Snowballing Debt Awaits Tomorrow's Taxpayers [LA Times]

[truthisfreedom]

http://www.latimes.com/la-na-outlook1dec01,1,2367031.column?coll=la-home-utilities

Snowballing Debt Awaits Tomorrow's Taxpayers

Seniors with big prescription drug bills, health maintenance organizations awaiting lucrative new subsidies, upper-middle-class families anticipating a fat tax refund, and Iraqi cities expecting new schools or hospitals all have reason to be thankful about President Bush's extraordinary success at pushing his agenda through the Republican-controlled Congress this year.

There may be less celebration among the young people who will inherit the tab for these initiatives. Bush is funding every penny of every one of these goodies by increasing the national debt. Which is another way of saying that he's sticking the bill to the next generation.

The scale of the transfer is dizzying.

<snip>

Now, though, the latest estimates are that amid the economic slowdown of the last two years, and all the new spending and tax cuts Bush has pursued, the federal debt could soar to at least $7 trillion by decade's end. That means future taxpayers will have to pay at least $350 billion a year to service that debt, precisely as they are shouldering big bills for homeland security, defense and retiring the baby boom.

To call this behavior a breakdown of fiscal responsibility misses its true nature. This is a stunning abandonment of generational responsibility. Washington is behaving like a father who steals his kid's credit card and goes on a bender.

Individually, America's parents make sacrifices every day to provide opportunities for their children; but collectively, the nation is now pursuing precisely the opposite course — indulging itself even at the price of reducing opportunity for its children.

<snip>
...Bush is creating enormous problems for future generations by avoiding tough choices today.

By slashing taxes while he increases spending, Bush is governing as if he is in the Matrix, where the laws of gravity don't apply. But here in the real world, what goes up still comes down, which means kids too young to protest today will pay dearly tomorrow for the massive debts Bush is charging to their future.

[radfringe]

1. ...Bush is creating enormous problems for future generations by avoiding t

of course he is - by the time the BILL comes due - it won't be his problem anymore

it's his MO - did it in Texas

[JailBush]

2. Adding injury to injury, the kids who will be shouldering the burdern are

being screwed (sometimes literally) by derelict principals and teachers, corrupt teachers unions, high-stakes tests, and everything else corporations and apathetic citizens can throw at them. A nation that shits on its own children cannot be called civilized. This generation of "adults" deserves a good kick in the ass.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Yet he's careful to give Dems no credibility:

"Is anyone speaking for the next generation? At the national level, Democrats have condemned Bush's deficits and highlighted the costs of his tax cut. But they've undercut their credibility by repeatedly demanding more spending on their favorite causes; it's telling that the principal criticism from Democrats about the new Medicare bill is that it doesn't spend enough to subsidize drugs for seniors."

[truthisfreedom]

4. yes, i noticed that. but consider... here's a conservative voice that is

bringing attention to something bush can't do anything about... bush is, and always has been, about bleeding money... hemhorraging money. that's why all of his previous businesses failed miserably. he's a manipulator who tries to use shortcuts, sweetheart deals, and cronyism to make things work, and he doesn't understand that the mafia approach requires a real mafia mentality... and when he tries to use that kind of mentality he has to bury his activities under a pile of busywork so deep that he ends up chasing his own tail trying to cover it up (9-11 investigation block, cheney's energy meetings coverup, driver's license coverup in texas, governor's records coverup in texas).

this is a fundamental flaw in the bushco "stragetery" that is causing a fissure in the conservative base. bush is seriously in trouble because of this and there's no way out. here this conservative writer is blathering on using a voice that might as well be one of us, and the only anti-Democratic statement he can make is laced with a transparent lie... read carefully:

Is anyone speaking for the next generation? At the national level, Democrats have condemned Bush's deficits and highlighted the costs of his tax cut. But they've undercut their credibility by repeatedly demanding more spending on their favorite causes; it's telling that the principal criticism from Democrats about the new Medicare bill is that it doesn't spend enough to subsidize drugs for seniors

but, we all know... the reason the Dems fought against this bill is that it provides enormous payoffs directly to the pharm industry and it guarantees that the government won't use competetive bidding against the industry.

and both of those ideas are against the fundamental ideologies of both parties... so what the writer has done is reveal everything we stand against in bush's policies and then he's poorly HIDDEN the unlikely common ground we share with true conservatives.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. You're right, Brownstein made some astounding statements --

and I think this is a perceptive and pretty powerful piece. I think Brownstein is seen by most as mainstream, however, and not conservative, and I just injected a note about what I see as the inability of even those seen by many as mainstream political commentators ever to do much more than damn with faint praise when it comes to Democrats --

[izzie]

7. I do not think he has got the money to the right voting bloc.

I am not pulling yout leg. Look where the money is going. Now on that last drug bill Stevens of Alaska got over $600 for his voters each, or so I read, and that counts. I think Akaskans now get about $6000 per person back from federal govt and the rest of get something like $38 dollars, a year.Bush has always had some one that would pull his buns out of the fire but I do think he has gone to far for that.

[depakid]

5. What do you expect from Ronald Brownstein? Objectivitiy?

Forget about it.

This guy's the West Coast version of Howard Kurtz. Slightly more subtle... perhaps, but equally ignominious. His pieces are almost always colored to make Democrats look bad or denegrate their chances of success, even when they justifiably attack Republican policies.

[The Zanti Regent]

8. You mean Ronald BROWNOSE!

Yeah, he is WHOREWARD Kurtz's Soul Brother!