| So how much debt has President Bush run up on his watch?
This page on the Bureau of Public Debt website gives some month by month and year by year benchmarks. If I'm reading the data right (and math isn't my forte, so don't assume that's a throwaway line), at the end of September 2001, the total debt of the United States government stood at just over $5.8 trillion dollars. At the end of last month it stood at just under $7.8 trillion. ($7,776,939,047,670, to be precise.) So, a bit less than $2 trillion of debt piled up on President Bush's watch. (Note: these numbers do also include interest on previous debt. But for the purposes of this discussion, I'll set that aside.) Needless to say, that is much more than the entire Social Security Trust Fund, which President Bush says there is no way to make good on. |
The debt his administration has created in 4 years is less than the debt in the Social Security Trust Fund. But Josh isn't done:
| The Social Security Trust Fund is now at about $1.7 trillion. And President Bush says there's no way that can or will be paid back. But just in his first term he's racked up about two-thirds that much money in new debt. And he'll easily exceed that number in his second term. And that'll amount to maybe a couple trillion dollars that even President Bush concedes will be paid back to all those bond purchasors here and abroad.
If we hadn't gone on President Bush's red ink binge, that would be more than enough cash to pay back all the money owed to the Social Security Administration. Do you understand what Al Gore was talking about now with the 'lockbox'? |
But hey, is Bush worried? Of course not. He wants what he wants and that's that. It's the pattern of his life, of course. Make a mess and let someone else clean it up. But you have to wonder... He's still young, and in less than 4 years he'll go on to retirement. If the mess he's made does indeed harm the country long-term, will he live long enough to see his true legacy?
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