A Dose of Budgetary Reality

I thought that I had published this back on March 16, 2006, but looking back though my previous postings here at Voice of North America, this article is nowhere to be found. Since Average American insists on regurgitating budgetary myth in his most recent article titled $600 million shortfall, I thought it best to resurrect this article so that he might refer to the chart.











WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress raised the limit on the government's credit card to $9 trillion Thursday and lawmakers immediately went on a charge-it spree.  Treasury Secretary John Snow applauded Congress for "protecting the full faith and credit of the United States."


Yes, today we should all be proud and applaud ourselves for having the courage to up the credit limit and borrow more money from overseas.  After all, we won’t get the bill -- it will be our children and our grandchildren who will pay for our spending spree.  Of course, when we look at Iraq, we can at least be satisfied that it was money well spent.   So what can be learned from examining the 1961-2004 budget data from the Congressional Budget Office? 

A couple of things stand out.  First, notice that all of the steep drops into the red seem to occur during a Republican administration.  What!  That can’t be right!!!  Aren’t Republican’s supposed to be fiscally conservative?  Aren’t they natural businessmen?  I thought they were good at managing money, unlike those big government spend and spend Democrats!  Second, notice that the steepest dive into the red is brought to you by . . . you guessed it :  The Moron In Charge!!!  And he’s not through yet.  According to the most recent CBO projections, gross federal debt will be $8.6 trillion at the end of 2006 and $9.9 trillion at the end of 2008.  So basically, by the time Dubya leaves office he will have nearly doubled the total federal debt to $10,000,000,000,000. 

It is one of those ironies of life that that George W. Bush, a man with singular antipathy towards science when it stands in the way of his faith-based beliefs, should make it necessary to express all future budgets in scientific notation.