Compelling Reason to Legalize Drugs #224

So that anything this idiot says makes sense.

"[The Democratic Party's] majority was elected on a pledge of fiscal responsibility, but so far it is acting like a teenager with a new credit card."

"This year alone, leaders in Congress are proposing to spend $22 billion more than my budget provides," the president said. "Some of them claim this is not really much of a difference and the scary part is that they seem to mean it."

--Via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Were I a teenager with a new credit card, I'd be insulted. But wait, as Ron Popeil used to say, there's more ...

But what Mr. Bush didn't mention, and what he almost never mentions, is the National Debt. With good reason.

On the day he took office, the National Debt stood at this unfathomable number:

$5,727.776.738,304.64

In fiscal shorthand, that's $5.7 trillion dollars. Trillion with a "T." Six and a half years later, the Bureau of Public Debt tells us the National Debt clocks in at a staggering:

$8,835,268,597,181.95

That's $8.8 trillion – an increase of $3.1 trillion dollars since January 20, 2001. And that amounts to a jump of 54% during Mr. Bush's watch.

If you wanted to pay it off, dividing it equally among the U.S. population (estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 302,103,675), it would come to $29,245.82 for every man, woman and child.

So it's not really hard to understand why Mr. Bush almost never mentions it. The National Debt has gone up more on his watch than under any other president.

That means it took the Federal Government 225 years to accrue $5.5 trillion in debt under 42 U.S. presidents. But under President Bush alone, it has soared another 35.2%.

And the National Debt is not just a big number, it's an expensive one. This year alone, it costs taxpayers $247.3 billion in interest payments.

It hardly gives the president bragging rights about fiscal discipline.

--Via CBS

Truly "a waste of skin and rations", as I used to say in my old federal job. There is not one noble thing about him. Let him pass quickly through the bowels of history and into some appropriate oubliette.