The Budget

Bush has released his new proposed budget. It has the usual Republican garbage, i.e. cuts in everything but defense, but it also has a huge ongoing deficit. There's a whole lot of argument about the deficit and the growing national debt with some saying that it's not a real problem because of a growing economy, and some saying it ultimately will catch up to us and bankrupt the country. I tend to fall in the later camp:

Getting a handle on what such a huge number means is not easy, but the WP does a good job of putting it in perspective: "Interest on the debt next year will total $260 billion, about what will be spent by the departments of Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, and Justice combined."

I hope I'm wrong but fear I'm right that this can't go on forever. At some point the American people are going to have to have the guts to decide to actually pay for what they get, whether it's discretionary programs, medicare, or defense.