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And the national debt is at an all-time high — at about $9.6 trillion. And we owe much of that money to banks in China — that friendly authoritarian nation that we used to refer to as “Red China.”
Does anyone care? Apparently not. The deficit and debt are not really part of this year’s presidential debate. To the extent that the deficit and the debt come up at all it is in partisan blamesmanship.
Democrats argue that it’s all President Bush’s fault, particularly his tendency to run up huge costs for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time he’s trying to cut taxes for upper-income Americans.
Republicans contend that those free-spending Democrats in Congress are to blame, what with their entitlement spending and pork-barrel earmarks.
Both sides probably are right.
Consider the war. According to The Hill, a Washington newspaper that covers the activities of Congress and the federal government, one thing driving the deficit is the $186 billion emergency supplemental expenditure that the president sought for the war. Then there was an additional $25 billion for domestic programs, including Gulf Coast reconstruction and a new G.I. Bill for veterans.
Unknown is the impact that the expected massive bailout of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will have.
During the 1990s, when a Democratic president and Republican Congress actually balanced the budget, they did so at least in part by using so-called “pay as you go” rules. Those rules required Congress to either raise taxes or cut spending to offset any increase in spending.
But this administration — and Republicans in general — have rejected the idea of pay as you go rules because of fears that taxes would rise. And all of those “emergency” spending measures take place outside of the normal budget restrictions.
So the deficit rises. And the debt, eventually, will have to be paid, hopefully by someone else (our children, perhaps, or their children).
It’s amazing that this is not a campaign issue.
