A Tale of Two Gushers: Oil and Spending
Ernest Istook /
Washington’s runaway gusher of spending makes the Deepwater Horizon disaster look small and simple to stop.
Congress is debating another irresponsible round of extra spending (although they refuse to call it “son of stimulus”) before they take a Memorial Day break. The measure would add an estimated $84-billion (or perhaps $100-billion) to the deficit.
That’s actually good news, because earlier this week they planned to spend $50-billion more, until some Democrats joined Republicans in balking. The bad news is that Congress refuses to adopt a budget that would describe how much more they intend to spend over the next five years—or even to tell us how much more they will spend this year.
In addition, another spending bill is moving thru Congress–with $60-billion that is mostly to finance the war in Afghanistan—which is also deficit spending not included in official budget numbers.
The National Debt clock just topped $13-trillion, surpassing $42,000 apiece for each American. The $1.5-trillion deficit in 2010 makes everything worse. (more…)