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Mix-Ansicht- Sehnsucht zurück nach Clinton? Bush's historic injustice - Cosa, 30.08.2003, 10:56
Sehnsucht zurück nach Clinton? Bush's historic injustice
-->nun, immerhin war Clinton nicht annähernd so teuer wie Bush jr. und in gewisser Weise leichter zu berechnen; das dämmert jetzt wohl so einigen:
Bush's historic injustice
You know you're in trouble when bad news becomes so routine that it's barely news anymore.
Case in point: Yesterday's estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that the federal government is plunging toward deficits of $401 billion this year and $480 billion in 2004 — and nearly $1.4 trillion over the next decade — was so predictable that it created few political shock waves.
Well, those numbers should cast a pall over every American kitchen table, because deficits on that scale are the makings of a historic injustice. A perfect storm of crippling debt is gathering above today's children and young adults, threatening a generation's economic future not simply (or even primarily) with the long-anticipated retirement of the baby boomers but with an orgy of self-indulgent tax cuts and undisciplined borrowing.
To understand how rapidly the situation is deteriorating, consider that the CBO's last projections, in March, predicted a deficit this year of $246 billion, which would return gradually to the black in subsequent years to produce an $891 billion surplus for the 2004-2013 period.
Worse yet, yesterday's numbers are rosy estimates. They take only limited account of spending needs in Iraq and Afghanistan, assume that Congress will allow several of the largest tax cuts to expire by 2010 and do not measure the impact of major new spending proposals, such as a Medicare prescription drug benefit.
Indeed, the CBO's director, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said the 10-year deficit could easily double if President Bush is successful in his push to make permanent the tax cuts of the past three years and to enact almost $900 billion in new tax cuts.
The White House continues to strike its"What, me worry?" pose. Although it is advocating a tax-cut respite during the coming election year, it continues to argue that its tax policies will bolster the economy and improve the fiscal outlook.
But the President omits that he first proposed tax cuts as a response to a surplus that no longer exists, ignores that the cuts mainly benefit the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans and pretends that Congress can eliminate sufficient"wasteful" federal expenditures to fund daunting defense and domestic security needs and to avoid deep reductions in vital human services.
The country was far better off with a president whose deceptions were simply about sex.
Quelle: http://www.courier-journal.com/cjex...ditorials/opin-top0827-3435.html
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