GWB's lack of fiscal leadership is the cause of all this. And his muddled understanding of fiscal responsiblity springs directly from his unfortunate belief in something called "compassionate conservatism." "Compassionate conservatism" is a misnomer that could only have been coined by someone unfamiliar with conservative principles, which have never lacked in compassion but which have always insisted that compassion in its rightful form counsels personal responsiblity. Conservatives understand that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
When the president can say, as he has, that "if someone is hurting it's the government's job to be there," he is actually saying there is a free lunch, that government has inexhaustible resources from which to draw, and that government's beneficence should be showered on the "hurting." This is the nonsense talk of someone who has never thought seriously about economics, someone who doesn't understand why Hayek and Friedman were right and Keynes and Marx were wrong.
GWB hasn't thought seriously about too many things I'm afraid. He's entirely too shaky in too many areas and it's really beginning to bug me.
And where did you get your master's degree and what was it in? Yeah that's what I thought...