Published: March 07, 2009 10:42 pm      

That was then and this is now

Last October, during the third presidential debate, Bob Schieffer asked both candidates about the 2008 deficit, characterized by him as “an astounding record high $455 billion.” In his reply, then-Senator Obama had no sympathy for the Bush administration’s attempts (or lack thereof) to balance budgets. He stated, “When President Bush came into office, we had a budget surplus and the national debt was a little over $5 trillion. It has doubled over the last eight years. And we are now looking at a deficit of well over half a trillion dollars.” One could almost have gotten the impression that Obama regarded the national debt to be matter of genuine concern.

However, as they say, “That was then and this is now.” We are now facing the prospect of federal budget deficits that make those of the last administration seem amateurish in comparison. The 2009 deficit is estimated to be $1.75 trillion dollars. If Scheiffer thought Bush’s $455 billion deficit was “astounding”, how would he describe this figure? It seems Mr. Obama was serious when he said of the federal budget in the same debate, “We've got to take this in a new direction, that's what I propose as president.” Well, mission accomplished! We are told by President Obama that the deficit will be reduced to a mere $533 billion by 2013. He has at least managed to do what Bush never did, which is make a half-trillion dollar deficit seem small. Hopefully, someone will remember to fertilize the money tree.

This deficit - $1.75 trillion dollars – is equal to the entire economic output of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana…for four years! Picture yourself writing a check for $6,000 to cover your part of this deficit. And that’s just for this year. At present, we’re all in for over $35,000 each for the national debt. If you bear in mind that 40 percent of Americans pay no federal taxes, then the average taxpayer’s share inflates to nearly $60,000. Perhaps we need to send the authors of this plan to Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University.

Sadly, if we had no national debt, the budgets of the past several years would have been balanced. In Fiscal Year 2008, the feds spent $412 billion of our money on interest payments to service the national debt (over $1300 for every man, woman, and child in the country), compared to a paltry $15 billion for NASA, $61 billion for education, and $56 billion for the Department of Transportation. Had we not needed to hand over those interest payments, we could have had a balanced budget in 2008, not a budget deficit. You will find the website federalbudget.com to be an enlightening visit.

None of this is to suggest that these budget issues are entirely a republican vs. democrat issue. Neither party has held the line on spending when given the opportunity. The last president to sign a balanced budget was not Ronald Reagan, but Bill Clinton. I don’t know that Senator McCain would be leading us down a different path had he been elected. The truth is, as a people, we tolerate this. We want to keep our pet projects without paying increased taxes. It is a recipe for disaster. It pains me to see my children’s and grandchildren’s futures being so recklessly mortgaged. Frankly, we are stealing their future.

I’d like to offer an alternative. If borrowing this money is such a great idea, why don’t we all “man up” and borrow the money ourselves? Let every adult American take out several thousand dollars in personal loans each to simply give to the government. This approach would not only “stimulate” the economy (supposedly), but future Americans would not be on the hook for our fiscal irresponsibility. Of course, this idea could never gain a foothold. People everywhere would understandably rise up in protest at the mention of such a thing. So, we must face a difficult question. Have we become so comfortable with the idea of letting others pay the bills that we are willing to pass them on to our children?



John Lisenbe

Meridian