An Associated Press article last week stated that Treasury Secretary John Snow has notified Congress that unless the national debt limit is raised, the United States will not be able to pay its bills. In other words, President Bush and Congress have maxed out the nation's credit card.
That is not unlike many of the nation's irresponsible citizens who are no longer able to file for bankruptcy because they, like Bush, have maxed out their credit cards.
When Bush was elected to office in 2000, and supported by a Republican-controlled Congress, he proclaimed that he would bring fiscal conservatism to the nation. He would return people's hard-earned money, through tax cuts, to them. A retrospective look at his tenured period belies that statement. He not only has squandered the budget surplus left by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, but also through his much-heralded tax cut, unfettered spending -- with no end in sight -- for his war in Iraq.
That is just to mention two of his biggies. It was only in November 2004 that the national debt limit was extended from $7.38 trillion to the current $8.18 trillion. He will now have to go to Congress and request an extension to the national indebtedness limit.
The result will be to place the burden for his follies on the shoulders of untold generations.
Ray Harbert Las Vegas
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