Finally the first rumblings of criticism from the Republican party in regards to the Bush administrations fiscal suicide. Maybe this could be a sign that the Republican Party has been slapped in the face by a storm that uncovered the one of the biggest expansions of government and government spending in our nation’s history. Have traditional Republicans returned with a voice of true concern?
When we exclude even military spending and that which is being set aside for the rebuilding in the wake of hurricane Katrina, government yearly spending has increased 300 billion dollars in the past four years making the national debt grow by more than two trillion dollars. The recent release of the transportation bill that is loaded with over 6,000 pork-barrel projects and it seems like our government is spending as though it were waiting to cash its winning lotto ticket.
Bush has recently asked Americans to drive only when needed and to conserve our nation’s fuel supplies, which reminded me of when former President Jimmy Carter asked Americans to put on a sweater to save energy. Someone suggested that the Bush administration seek to suspend the government’s tax on fuel for a few weeks, since it sees tax cuts as the holy grail of economic stimulus, a notion that was of course deemed “ludicrous”. So instead we will curtail the education of America’s children which is already ranked only 9th worldwide in order to keep the pistons of economy pumping.
In case you were watching the news about hurricane Rita’s addition to the national deficit you may have missed Greenspan’s recent warnings about the spiraling deficits and how they will affect the long term. Now when Greenspan raises and eyebrow this is near the equivalent of somebody else jumping up and down, and Greenspan all but slammed his fist on the desk. What was most startling about his most recent comments was his attack upon fiscal discipline that has since been in decline after the budget surpluses of the latter 1990’s. National debt in addition to the falling dollar left Greenspan to finally trumpet what only two years ago he barely ever mentioned.
During his speech on rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast areas, Bush wore the face of Ronald Reagan, yet he spoke like FDR and the only thing he left out was how he intended to pay for it all. One might at first think of rolling back tax cuts particularly those for the wealthy, but that was not to be the case. One might also think that trimming the fat from the budget would the primary focus, but that is not the case either. The current solution, pass the cost to our children, after all the current administration and Congress will no longer be in office to take the heat. The now cliché’ saying of “borrow and spend in favor of tax and spend” is probably the most irresponsible handling of economics of our time.
It will not be the war in Iraq, nor will it be the cost to rebuild from recent hurricanes that may doom the US economy in the course of the next decade but they will add to a much greater erosion that is taking place. These things if nothing else have helped to bring to light a fiscal policy that is indicative of this administrations failure to accept responsibility in the here and now. This policy of passing on to future generations that which we have sown through reckless and arrogant abandonment will ultimately be the mark this administration leaves to history. This sure isn’t the fiscally responsible party of Republicans I remembered from days of old.
Flip
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