The View from the Meadow

Observations of the Passing Scene

Political and Social Commentary by Dave Satre

Bush Increases the National Debt Limit

G.W. Bush, the biggest spender in the history of America, despite his claims to the contrary, quietly increased the nation’s national debt limit in October after it exceeded its $9 trillion limit.

This is the fifth time Bush and Co. has raised the debt limit. This administration has done nothing to stop the massive increase in its spending, which has primarily focused on military expenditures while ignoring the needs of America and its people. Meanwhile, the U.S. remains the only major industrial nation without universal healthcare for its citizens, its school systems are failing miserably and its infrastructure is crumbling.

This is the highest debt in the history of mankind. Economists continue to worry that it will not be much longer before the nation will be unable to pay the interest on the debt, let alone pay it off. The debt is primarily held by foreign lenders, which raises questions concerning the nation’s financial survival.

The new debt limit is $9.815 trillion. Bush has raised the debt limit by $3.865 trillion since he took over the White House in 2001. Now, as during the Reagan/Bush era, Americans are being told the debt is so high that our children and grandchildren will be paying it off. That is, if it is still possible to do so by that time.

This spending policy, which first surfaced under Reagan, was initially promoted as the Trickle Down theory or Supply-Side Economics. It is actually a spending policy based on borrowing and is the fault of insider Republicans who developed it during the Nixon administration. Reagan entered office as the leader of the world’s richest nation. By the end of Bush the Elder’s term the country was the world’s largest debtor. Clinton proved their dire predictions wrong by balancing the budget and lowering the national debt.

It took the country from George Washington until Ronald Reagan to reach the first $1 trillion in debt. The current national debt is actually higher than $9 trillion because it includes borrowing by some agencies that are not covered by the congressional debt limit.

Dave Satre

November, 2007