House Tax Cuts: Election-Year Pandering

In the wake of escalating public debt (65% of GDP), the House of Representatives has passed (244-185) a $70 billion tax cut over a five year period. This can only be understood as a form of election-year pandering on the part of a party which has thoroughly abandoned its roots of fiscal responsibility.

In November, the nation's comptroller, David Walker, in little-reported testimony, asserted that the fiscal reality "is worse than advertised... The facts are not partisan and they're not ideological... The nation's unfunded liabilities and commitments ... have risen from $20 trillion in 2000 to approximately $50 trillion today -- equivalent to the entire net worth of all Americans."

The Medicaid drug benefit plan, if left unchanged, would consume all federal revenues in 75 years. Since the fiscal year began on 1 October 2005, the national debt has grown about $2 billion per day (that's 2,000,000,000).

When President Bush assumed office in January 2001, the national debt was $5.6 trillion. Today's debt, at $8.2 trillion, is equivalent to about $26,000 for every citizen. And it's growing every day. Even more so when Congress acts like the House did today.

See US Gross Gross National Debt As Percent of Gross Domestic Product.

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Tags: Budget, Deficit, Politics