The View from the Meadow

Observations of the Passing Scene

Political and Social Commentary by Dave Satre

Bush Hocks the Nation
Raises National Debt Again

March 16, 2006

The Bush Regime is following through with their perfidious plan to place America into pointless debt. This is nothing new --- it’s part of their stated Project for a New American Century (PNAC). On March 16th, Congress voted to raise the National Debt Limit by $781 billion to a record high of nearly $9 trillion.

Claiming the country will go bankrupt and the government could be forced to cease operations, the Congress blindly backed the Bush Regime and raised the National Debt Limit again. This is the fourth time in the five years Bush has been in office that the National Debt Limit has been raised.

This country is in financial trouble, despite the outlandish daily claims made by The Regime. While economists continue to contend the economy is robust, despite massive jobs losses and increases in costs for all of the daily necessities, the government is spending more money than is coming in. Evidently, the top executives in industry are getting richer, but the poor and unemployed class is growing exponentially.

The administration continues to hammer home its contention that the massive overspending by this government is the result of terrorism and the costs of war are justified; while they claim to be cutting back on spending by revamping social security, education, healthcare, etc. It’s all a classic case of misdirection. These devious defalcators are attracting the public’s attention by claiming to be saving the people money on one the one hand while they’re picking the tax payers’ back pocket with the other.

The reality is, the military is being given a blank check --- the amount of funding is never reported for supposed “reasons of national security” --- and the tax break for the ultra rich is being extended. The funding for services that are needed the most by the nation’s citizens are being squeezed and manipulated. Senate Democrats meekly protested the move and mildly requested assurances that the Bush administration will show more fiscal restraint and rein in the debt in the future.

In typical Bush fashion, the Republican leaders in the Senate put the vote off as long as possible, waiting until the debt was just a week away from reaching its current $8.18 trillion limit, and Congress was anxious to take off early for a long weekend and their Spring, recess before bringing it to a vote.

Then, claiming the government would not being able to pay its bills after the debt exceeded the current $8.18 trillion ceiling by March 24th, they demanded immediate action or the country would be forced to default on its debts. They also claimed that raising the debt limit would enable the country to pay for the war in Iraq, finance Medicare and support other big federal programs without raising taxes.

The Republicans joined ranks and the pre-ordained issue was passed, although all Senate Democrats voted against the bill; along with three Republicans who demonstrated the rare courage to buck their party leaders on this major issue.

This is the ugly result of the Republican’s majority in Congress. It has enabled them to hammer through any contentious issue that reaches a vote despite all protests. Without this majority The Regime would never have been able to inflict their erroneous ways on the people of this country, Iraq and the rest of the world. It is of paramount importance that this majority is eliminated and the Constitution’s system of checks be returned to balance in the Fall 2006 elections.

The 2006 budget bill then also passed the House without any Democratic support and the Senate narrowly approved a contentious $2.8 trillion election-year budget Thursday that broke all spending records only hours after it increased the government’s borrowing power.

The Democrats then joined Senate Republicans in a pork barrel feeding frenzy to approve over $16 billion in additional spending for social security, the military, job safety and home-heating programs before leaving for the Spring recess. Apparently, if you dangle an enticing week off in front of our legislators they will demonstrate a generally unpracticed ability to hustle every time.

There was also word that the Treasury Department had already started “borrowing” several billions of dollars from the civil service pension fund to avoid exceeding the $8.18 trillion debt limit. It’s this sort of “borrowing” that led to the so-called Social Security Deficit.

While the Bush Administration continues to try to defraud Americans by claiming the Social Security System is bankrupt, there is actually a huge $1.6 trillion trust fund reserve in the system, the largest in its history. The problem is, the funds were “borrowed” by the government and they don’t intend to pay them back. (More Info) The Treasury promised to "restore all due interest and principal" to the pension fund as soon as possible following the raising of the debt limit.

The Republicans believe in living on credit (More Info). Bush raised the National Debt Limit the first time shortly after assuming residence in the White House in 2001.The Administration apparently did this arbitrarily, due to their pre-planned agenda (PNAC) and despite the fact that Clinton had actually been spending the debt down in his last four years of office.

Bush raised the limit again on Christmas Eve 2002. He last raised the National Debt Limit to $8.18 trillion in Nov, 2004, right after the presidential election. Funny, he didn’t mention it during his election campaign. This amount was equal to 70% of the nation’s economy.

When the Reagan Republicans first settled into the White House the U.S. was the richest country in the world. Their dependency on debt to support their outrageous spending policies raised the National Debt to the $1 trillion level for the first time. By the time Bush the Elder left the White House 12 years later it topped the $3.2 trillion mark and the nation was the world’s largest debtor.

Junior has carried on the concept to its extremes. He topped the $3 trillion level all by himself. And, with a nearly $400 billion budget deficit expected for this year and next, another increase in the debt ceiling will likely be requested in 2007.

After years of listening to the Republican doom and gloom predictions that the country would be forever in debt and it would be up to our children and their children to pay off this gigantic debt, the Clinton administration proved them wrong. The Democrats’ spending practices and the resulting government surpluses enabled Clinton to start paying down the national debt in the last half of his term.

Clinton inherited a $292 billion deficit from Bush the Elder --- the largest in history. Clinton’s budgets not only balanced for three years in a row, when he left office he handed GW a $236 billion surplus --- also the largest in history. This shows that fiscal management is possible --- but, apparently, not under a Republican administration. Bush went through that surplus like a kid in a candy store and turned it into a $422 billion deficit within his first four years.

Republicans have done this before. During the Reagan era they introduced the concept of “Supply Side Economics” (living on credit) and the infamous “Trickle Down Theory,” in which they claimed that making the rich richer would ultimately benefit the poor. This is more aptly labeled the “Piddle on the Peons Theory.” From the peons’ point of view, it never worked out.

In continuously increasing the national debt, The Regime’s Enron-like thinking assumes that our economy will perennially continue to grow. Have you seen The Smartest Guys in the Room? The story behind the Enron collapse? The concept doesn’t work. In fact, it fails completely when the company/country inevitably stops growing.

Bush is betting the farm on the continuous growth of the economy. It’s an impossible premise.

Economists also warn that the national debt is rapidly reaching the point where the country will not be able to make the payments on the interest, much less ever pay off the debt. It’s difficult to visualize the amount of money involved here.

Just how much is a billion dollars, anyway? The politicians who are spending fortunes in our tax money make it sound as though they are dealing in smaller numbers by removing quite a few digits. For example, Bush's budget deficit, which is currently guesstimated at $422,000,000,000 is more simply stated as $422 billion.

To put it in a different perspective, a billion is a thousand million.

To place it in an even better perspective, a billion seconds ago, it was the year1959. Humans first learned to write 252 billion seconds ago. A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive. A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it.

Soooo, just how much is a trillion dollars, anyway?

A trillion is a thousand billion.

One trillion seconds equals 1,688 years. The oldest known human was alive 110 trillion seconds ago.

To spend $1 trillion in an average person’s lifetime would require spending over $35.5 million every day of their life.

To spend $1 trillion would require spending $1 million a day for a million days, which is 2,739 years.

Bush has raised the national debt more than $3 trillion since he moved into the White House.

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