The war hasn’t started yet has it? Sadaam didn’t deploy the Doomsday Device did he? We’re not building huge underground bunkers for Dr. Strangelove, his friends and harem, are we?
Why is the Bush administration borrowing money hand over fist?
If this is what it costs to chase Osama bin Laden, then we’ve got to question whether it’s worth it.
I know there’s no budget for the new fiscal year we’re already into by two months, but operating on continuing resolutions (last year’s budget) certainly can’t call for this kind of borrowing.
Six months ago, we raised the national debt limit from $5.95 trillion to $6.4 trillion because it was “the responsible thing to do” and already the debt is standing at $6.343 trillion. We’ll close that gap in no time.
As of the close of business for November, two months into the new fiscal year, the debt has already gone up $115.2 billion. At the rate of about two billion a day, weekends included, we’re going to skyrocket over last year’s preposterous $421 billion increase.
It looks like the first order of business for the new 108th Congress, when politicians come back to work in January, is going to be to raise the debt ceiling again, as usual. Why do they even bother trying to keep a lid on it?
That’s our government for you, all pretense, sham bluff and bluster, except when it comes to dropping bombs on somebody or taking away our liberties.
Consumers, on the other hand, are paying off debt as fast as they can because the economy is looking more and more like the great depression of the Thirties all the time. Consumer confidence is at an all time low and nobody wants to lose their home because they’re out of work or can’t pay the mortgage. They know how heartless the banks and the credit card companies can be.
And guess what, hardly any of the borrowing in the last two months came from entitlements like Social Security. This is because 11 of the other entitlement distrust funds, from gas and traveling taxes to unemployment taxes, are drawing down on their phony holdings. Due to a failing economy, they are cashing in those bogus junk bonds that the Beltway Bandits deposited when they stole surpluses in the false glory days of abundance and over taxation.
Only $19 billion of the last two month’s “borrowing” came from Social Security and Medicare. The rest, $96.2 billion, came from borrowing honestly from investors. People and other nations who for some reason still have faith in our ability to pay them back.
And what passes for news in this country isn’t covering any of this. They want to do their part to encourage spending so retailers can harvest the Santa Claus factor.
The Bush administration is out of control.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”