Friday 23 January 2004

China Express Card: Don't Leave Texas Without It

President Bush is supposed to be some kind of conservative. Well, if so, he's not a fiscally prudent one.

Surely the President is less of a spendthrift than the previous Democrat incumbent.

Not so:

The conservative Club for Growth estimates that the Bush administration has increased domestic discretionary spending by 8.2 percent, compared with 2.5 percent during the Clinton years.
It's not going to be easy to sort out the ballooning deficit:
Indeed, balancing the budget by 2013 would require steps as drastic as raising individual and corporate income taxes by 27 percent, eliminating Medicare entirely, or cutting Social Security benefits by 60 percent, according to the Committee for Economic Development, the Concord Coalition, and the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities
Asian Central banks are funding much of the deficit, with an increasing amount of this lending coming from China. Oil producers are starting to talk about being paid in Euros or even gold. The dollar is falling.

Many individuals max out on their credit cards. Politicians are not immune from this behaviour. I have a nasty feeling that this will all end in tears.