Spending
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress sent President Bush an $800 billion boost in the federal borrowing limit on Thursday, spotlighting how the budget has lurched out of control in recent years and how hard it will be to afford future initiatives.
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With the government facing imminent default because it has depleted its authority to borrow money, the debt limit bill would pump up the federal borrowing cap to $8.18 trillion. That is 70 percent the size of the entire U.S. economy, and more than $2.4 trillion higher than the debt Bush inherited upon taking office in 2001.
Wasn’t the Republican party supposed to be the champion of fiscal conservatism? Unfortunately, those who lend money tend to want it back later, so get your checkbooks ready, boys and girls, we’re going to be paying for this for decades to come.
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There’s plenty of blame to go around on this one.
Sent you some grist for your mill ….
Dad
By Dad on 11.23.04 6:27 am
"There’s plenty of blame to go around on this one."
No doubt, there is no one in Washington who is blameless.
Check the following chart though. Notice a trend?
[Editted] When I embed the image in the page, the blog software keeps removing it everytime the page changes, probably as a safety mechanism to stop people from abusing the site. Look at the graph at:
http://www.folsoms.net/blog/federal-debt-GDP.gif
By Alan on 11.23.04 8:26 am
Umm…i see downfall in blue and uprising in red. Does this mean *gasp* that the democratic presidents were doing better fiscally?
By Ed on 11.24.04 6:30 am
__ Does this mean *gasp* that the democratic presidents were doing better fiscally?__
Not exactly. The Blue shows a decline in the debt as a proportion of the total US economy, not actual dollars. This was extemely high after World War II, as the US had to borrow tremendously to finance that war.
Eisenhower (Ike), Nixon, and Ford were all republican presidents, and this debt as a proportion of the economy declined under them. The were aided occasionally by the rapid growth of the US economy, but their administrations also included two wars, Korea and Viet Nam, with all the expenses they entailed. Mostly they realized they couldn’t spend what they didn’t have, a concept that has eluded the two Bushes and Ronald Reagan.
By Alan, Ed's Dad on 11.24.04 7:27 am
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