The Bush administration's self-conscious program to run up the national debt to put politically popular programs - Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid - in peril has succeeded beyond expectations.
At the beginning of the Bush administration, there was talk about $trillion surpluses and the beginnings of a debate over the wisdom of having too large of a budget surplus, with no national debt.
Bush and Cheney have made that reality a distant memory.
Writes Kevin G. Hall at McClatchy:
At the beginning of the Bush administration, there was talk about $trillion surpluses and the beginnings of a debate over the wisdom of having too large of a budget surplus, with no national debt.
Bush and Cheney have made that reality a distant memory.
Writes Kevin G. Hall at McClatchy:
... President Bush touts the now-shrinking annual federal budget deficit, the amount that annual spending exceeds tax receipts. The deficit fell from a high of $413 billion in fiscal 2004 to about $163 billion in fiscal 2007.
But that masks what's happened to the gross federal debt, the sum of outstanding debt issued by the federal government. Since fiscal 2001, the federal debt has soared from $5.8 trillion to $8.9 trillion.
Like everything else Bush has done, running up the national debt was a well-crafted big con, this time with the American people and our grandchildren as the marks and the coming zap on the U.S. Treasury as the Sting.
But not to worry, Bush's family will be fine, and that's what really important.
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