"I read the news today, oh boy": over half a trillion dollar deficit
Posted by Scott Summers at 7/29/2008 4:53 AM and is filed under Federal deficit; balanced budget; microcapitalism 
"The White House's budget
office on Monday estimated that next year's budget deficit will hit a
record $482 billion - and that doesn't even account for some $80
billion in war costs."
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/07/28/ap5261851.html
In the 1960s, my Uncle Dave sputtered and fumed to me that Lyndon Johnson was going to ruin the country. "Seven billion dollar deficit!" he hissed. "Can you imagine that! I can't believe how irresponsible the Democrats are!"
In the 1970s, Jimmy Carter clocked in with a deficit in the seventy billions. "Outrageous!" roared the resolutely Republican uncle.
And now Bush -- by his own account, and for next year alone -- is gonna leave us with a little doggie-doo pile of five hundred and sixty-two billion in new debt for all of us to clean up.
When Reagan took office, the national debt was around one trillion.
As Dubya leaves, the debt pushes ten trillion.
What would Uncle Dave have said to THAT?
You know, the last Republican president to have a balanced budget was Dwight Eisenhower. Nearly fifty friggin' years ago.
Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the Bushes couldn't do it. Or couldn't be bothered. Or didn't care. Or all of the above.
My Republican opponent for Congress in the 16th district of Illinois is forever crowing about how fiscally conservative he is.
Oh, sure he is -- at the margins. Myopic and silly and counterproductive and downright mean as his suggested cuts often are.
But on a macro basis -- the incumbent Congressman is as reckless as they come.
If my Republican opponent were a true fiscal conservative, he'd vote AGAINST war appropriations unless there was tax revenue to back them up.
But no. He blithely votes for war -- pre-emptive war waged under phony pretenses, mind you -- and then shuns responsibility for paying for it. And he compounds his arrogance by simultaneously shilling for tax cuts for the wealthy.
One of my sons sums it up wonderfully well: "What's worse than tax-and-spend Democrats? The borrow-and-spend Republicans!"
Friends, the past fifty years of wretched fiscal excess and depravity and irresponsibility -- exhibited by Republicans and Democrats alike -- have brought our nation to its knees.
They're exporting our jobs. They're trashing our dollar. They're ruining our way of life.
That's why I'm running as a Green. I stand for fiscal responsibility. I stand for job creation and economic development through a bottoms-up approach I call "microcapitalism". And I stand for -- gasp! -- a balanced budget.
The money medicine will be bitter, friends. We face hard work and sacrifice in order to bootstrap ourselves back into good jobs, and to right the financial wrongs that have been left to us.
Uncle Dave was right about the budget-busting Democrats of yore. And my son is right about the borrow-and-spend Republicans of today.
A $562 billion dollar annual deficit. That's roughly eight times Carter. That's roughly eighty times Johnson.
And we're all supposed to think that the tooth fairy will pick up the tab.
It's time -- way past time, in fact -- for "we the people" to put our financial house in order. I am, friends, at your disposal for the hard work ahead.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/07/28/ap5261851.html
In the 1960s, my Uncle Dave sputtered and fumed to me that Lyndon Johnson was going to ruin the country. "Seven billion dollar deficit!" he hissed. "Can you imagine that! I can't believe how irresponsible the Democrats are!"
In the 1970s, Jimmy Carter clocked in with a deficit in the seventy billions. "Outrageous!" roared the resolutely Republican uncle.
And now Bush -- by his own account, and for next year alone -- is gonna leave us with a little doggie-doo pile of five hundred and sixty-two billion in new debt for all of us to clean up.
When Reagan took office, the national debt was around one trillion.
As Dubya leaves, the debt pushes ten trillion.
What would Uncle Dave have said to THAT?
You know, the last Republican president to have a balanced budget was Dwight Eisenhower. Nearly fifty friggin' years ago.
Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the Bushes couldn't do it. Or couldn't be bothered. Or didn't care. Or all of the above.
My Republican opponent for Congress in the 16th district of Illinois is forever crowing about how fiscally conservative he is.
Oh, sure he is -- at the margins. Myopic and silly and counterproductive and downright mean as his suggested cuts often are.
But on a macro basis -- the incumbent Congressman is as reckless as they come.
If my Republican opponent were a true fiscal conservative, he'd vote AGAINST war appropriations unless there was tax revenue to back them up.
But no. He blithely votes for war -- pre-emptive war waged under phony pretenses, mind you -- and then shuns responsibility for paying for it. And he compounds his arrogance by simultaneously shilling for tax cuts for the wealthy.
One of my sons sums it up wonderfully well: "What's worse than tax-and-spend Democrats? The borrow-and-spend Republicans!"
Friends, the past fifty years of wretched fiscal excess and depravity and irresponsibility -- exhibited by Republicans and Democrats alike -- have brought our nation to its knees.
They're exporting our jobs. They're trashing our dollar. They're ruining our way of life.
That's why I'm running as a Green. I stand for fiscal responsibility. I stand for job creation and economic development through a bottoms-up approach I call "microcapitalism". And I stand for -- gasp! -- a balanced budget.
The money medicine will be bitter, friends. We face hard work and sacrifice in order to bootstrap ourselves back into good jobs, and to right the financial wrongs that have been left to us.
Uncle Dave was right about the budget-busting Democrats of yore. And my son is right about the borrow-and-spend Republicans of today.
A $562 billion dollar annual deficit. That's roughly eight times Carter. That's roughly eighty times Johnson.
And we're all supposed to think that the tooth fairy will pick up the tab.
It's time -- way past time, in fact -- for "we the people" to put our financial house in order. I am, friends, at your disposal for the hard work ahead.
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