The Bush administration continues to turn in enormous deficits. I would suggest that the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and, to a significantly lesser extent, Afghanistan haven’t helped matters.
This year’s deficit will be more than double last year’s $161 billion, and it will rise from 1.2 percent of the gross domestic product to nearly 3 percent. If the next president extends some or all of President Bush’s signature tax cuts, as both candidates have promised, annual deficits could balloon to as much as 5 percent of the economy, rivaling the dark fiscal days of the early-1990s and those of the Reagan administration, said Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office.
The budget picture is likely to grow even bleaker once government analysts factor in the anticipated costs of the Treasury Department’s decision last weekend to take over struggling mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
I’d suggest reinstating the Clinton tax structure and winding down the wars as significant steps in getting back to some sort of fiscal sanity. Running our government on a credit card is begging for trouble.
Leave a Reply