Kicking our spending habit

[Valin]

Boston Globe:

Jeff Jacoby
11/20/11

THE TREASURY Department reported last week that the national debt had surpassed $15 trillion, clocking in at precisely $15,033,607,255,920.32 as of the close of business Tuesday. Since President Obama’s inauguration in January 2009, the amount owed by the federal government to its lenders has soared more than $4.4 trillion, an increase of 41 percent in less than three years.

To put those figures in perspective, consider these:

When Bill Clinton was president, the national debt rose by an annual average of $193 billion; when the profligate George W. Bush was in the White House, the yearly debt increases averaged $612 billion. On Obama’s watch, by contrast, the federal debt has been skyrocketing by more than $1.5 trillion per year. It took 40 presidents and nearly two centuries, from George Washington to Ronald Reagan , for the US government to accumulate $1.5 trillion in indebtedness. The 44th president - aided and abetted by Congress - enlarges the federal debt by that amount every 12 months.

And the political class has its knickers in a twist because the much-vaunted “supercommittee’’ was only given until Thanksgiving to come up a plan for trimming the deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years.
(Snip)


Just so we know what we're talking about.

[clearvision]

What irks me is the committee's cuts of 1.2T or 1.6T or whatever are spread out over 10 years, but everyone talks like the savings hit next year if approved and will crush the government.

[Valin]

What irks me is the committee's cuts of 1.2T or 1.6T or whatever are spread out over 10 years, but everyone talks like the savings hit next year if approved and will crush the government.

 

 

Crushing the government...SIGH Dept. of Education...office space for rent. Dept of Energy....Going out of business sale...everything must go'