Debt Ceiling - When is 8.2 Trillion not enough?

[richlevy]

Well, it's official. The current administration, between tax cuts and spending, is about to blow the budget.

Bloomberg's take on this.

The Inquirer's article.

Treasury officials said in briefing congressional aides last week that the government would run out of maneuvering room to keep from exceeding the limit sometime during the week of March 20. Snow told lawmakers that the Treasury Department would begin tapping the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, which Treasury officials said would provide a "few billion" dollars in extra borrowing ability.

Treasury officials also announced that on Friday they had used the $15 billion in the Exchange Stabilization Fund, a reserve that is normally used to smooth out dollar volatility in currency markets.

The Treasury also has been taking investments out of a $65.3 billion government pension fund known as the G-fund.

Officials have said that once the debt limit was raised, the investments taken out of the pension funds would be replaced and any lost interest payments would be made up. The formal title for the G-fund is the Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees Retirement System.

Note that the debt does not even account for some Iraq wars costs and special spending items that are being kept off of the books.

Tax cuts for the wealthiest income brackets; an unnecessary and unpopular foreign war that is costing us trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, the steady hemorrage of American jobs to overseas outlets, the falling value of the dollar against other currencies, disasters like Katrina and everyday personal tragedies where the US no longer cares for its own, the increasing alienation of countries who were once our allies.

How can ANYONE possibly think this story is going to have a happy ending (besides Urbane Guerilla who lives in lala land, anyhow).

[WabUfvot5]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney urged Americans Thursday to do a better job of saving and challenged policymakers to strengthen pensions and fix Social Security to help people in their golden years.

Nice advice. Why can't they follow it?

[Torrere]

I remember 3.6 billi

Er

I remember a national debt of 3.6 trillion being scandalous.

And I'm not old.

[tw]

Don't remember if this number is accurate. But $1trillion of that debt was created in only nine months. Even in two years and adjusted for inflation, that once would have been scandalous among the entire Republican Party. K Street and other corruptions make it easy to forget reality when a political agenda is more important than America.

41% of Americans so hate this country as to still insist that George Jr is doing a good job. Amazing how so many will believe what Rush Limbaugh tells them.

This from a recent book by Bruce Bartlett, a Reaganite libertarian who worked in the Reagan White House and the George Sr Treasury Department. Just another example of what conservative are publishing - from The Economist:

This book is a sobering reminder of just how much the Bush team has to wrong: from the failure to veto a single spending bill, however pork-laden, to the crass recklessness of serially cutting taxes while introducing the biggest expansion of a government entitlement programme in decades ...
That recklessness, Mr Bartlett argues with candour that few other conservatives can muster, will inevitably lead to higher taxes. He dismisses the idea, still peddled by some Republicans, that cutting taxes will "starve the beast" of government and lead to lower spending. ... Mr Bartlett's analysis of America's fiscal prospects is compelling.

[Griff]

Even Democrats have stopped using the "We owe it to ourselves." canard. Maybe there is a silver lining.

[Happy Monkey]

That's because it's less and less true. The percentage of US debt owned by US citizens has taken a massive nosedive. We owe it to the Chinese now.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by richlevy

Well, it's official. The current administration, between tax cuts and spending, is about to blow the budget.

I'll take this moment to tell all of you who voted for our glorious leader:

"Good job! You fell for it!"