Democrats thump their chests. Congress just passed a budget . . . in an election year. For the previous four election cycles, that hasn’t happened.
But, since the budget crossed the $3 trillion mark for the first time ever, let’s choke our huzzahs. The federal government is spending us — and especially our children — into ruin.
The Iraq War is incredibly expensive, but spending for other items has shot up, too. Senator Obama says he’ll withdraw our troops, but doesn’t say he’ll do it in his first term. Budget-wise that doesn’t even matter. Obama has already said he’ll simply spend the money now spent on the war on other federal programs.
It gets worse. Sheila Weinberg, head of the Institute for Truth in Accounting, tells USA Today that “We’re running deficits in the trillions of dollars, not the hundreds of billions we’re being told.”
The official deficit last year was $162 billion. But government accounting is, well, crooked. It ignores huge liabilities like Social Security, Medicare, pensions for government workers, VA benefits. Use proper accounting standards and the deficit comes to a whopping $2.5 trillion.
Our national debt is already $57.3 trillion, when federal entitlements are factored in. With local and state government liabilities, the total is nearly $62 trillion, more than half a million per household.
Still, the Democrats running Congress say they’ll have a budget surplus by 2012. How? Well, through massive tax increases . . . which, speaking to other crowds, they promise won’t happen.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.