:') All of it. Y'know, because the budget comes out of Congress, and as the old saying goes, the President Proposes, the Congress Disposes. Also, every cent of the debt will be gone in 30 years. Being 50 now, I also remember how the deficits (and the overall budget) shot up in the mid- to late-1960s; President Nixon asked Congress (or maybe it was the CBO), not "how much do you plan to spend" but "how much do you plan to overspend". And one of "his" budgets showed a small surplus, which was the first in a long, long time, and the last until the short-lived surpluses during the Clinton administration.
Those Clinton surpluses were made possible by the Reagan-Bush deficits, which were used in part to destroy the USSR and which event made military budget cuts plausible. The world crude price fell out of bed after the Gulf War, which juiced the economy.
And what do I hear from the idiots I know? That before Bush, the gov't was out of debt. What a bunch of a-holes. They should be required to have bumperstickers (not necessarily on their cars), "I'm an a-hole and I vote".
The major failure of the Bush administration was to not ram through legislation for ubiquitous drilling when the Pubbies held both houses. That opportunity will NEVER come again, since there will NEVER AGAIN be a time when we live in a pluralistic political system.
Or maybe I'm just a great big pessimist.
There's a very great probability that the price of crude will return to $100 a barrel by this time next year; also, the retail price of gasoline (and maybe diesel) will rise regardless, because the Sock Puppet will sign whatever tax increases the Congress sends to his desk, and one of those will no doubt be a big increase in gasoline excise.
Midterm elections will be very, very good. Assuming, that is, we don't lose the ability to campaign because anything not supporting the Demwit party will be reclassified as "hate speech", and the "fairness doctrine" will push all other points of view offline and offair.
It's worth remembering that in 1801, when Jefferson became president, the US national debt was around $100 million, about 10 times annual federal revenues. This was literally "the cost of freedom," and would correspond today to a national debt around $30 trillion. Since our actual national debt is $13+ trillion, the government is in better financial shape today than it was in Jefferson's time. And at the time, Jefferson's number one priority was paying down the national debt. So, how did he do it? How does ANY wise government ever increase its revenues? Yes, that's right! JEFFERSON REDUCED GOVERNMENT SPENDING AND CUT TAXES.-- BroJoeK
I chose the overspending issue because it is one of the ones I hear most often and it is, probably, the most dubious. We could have done a lot worse-—and I've seen us do it this election cycle.
As to the pluralistic “thing”, I'm not ready to give up yet. I thought it might be over when we elected Carter (the original dimwitted socialist, after FDR, of course) and the “misery index” was our daily traveling companion. I am significantly older than you. I have seen times when I thought we were done, and I was getting ready for that fork, but we managed to pull it out of the fire just in time. It may be tougher this time, but I think we can do it.
I totally agree on the “drilling”. I'm afraid we have lost our opportunity, perhaps forever, to insure inexpensive, domestically produced, realistic, energy for our country. The Demwits will instead insist on expending tax dollars, looking for a pie-in-the-sky energy solution, while we pump TRILLIONS of dollars into the Middle East. If we do make headway in the mid-terms, energy better be the first thing addressed. Believe me, it is the many-headed hydra breathing down our neck!