abiding citizen for “illegally possessing” firearms within the city – even though they were legally purchased – because he dared to stop at his mother’s house for a cup of coffee. A concealed carry permit holder, and former Marine, was arrested in New York City after he saw a sign that read “no guns allowed” at the Empire State building, and tried to turn his firearm over to the building’s security desk.

So while criminals obtain weapons from drug dealers, gun runners, and black market sources (not to mention the DOJ and the ATF), the Feds are busy tracking down those nefarious family “straw purchases,” and prosecuting honest people who violate an increasingly complicated web of regulations and restrictions.

Nothing about Mr. Abramski’s actions indicate he was focused on subverting the law, engaged in nefarious business, or out to conduct illegal activities. He merely is a casualty of overzealous attempts from government to regulate away criminality. . . Which doesn’t really work. By their own admission, criminals are not prone to following laws, regulations or even kind suggestions.

Had the retired police officer decided to subvert the law, avoid the background checks, and operate outside the intent of the law, he might still be walking around today without being the center of a Federal Case. Instead, his honest intentions landed him directly in the cross hairs of the ATF.

Because, let’s face it, it’s a whole lot easier to harass law abiding citizens than criminals.

U.S. quietly gives Pakistan $1.6 billion in aid that was suspended after conflict over bin Laden raid and drone strikes

From Jihad watch / Posted by Robert Spencer

After becoming enraged with the U.S. over the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and drone strikes against jihadists, Pakistan has now reaffirmed its commitment to fighting against jihad groups and pledged to root jihadi sympathizers out of its government. What's that? It hasn't done either of those things? And we're giving them the money? Well, that's fine. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

"US quietly releasing $1.6B in Pakistan assistance," by Bradley Klapper for the Associated Press, October 19 (thanks to Lookmann):

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has quietly decided to release more than $1.6 billion in military and economic aid to Pakistan that was suspended when relations between the two countries disintegrated over the covert raid that killed Osama bin Laden and deadly U.S. airstrikes against Pakistani soldiers. 

Officials and congressional aides said ties have improved enough to allow the money to flow again.

American and NATO supply routes to Afghanistan are open. Controversial U.S. drone strikes are down. The U.S. and Pakistan recently announced the restart of their "strategic dialogue" after a long pause. Pakistan's new prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, is traveling to Washington for talks this coming week with President Barack Obama....

US Debt Spikes Above $17 Trillion After Ceiling Lifted

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The government shutdown may have ended Wednesday, but the bipartisan deal that put workers back on the job also suspended the nation's debt ceiling, leaving the national debt soaring at an astronomical rate that is expected to keep growing.

The nation's debt climbed by a record $328 billion on Thursday alone, reports The Washington Times, the first day the federal government could borrow money under the agreement. The debt is now at a record $17.075 trillion and climbing, according to the Treasury Department.

The $323 billion increase is nearly $100 billion over a previous record of $238 billion that was set two years ago, and came as the government replenished its "extraordinary measures” funding from the money it's been borrowing since may while trying to avoid the nation's debt ceiling.

Federal law allows the government to replenish funds when there is new debt space, and the Treasury Department back in May started borrowing $400 billion from other funds while it awaited a final deal from Congress and President Barack Obama.

The nation's debt ceiling caps how much the government can owe, but the new deal basically removes that deal, setting a deadline instead of a dollar amount, so debt can go up by as much as is spent between now and Feb. 17.

Democrats insisted the debt increase be "clean," and allows Obama to pay for bills he and Congress have already amassed without encouraging new spending. But Republicans wanted strings attached, but instead settled on a bill that reopened the government and included earmark projects.

The debt cap increase is the sixth one since Obama took office in 2009, reports Fox News, when the nation's debt was at $10.6 trillion, so the $17.05 trillion mark is an increase of nearly 60 percent.

The debt cap went up three times while Democrats controlled Congress and another three times when Republicans took over in the House.

The mounting debt is alarming experts, who say the nation is entering into dangerous territory.

"Both houses should act quickly to stop the madness," said Maya MacGuineas, head of the Committee for a Responsible Budget and the Campaign to Fix the Debt, told Fox. She's happy the shutdown is over, but calls the last-minute deal "incredibly disheartening," and says the nation's debt is a "fire" that could "get out of control at any moment."

On Thursday, though, Obama said the deficit is "getting smaller, not bigger," a technically true statement, but Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said the nation still has an "unsustainable problem in place."

The high numbers are not easy to understand, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is warning that the future could be dire if the climbing debt rate isn't snowed.

In its analysis, the CBO explained that the government is expanding at historic rates, adn between 2009 and 2012, deficits were larger in relation to the size of the economy than at any time since 1946.

And while experts project the deficit to fall in upcoming years, they say it will climb again because of interest rates and entitlement programs.

As a result, the CBO reports, interest on the debt will rise to five percent of the
The CBO estimates that by 2038, interest on the debt will rise to 5 percent of the gross domestic product, as compared to the historical average of two percent, leaving less money available for spending.

But so-called entitlement programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are expected to soar, reports the CBO, doubling by 2038 to equal 14 percent of the GDP and causing spending on everything else to drop.

Rubio complained Obama has resisted making major changes to the programs because liberals don't want changes to them.

And while the debt ceiling is suspended for now, eventually the nation will need to pay its bills, meaning 2014 could look more bleak, reports Reuters. When the new debt cap resets in February to whatever level the debt has reached by then, the new debt ceiling date comes while tax refund checks are being mailed out, and financial experts expect a new cap of at least $17.3 trillion.

Goldman Sachs economist Alec Phillips said in a report that he thinks the Treasury will run up on the cap by mid-March, but "if revenues are higher than expected or tax refunds are lower than expected, the date could be pushed (out)slightly further."

If the borrowing capacity can be stretched until the end of March, a $30 billion dividend payment from Freddie Mac could allow a bit more breathing space, said Phillips.