( OT ) The case of the 12 zeros
 

The Bush administration and the Republican Party seem to have lost all
capacity for financial self-control, turning their backs on the GOP's
historical record of responsible fiscal management. The Republicans have
squandered the huge budget surplus they inherited by spending not just
on guns and butter but on guns, butter, and tax cuts. Because of
government obfuscation, most Americans don't realize the deep fiscal
hole we're in--and the fact that we're still busy digging. As David
Walker, the head of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office,
pointed out, "The federal government's obligations, current liabilities,
and unfunded fiscal commitments are over $43 trillion and rising. . . .
Yes, that's trillions with 12 zeros rather than billions with nine zeros."

The estimated net worth of American families is slightly over $47
trillion, and nearly all of it--90 per-cent--would be needed to cover
government's current obligations. And don't think we can grow our way
out of this hole. According to the GAO, it would take real double-digit
growth over the next 75 years to pay off our current debt--an impossible
task, considering that the growth rate during the 1990s boom years
averaged just 3.2 percent.

A trillion here, a trillion there. The hole is even deeper because these
debt projections exclude the cost of Bush's second-term agenda, which
would add over $5 trillion to the deficit over the next decade by making
his tax cuts permanent ($1 trillion) and privatizing Social Security
($1.5 trillion in the first decade; $3.5 trillion in the second)--not to
mention the tens of billions of dollars likely to be spent on military
operations. And all this spending would come at a time when the first
baby boomers are on the verge of retiring, causing Medicare and Social
Security costs to soar. The president says his budget would cut the
deficit in half by 2009. But this is a mirage. Why? Because it excludes
the cost of the Iraq war and the cost of his privatization program for
Social Security--to name just two whoppers.

What's worse, by cutting on the other side of the ledger, the Bush
budget would slash or eliminate programs that affect the quality of life
of millions of Americans. Among the proposed cuts: a 12 percent
reduction in elementary and secondary education programs; a 14 percent
drop in spending on Medicaid, the federal-state program for the poor and
disabled; a 20 percent cut for clean water and clean air. Spending on
Head Start would be slashed by $3.3 billion, meaning 118,000 fewer kids
would be covered by 2010, while the program that subsidizes nutritional
assistance to low-income pregnant women and nursing mothers, critical to
preventing low-weight babies, would have to reduce the number of women
covered by 740,000. At the same time, however, the Bush budget would
increase highway spending--the budget's single biggest pork-barrel
program--by $284 billion over six years from the current $218 billion.
The egregious farm-subsidy program, meanwhile, which benefits huge
agribusinesses far more than it helps small family farms, would hardly
be touched.

But wait, it gets worse. The real cost of the president's program soars
after he leaves office, especially the new prescription-drug program,
which has already jumped from $400 billion to an estimated $724 billion
in the first decade, as costs increase from $37 billion a year to $110
billion a year. This is just one of many programs whose escalating costs
will leave Bush's successors in a vicious budget crunch. Making matters
still worse is the fact that reforms of major entitlement programs like
Medicare and Social Security are essentially not being addressed. If
that remains the case, fiscal catastrophe will be virtually unavoidable.

What's to be done?

We must insist on truth and transparency, and our leaders must tell us
clearly the current-value dollar cost of all major spending and tax
bills before they are voted upon. We must also bring back basic
budgetary controls, such as pay-go rules, that require new spending
increases or tax cuts to be paid for by corresponding tax increases or
spending cuts. We will need to revise our tax code and then improve our
efforts to enforce it so as to collect hundreds of billions of dollars
of revenue lost to special tax preferences, in uncollected back taxes,
and through tax evasion and abusive tax shelters. Finally, we must bring
our health costs under control before they break the nation's fiscal
bank. The sooner we act the better. Otherwise, compound interest on the
growing debt will eat us up.

The American public gets it. In a recent poll, *90* percent called the
deficit a very serious or somewhat serious problem. Which raises a
rather interesting question: Where are all those budget hawks when we
really need them?

By Mortimer B. Zuckerman US News & World Report.

"Jim," wrote in message
...
The Bush administration and the Republican Party seem to
snip


Yet another cut and paste *without comment*? ;-)

Jim, wrote:
.... Because of
government obfuscation

Translation- a multi-hundred-million campaign of lies & dedicated
cover-up that Nixon would be proud of

... most Americans don't realize the deep fiscal
hole we're in--and the fact that we're still busy digging. As David
Walker, the head of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office

As soon as he criticises the Bush Administration, he's suddenly become
partisan, no matter how truthful his assertions.

pointed out, "The federal government's obligations, current liabilities,
and unfunded fiscal commitments are over $43 trillion and rising. . . .
Yes, that's trillions with 12 zeros rather than billions with nine zeros."

But hey, as long as we can keep suckering the Chinese and other Asian
core banks into buying up our debt, why stop? We're a credit card nation!

And if those "non-partisan" gov't bean-counters don't keep their noses
out of it, President Bush will fire their sorry butts, just like he
threatened to do to the head of OMB chief for revealing his
disengenuousness on the Medicare bill...

DSK

JimH wrote:

"Jim," wrote in message
...

The Bush administration and the Republican Party seem to

snip


Yet another cut and paste *without comment*? ;-)


And your comment is?

"JimH" wrote in message
...

"Jim," wrote in message
...
The Bush administration and the Republican Party seem to
snip


Yet another cut and paste *without comment*? ;-)

Just another liebral playing the michael moore numbers games........
YAWN

"Jim," wrote in message
...
JimH wrote:

"Jim," wrote in message
...

The Bush administration and the Republican Party seem to

snip


Yet another cut and paste *without comment*? ;-)
And your comment is?

Yet another cut and paste *without comment*?

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 21:23:59 GMT, "Jim," cut'n'pasted an
article he probably hadn't read.

Glad to see you still have the 'touch', Jimcomma!


--
John H

"All decisions are the result of binary thinking."

"Jim," wrote in message
...


And your comment is?


Careful, JimH has appointed himself the newsgroup cop, judge, jury &
executioner. If he's not happy with the quality of your posts....out you
go with no right to appeal.

There you go again krause,,

entering someone into the bozo bin,,, turns out this means you will read,
print, re-read, then get the little woman to read (the law student, 20 years
your junior). Then you will call the ISP of your bozo member, call them
with a bunch of lies,, have them do an investigation going back 2 years to
find your lies,,, then the ISP provider finds out that is clear it is krause
who is the liar,,

See krause, you just cost people money,,, waste,,, but you don't care, you
hold two union cards.....

You should ask the little darling there krause,,,






"HarryKrause" wrote in message
...
alias wrote:
"JimH" wrote in message
...

"Jim," wrote in message
...

The Bush administration and the Republican Party seem to

snip


Yet another cut and paste *without comment*? ;-)


Just another liebral playing the michael moore numbers games........
YAWN






A "Fritz" by any name smells like bozobin material. In you go, alias.

"Jim," wrote in message
...
The Bush administration and the Republican Party seem to have lost all
capacity for financial self-control, turning their backs on the GOP's
historical record of responsible fiscal management.

pointed out, "The federal government's obligations, current liabilities,
and unfunded fiscal commitments are over $43 trillion and rising. . . .
Yes, that's trillions with 12 zeros rather than billions with nine zeros."

So Bush is going to increase the national debt by several trillion with his
special interests (war on Terror, education) where did the other 43 trillion
in debt come from? Democrats who are not traditionally fiscally
responsible. And Jim you want to replace Bush with WHAT? A Democrat.