Guest Blogger: Charlotte's Debt Problem
Jennifer asked me to guest blog about Charlotte’s huge, mounting debt. It’s really getting out of control and I worry about her future. Of course, Charlotte’s not out racking up the credit card debt or spending her evenings at the track. She just learned to sit up, after all. The problem is our politicians are spending her future.George W. Bush just announced his proposed 2009 federal budget. It calls for $3.107 trillion in spending, which is about 20 percent of the entire US economy, or about $10,241 for every man, woman and child. With that, there is a $307 billion deficit. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Charlotte can be a high-maintenance girl sometimes, but I’m at a loss to understand how she’s using more than 10-grand in federal government services.
The little girl can’t even eat pork yet, but she sure does owe a lot of money for it. Part of her debt came from the $2.4 billion Congress spent on her behalf to build the eight C-17 cargo planes the Air Force said it doesn’t even want. And I’m sure, once she is potty trained, she’ll be glad to know she owes money to finish paying off the $13.5 million that was used to fund important projects, such as the World Toilet Summit. At least some of her debt goes to things she can use; one day she’ll be able to visit the Sparta Teapot Museum , in Sparta , NC . Why wouldn’t she want to visit the museum that the federal government spent $500,000 to build?
The sad part is that Charlotte isn’t even learning from her mistakes. She continues to rack up this debt. The federal government’s current total debt, per person, is more than $30,000. Charlotte already owes the equivalent of a good college education, and she hasn’t even started playing with Lincoln Logs. And her debt increases an average of $4.75 each day. The federal debt has already increased 65% since Bush became President, and that doesn’t even consider the additional $307 billion deficit proposed for the President’s new budget.I love the little girl, but I think she needs to get into rehab, credit counseling, or something. She just can’t continue racking up debt like this. I tried talking to her about it, but she just cooed like it was no big deal. If only she had a Harvard MBA, like the President, so she’d understand economics a little better. But how’s she ever going to pay for the degree when she already spent the tuition money on other things?
Bruce
Well Charlotte, While I do not accept any responsibility for the spending by our government the last 8 yrs, I can tell you who is responsible. It's your mommy and daddy. They voted for that idiot in 2000 against the advise of your wise old grandfather. You're old enough to know the truth about your parents. Love Grumpy
ReplyDeleteCharlotte will soon learn about Grumpy's strange partisanship. He acts as if the federal debt is something Bush created. Yes, he has made it worse, and hence we didn't vote for him in 2004, but our debt problem began back with the Democratic hero, Franklin Roosevelt.
ReplyDeleteSee, Roosevelt believed there were three kinds of people: 1) evil businessmen, 2) oppressed workers of evil businessmen and 3) happy, productive, government workers. So, he had the federal government borrow money to take people out of factories and put them on the public payroll. He believed this would help bring America out of the Depression, but almost every economist who can add now believes it made the Depression worse.
But, people are slow to learn, whether Democrat or Republican. So, they kept encouraging the government to borrow and spend, and it didn't matter which party was in office; that's what the government did.
And which Senator is known as the "King of Pork"? It's Robert Byrd, a Democrat. Byrd is personally responsible for more than $1.2 billion in pork, including the $95,000 spent on developing a museum to Civil War regimental flags. That's another museum Charlotte can visit one day.