The U.S Deficit

The recent "rescue plan" may or may not save us in the U.S. from a depression, but it was probably a necessary evil - if we didn't take a stab at saving the economy we might have regretted it forever.

There are still consequences to be paid, however. The pork attached to the bill will cost another billion-and-a-half dollars ((thanks, Republicans - it just goes to show that your votes can be bought) and the entire bill will probably drive inflation to heights we haven't seen in twenty years.

But, the biggest problem we have still lurks out there. I can only hope (beg?) that the next President deals with it. The deficit.

From Think Progress (10/3/2008) Archives.

ECONOMY -- NATIONAL DEBT HITS A 50-YEAR HIGH: Six years after Vice-President Cheney said that "deficits don't matter" in a meeting with the Bush administration's economic team, the national debt has exceeded $10 trillion dollars. This is the highest dollar amount ever, and pushes the debt to 69 percent of the gross domestic product, the highest percentage since 1955. When Bush took office, "the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion," and in eight years there has been an increase of over 70 percent, which is the largest increase in the debt of any president in history. The Center for Budget Policy and Priorities attributes 42 percent of the "fiscal deterioration" under Bush solely to his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. The fiscal year 2009 budget also has a near-record deficit of $407 billion, which was calculated before the administration spent $900 billion rescuing troubled financial institutions and proposed a $700 billion economic bailout. One facet of the economic bailout bill that passed the Senate and is being voted on in the House today increases the federal debt ceiling -- the amount to which the debt is legally allowed to go -- to $11.3 trillion.