Who Takes the Confessions of the Confessor?
by Michael LeStrange
It is hard to believe that a man is telling
the truth
when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
- Henry Louis Mencken
Gee, hasn't things really started to suck since the last presidential
election? I read just the other day that back before the 2002 election
(Nov. 6, 2002), the administration was predicting a 145,000,000,000 dollar
budget deficit for the year of 2003. As of 2/2/2003, the estimate is now
over 300,000,000,000. In the space of one quarter of a year, this
administration is burning through money at twice the rate they predicted they
would be. And this is before they start adding on the cost of what George
W. Bush promised in the
2003 state of the
union speech.
Now, one thing about raw numbers is that they have to be taken in context.
As my Republican friends point out, the raw expenditure in dollars is not
important. What you really want to measure is the percentage of deficit
spending in terms of the GDP. For example, in 2002, we had a
per
capita GDP of $36,300. This means that if you took all the money the
entire country made (domestically), and averaged it out by the population,
that's how much money there would be in each person's hands. This means in
2002, we had made, as a country, approximately 11,000,000,000,000 dollars.
So, if we don't grow as an economy in 2003 - a quite natural assumption in the
economic climate of 2003 - the administration is currently prediction we will
overspend our national budget by 300,000,000,000 dollars, or about 3%.
Again, this is just the current estimate. Again, I want to
stress that this doesn't include just the stuff George W. will admit that he
promised - to standing ovation, mind you - in his state of the union message.
To the 300,000,000,000 dollars they are willing to admit to - and remember, this
number is 200% of their previous estimate just 3 months ago - we have to add up
the laundry list that he laid out in
black and white.
And a lot of what this administration wants to do has a bill that extends
beyond 10 years.
About two weeks ago, I was reading the weekly
Pundit Pap,
a commie liberal review of the Sunday talk shows.
Part of the way I like to spend my Monday mornings on this world wide web.
Anyways, on
this fine sunny January 12, 2003, apparently, Bill Frist was trotting out a USED
CAR SALESMAN to explain how doing what this administration proposes will help
the average Joe. I mean really! A used car salesman? I just
broke out in laughter at reading about Bill Frist's performance on
Meet the Press
with Tim Russert. I won't repeat the rendition - read the Pundit Pap's
report,
it's great - although I'm sure slanted. However, I will summarize it:
A used car salesman?
I'm just struck by the turn of events. According to the
CIA
(hardly a commie, liberal organization), since 1975 practically all the gains in
household income have gone to the top 20% of households. The years 1994-2000
witnessed solid increases in real output, low inflation rates, and a drop in
unemployment to below 5%. I guess this could be just Orwellian
misinformation on their part, but if it's called the World Fact Book, I pretty
much intend to believe the CIA.
Now I'm really not going to claim that Clinton was responsible for the
economy while it was going through the boom years of the 90's. I, like
most Americans, think the economy runs best when the government gets largely out
of the way of the economy. So, where Republicans and Democrats really
differ when discussing Clinton's economic performance, is one party believes the
Clinton administration did a good job of staying out of the way of the economy
during the 90's. The other party believes that the Clinton administration
did a lousy job, and pretty much screwed it up by spending too much.
I was casting about the net while searching for the percentage of the GDP we
pay for our military here in the United States. I came across a rather
interesting article when searching google for the information. It was
rather prescient in content. The
commentary in question
is from Defense Week
- hardly a commie liberal magazine. The date attributed to the article was
September 5, 2000 - pages 7-8. In the article
2003.02.02
