WE'RE SCREWED

Another financial report came out today and the news is grim...and infuriating.

According to the Bush Administration's own figures as reported by the Washington Post, the U.S. government is currently operating with a $482 billion deficit. Violating the government's own protocols, this figure doesn't even include approximately $80 billion of war expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, that's $572 billion of debt if you're keeping track at home.

When Bill Clinton, the "tax and spend Democrat" left office in 2001, the country operated with a modest surplus. Yes, the War on Terror costs money, but maybe we should revisit which party is really more committed to fiscal prudence. After all it was Dubya that refunded billions of dollars of income tax back to Americans not once, but twice (also in 2003). Although both parties can share the blame certainly, it has been the Republican controlled Congress (until 2006) that has signed off on page after page of porkbarrel projects that have contributed to the current extreme state of fiscal mismanagement. It was under the Bush Administration that any reasonable controls on the mortgage lending industry went out the window as speculation ran rampant and the country was set up for a lending crisis that hasn't yet reached rock bottom.

So how do we get out of this mess?

We don't--not without immediately suspending the War on Terror (a great idea but not remotely realistic even for the most anti-war politician), raising taxes on the top 50% of taxpayers by an average of at least five percent per person (a non-starter even in a non-presidential election year) and enacting severe budget cutbacks that could lead to massive government layoffs and the reduction or elimination of several Federal programs. And even all of that wouldn't balance the budget.

Good times.

Peace...