$10 trillion and counting
Here's the Courant editorial on America's $10,000,000,000,000 debt. No word on the $60,000,000,000,000 in unfunded long-term liabilities...
By a 53-42 vote, the Senate revised upward the maximum amount of money the government can borrow to $9.815 trillion.
Thus, a Republican president who inherited a budget surplus and campaigned on staying true to GOP conservative fiscal principles will leave office as the biggest national debt builder ever. Since Mr. Bush assumed office, the debt has nearly doubled. For most of those years, Republicans also controlled Congress.
Democrats are predictably denouncing the record. "What we're doing with our very high debt is essentially blowing out living standards," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus - even as he voted to raise the limit. "We have no choice but to approve it. If we fail to raise the debt ceiling soon, the U.S. Treasury will default for the first time in its history," he added.
Presidents and congressional leaders have used the we-have-no-choice argument forever. Of course they have no choice if they spend considerably more than they collect in revenue and they refuse to choose between higher taxes and leaner outlays.
For the sake of America, I hope the next POTUS is serious about a balanced budget. Too bad GWB wasn't.
Tim White
10 comments:
and what programs do the Democrats suggest we not spend money on?
besides getting defeated in Iraq..and that is only 7% of the federal budget
Fiscal conservatism as a Republican principle died with Ronald Reagan. For all of Reagan's accomplishments, keeping down the federal debt was not one of them. Reagan inherited a $1 Trillion US debt from Carter and left office with a $4 Trillion debt. Ironically, Bill Clinton is the only president since Eisenhower to actually pay down some of the federal debt.
John McCain tried to make fiscal responsibility an issue in 2000, but it's not sexy enough for most Americans. In fundamental terms, the U.S. dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on, having $60 Trillion in unfunded liabilities hanging over it.
The markets have only begun to wake up to this reality. For the first time in 50 years, the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US dollar. Ross Perot may have been a nut case, but he was correct about the structural weaknesses of the US dollar.
Eventually, the US Treasury will have two options in the face of these overwhelming mountains of debt -- either default on obligations, or more likely, hyperinflate the dollar to meet obligations. This points to gold as a prudent part of one's longterm savings.
As much as Republicans hate the man, Bill C. did a much better job with the economy than W. has done. The Republicans have spent like crazy while cutting taxes, what did they expect would happen. Thank God the election is a year away maybe the next president will address this issue.
We can't get rid of George W fast enough. He gets us into a needless war that is costing us a billion $ a week. I can't for the life of me see why people are so confused that he ended up being terrible. His bio before being president is a litany of bad business practices that dad had to bail him out of. Did we honestly think as president he was suddenly going to see the light. He has the title of "worst president in history" with justification. Let's hope we make intelligence a priority in the next election we've had 7 years of stupid.
If you follow 'W's career, he followed in his Dad's footsteps. Same career, just did everything half as well - except for POTUS - where he did not meet even that low standard.
For the first time in 50 years, the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US dollar.
Yeah... that is concerning... I think I heard/read somewhere recently that a significant part of the recent devaluation of the American dollar relates to oil.
The story goes that 30 or so years ago, OPEC decided that global trading would occur in USD. Then in 2000, via the UNs "oil for food" program in Iraq... Iraq demanded that its trading currency change to the Euro. Iraq could do this because it didn't care about OPEC. On the heels of that, other nations (Venezuela, Libya, etc.) started doing the same. In turn, all the USD that had been taken out of the US, then returned to the US... and there were more dollars chasing the same amount of goods... hence, "the value" of the USD decreased because you needed more dollars to buy the same goods.
I haven't studied this by any means, but I seem to recall thinking this whole story seemed true/plausible.
GW was a disater.....I regret my vote for him.....and quite frankly the only republican candidate who impresses me is Mike Huckabee. Guliani is a distant second...
11:13 AM - Will your new dem pres address it by raising taxes...the montra of the modern liberal socialist democrats.
GW is a fiscal disaster and an all-around disaster. But will Hillary be any better?
Now she wants to give $5,000 to every baby born in the US. That would include the anchor babies of illegal aliens since anchor babies are automatically US citizens.
Hillary's giveaway plan will encourage both increased illegal immigration and out-of-wedlock births among the welfare class.
Hillary could not be worse even with great effort on her part
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