The Audacity of Debt (Comparing today's deficits to those in the 1980s.)

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 12-16-09 | The Wall Street Journal Editorial Staff

[GOP_Lady]

At least someone in America isn't feeling a credit squeeze: Uncle Sam. This week Congress will vote to raise the national debt ceiling by nearly $2 trillion, to a total of $14 trillion. In this economy, everyone de-leverages except government.

It's a sign of how deep the fiscal pathologies run in this Congress that $2 trillion will buy the federal government only one year before it has to seek another debt hike—conveniently timed to come after the midterm elections. Since Democrats began running Congress again in 2007, the federal debt limit has climbed by 39%. The new hike will lift the borrowing cap by another 15%.

There is surely bipartisan blame for this government debt boom. George W. Bush approved gigantic spending increases for Medicare and bailouts. He also sponsored the first ineffective "stimulus" in February 2008—consisting of $168 billion in tax rebates and spending that depleted federal revenues in return for no economic lift.

[Tzimisce]

Yep.

[onyx]

It’s time to out the democrats.

Precisely as the WSJ’s editors advise, Republicans must seize the moment to educate the electorate, even though it means holding up passage of the defense bill.

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