January 24th, 2007
By Richard Walrath
How many years has it been now that we’ve heard daily about how “good” the economy is? Why is it, then, that $3 T — that’s three trillion dollars — has been added to the National Debt since Bush took office? Now we’re hearing about cutting the deficit in half by 2009, the year after Bush leaves office. So that’s eight or nine years with a “good” economy — and a defict every single one of those years.
The government, like everybody else, has to pay for what it buys. Tax cuts that end up as deficits turn out to be tax increases, and that’s what lies ahead not as a maybe, but as an absolute certainty.
We hear a lot about entitlements, but you almost never hear anyone mention that Social Security and Medicare are currently operating with a surplus. Social Security is cranking out close to $200 billion a year that the government spends without telling us about it. The real concern is not that Social Security is going broke, but what is the government going to do each year without that $200 billion from Social Security?
There’s going to be a real rumble in the near future, but it’s not the one that the Wall Street Journal writes about.
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