Livin’ in the Red

2/7/06

We’re hemorrhaging money, ladies and gentlemen. If America were a person he’d be heading to the proctologist at a fast clip after viewing the red puddle of spent cash in the toilet of this increasingly muddled analogy.

"Four years ago,” says House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, “the Bush administration inherited a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion, Since then, we have run record deficits of more than $400 billion a year, and Congress has been forced to increase the national debt limit three times. Even worse, the administration and Congress have no real plan to rein in deficits and debt.”

Let me, financial whiz that I am despite the fact that my near future might well include a stint at homelessness, explain to you the difference between a deficit and a national debt; both of which we have in spades.

The national deficit is how much more we spend than we take in every year. In 2005 the national deficit was about 318 billion dollars. That’s how much we added to the national debt, which is the total amount of money the country owes. Currently that number is a staggering $8 trillion, the highest it has ever been even adjusted for inflation. Since October of 2005, our debt has been increasing at a rate of $2.14 billion per day. I suggest we all invest in those big tarp things people take to Gallagher shows so that we don’t get covered in poo when it gets sprayed all over hell by the fan. Here, check out these two neat little charts:



Notice that little dip around 2000? I wonder what happened around then? It's almost as if some fiscally responsible administration was attempting to keep America from bankrupting herself. And then, oddly, there's this Herculean spike right around 2002...

To whom do we owe all this money? Well let’s just say that currently, whenever China calls America has to pretend like its not home. Thank the gods for caller ID. Another chart please!



According to the numbers, by 2040 the US could be paying nothing more than the interest on our federal debt. Essentially, without savage changes in the spending, this means that in less than forty years the USA will be the equivalent some schmuck who ran up $12,000 dollars on his credit card at 28% interest and wonders why he can’t get the balance to come down.

With baby boomers starting to drop into retirement, the payments into Social Security are beginning to trickle off, and we’ll really start seeing the effects of this in another ten years or so. Right now the national debt doesn’t look as bad as it actually is—seriously?—because Congress is spending every dime of the surplus payroll taxes collected for Social Security on invading brown countries and making sure corporations and the rich pay a collective $0.69 in annual taxes. As the golden oldies stop paying payroll taxes and start collecting Social Security this well is going to dry up, invert itself, and start sucking money back into it like some kind of economic supernova. (Too much?)

Thanks for the tax cuts! Remember what you spent that money on? No? Neither do I. It’s wonderful that voters were so shortsighted as to believe that instant gratification crap sounded like a much better idea than preserving the future of our economy and a desire to live in a country that doesn’t resemble a demilitarized zone.

Aren’t Republicans the party of a smaller, leaner and more responsible government? Why is it they are always the ones spending like a sixteen year old with a GAP card? And as for a smaller government I defy any of you who haven’t been in a cave with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears for the past five years to tell me the government is smaller now than before Bush took office. The federal government looks like a crazed, drunk uncle bloated to the point of popping and singing show tunes as he urinates into a houseplant. Oh, and the guy is listening to our phone calls.