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Who Gave George the Credit Card?
by James Glaser
"The debt is exploding and the president isn't facing up to it." That was from Senator Kent Conrad, of the Senate Budget Committee, after he looked at George Bush's $2.7 trillion spending spree plan for the federal government. It is now reported that because of the way George Bush spends the tax payer's money, he will be asking Congress to raise the national debt limit to $8.18 trillion. In case you are wondering, the debt when George Bush came into office was about $5.6 trillion. The Minneapolis Tribune reports George Bush's handling of money this way. "Just four years ago, Bush sent Congress a budget that promised to balance the federal budget by 2005. Instead the government ran a deficit of $318 billion last year, the third-largest on record. In 2003 the administration predicted that the war in Iraq could be won for $60 billion. The meter is now at $400 billion and running. Later that year the White House promised that its plan to modernize Medicare with a prescription-drug benefit would cost about $400 billion over a decade; the administration raised its cost estimate to $700 billion as soon as Congress passed the bill." The crime is, George Bush and those advising him know exactly what they are doing. They are certainly good at spending, but they continue to spend money we don't have. By borrowing trillions of dollars they have been able to fool the American people into believing that their fiscal policies are working just fine, and the American economy is on a sound footing. That sound footing will remain sound, as long as we continue to make the interest payments on the debt. That amounts to over $350 billion a year now. That just pays the interest; we are making no payment on the principal. George Bush is playing a game with the American people. He is spending every cent he can borrow, while at the same time he is cutting taxes for the wealthiest people in the country. George is trying to keep this up until the end of his term. After that, someone else will have to worry about what he has done. Sometime in the future (Bush is betting that is after 2008) America will be forced to get our house in order, and debt reduction will dictate how our government is run, but George Bush will be history then. |
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