Former budget office chiefs say ‘something has to give’

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

A blue-ribbon panel that includes three former heads of the Congressional Budget Office is telling President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress that the federal deficit must be cut now or the national debt within about two generations will be 600 percent of the gross domestic product.

“The debt level of the United States is unsustainable, something has to give,” said Rudolph Penner, former head of the CBO and co-chairman of a report issued last week by the National Research Council and the National Academy of Public Administration.

The report concludes federal deficit spending is so out of control that unless  Obama and Democrat leaders on the Hill make changes now, debt in 2080 will be six times what the nation produces.

The alarm is being sounded just as the Obama administration is preparing to push his nationalized health care plan through Congress. It comes from a bipartisan group of top economic policy experts, including three former heads of the CBO, who warned existing entitlement programs including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security already are creating a fiscal crisis for the nation without the addition of government-funded universal health care.

“The fundamental problem is that we have these three very large programs – Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – that … are growing faster than tax revenues and faster than the economy,” Penner told WND

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Netanyahu ‘surprised’ by U.S. demand

Netanyahu explained an open city does not discriminate against Jewish housing and that Israel would not accept a stance that counters that civil right.

“Israeli Arabs are not forbidden from buying houses in west Jerusalem, and Jews must be granted the same right in the eastern part of the city,” he added.

WND has confirmed that over the weekend the State Department summoned Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to urge him to reject a permit granted to Moskowtz’s housing project.

Moskowitz purchased an eastern Jerusalem hotel. He plans to tear it down and build housing units in its place. The Jerusalem municipality earlier this month granted approval to the project, allowing for the construction of 20 apartments plus a three-level underground parking lot.

Historically, there was never any separation between eastern and western Jerusalem. The terminology came after Jordan occupied the eastern section of the city, including the Temple Mount, from 1947 until it used the territory to attack the Jewish state in 1967. Israel reunited Jerusalem when it won the 1967 Six Day War.

While the U.S. strongly protests any Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem, it has been actively aiding Palestinians building illegally upon Jewish own land in eastern sections of the city, WND has exposed.

Nimer Hamad, senior political adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told WND the PA recently received guarantees against any Jewish construction in the West Bank or eastern Jerusalem taking place without the approval of the Obama administration and the Palestinians.

Last month, WND quoted a top PA negotiator stating the Obama administration told the Palestinians the “golden era” of Israeli construction in sections of Jerusalem and the strategic West Bank will soon come to an end.

“The U.S. assured us that for the first time since 1967, we are going into a period where there will not be allowed a single construction effort on the part of the Israelis in the settlements, including in Gush Etzion, Maale Adumum and eastern Jerusalem,” said the negotiator, speaking from Ramallah on condition his name be withheld.

The negotiator told WND the positions of the PA and U.S. regarding ongoing Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem “are closer than ever.”

“The U.S. used to differentiate between natural growth and adding new communities. Not anymore. No construction will be allowed, not even natural growth,” the PA negotiator said.

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