Walter Chronkite (Dever Post): The scariest idea of all

[Dudley_DUright]

For most of us, the astronomical numbers quoted for such things as the federal budget and the deficit simply numb our minds, making those numbers easy for politicians to play with - which seems to be just what has been happening. Two agencies of Congress - the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office - have recently cast doubt on either the Bush administration's ability to count or its candor. The CBO says the president's claim that he will halve the deficit in five years is off the mark. And the GAO warns of a fiscal train wreck not far down the track.

Indeed, David M. Walker, the comptroller general of the United States, has taken the unusual step of going directly to the public with his concern. The comptroller general is the head of the GAO, which was established by Congress in 1921 to serve as its investigative arm and to audit the economic performance of the federal government.

Walker said the government's gross debt - the total of all its annual deficits - was about $7 trillion last September. That translates, he said, into roughly $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. And those numbers climb steeply if the gap between Social Security and Medicare commitments and the money set aside to meet them is added in.

<snip>

There is another possibility - that Bush and his team don't really know what they are doing. That's the scariest idea of all.

Bingo Walter, you got it.

more...

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E29003%257E1996843,00.html

[displacedtexan]

1. Wow!

:wow:

[pinto]

2. Bingo, 2....n/t

[indepat]

3. Another possibility is they know pretty well what they are doing and

don't give a s**t, like they don't give a s**t that the baby-boomer generation is going to be screwed, blewed, and tattooed for their patrons, including large corporations, are getting theirs as we speak.