From The Progress Report (Center for American Progress, 1/5/2007)...
During President Bush's six years in office, he and Congress have taken an inherited surplus and have transformed it into a mountain of debt. "The budget outlook for the next decade is bleak," according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). The Congressional Budget Office projects that "if the President's tax cuts are made permanent and relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax is extended, deficits will average about $350 billion a year for the next ten years (2007-2016), even if the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan decline substantially in a few years." CBPP found that legislation enacted over the last six years has increased the national debt by $2.3 trillion -- including $633 billion in interest payments alone. ("In 2006, the federal government spent $1 out of every $12 on interest payments, or $227 billion. That's more than we spend on education, housing, veterans’ care, and environmental protection, combined.")
Despite the grim picture, Bush practiced a bit of "me-tooism" this week as he promised to submit a plan to "balance the federal budget by 2012," despite the fact that he has "never proposed a balanced budget since it went into deficit, never vetoed a spending bill when Republicans controlled Congress and offered little sustained objection to earmarks until the issue gained political traction last year." "That's shameless, even by local standards," writes the Washington Post's David Ignatius. Moreover, the President's bloated budgets have reflected skewed priorities and have not stimulated economic
growth. Today, the House takes up the goal of bringing fiscal discipline back to Washington with bills establishing "pay-as-you-go" budgeting practices and bringing transparency to the earmarking process.
2 comments:
It does little to criticize only Bush for the national debt (which is actually closing in on $50 Trillion on an accrual basis). Our troubles have been made by both Democrats and Republicans over the last 75 years. Bush inherited a $20 Trillion accrual debt when you took office, which took into account the rosy picture the tech bubble that burst soon after. And while liberals were gnashing their teeth over a few billion for Iraq, Bush added $11 Trillion to the accrual debt with Medicare Part D, with nary a complaint (only that it wasn't big enough).
So looking at merely the cash basis debt, and blaming Republicans when the economic time bombs of the New Deal and the Great Society have gone is to miss the real danger.
We don't need Socialism, the brand touted by the Democrats or the brand touted by the Republicans. Socialism has brought us $2.6 Trillion annual budgets, partially funded by borrowings (especially an increase in foreign borrowing), a nearly $50 Trillion accrual basis debt, a crumbling infrastructure, and troops stationed around the globe carrying out dollar diplomacy.
So carry on with the notion that Clinton was a God and Dubya a moron. Neither is to blame directly for our debt crisis, it's the accumulation of bad policies by both parties for eight decades.
First of all, I want to thank you for the comment - few folks take the time on this somewhat obscure little blog.
Secondly, I'd like to point out that it was a Democratic President who created the last budget surplus which was wiped out by the Republicans in short order after President Bush took office. There was no real need for that, other than a delusional view that taxes could be cut, and additional income realized from that.
I am a fiscal conservative - I want to see a budget in the black with funds going toward paying off the national debt. I am not opposed to either higher taxes or cuts in spending to achieve that goal.
I am quite certain that, should the choice be to cut spending and to make permanent President Bush's tax cuts, that you and I would disagree over where the cuts in spending should come from, but I am not necessarily in support of bigger government and higher taxes.
I just want us to stop borrowing to pay for stuff.
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