Government Give and Take

When the Bush administration took office, the federal government was spending less than two trillion dollars a year. When the Bush administration leaves office, the federal government will be spending well over three trillion dollars a year.

When the Bush administration took office, the federal budget was in surplus. When the Bush administration leaves office, the federal budget deficit is projected to have reached $400,000,000,000. (The budget deficit for February 2008 alone was $175,000,000,000.)

With that kind of expansion, you’d think the government would be improving its regulation of the private sector significantly. After all, what should we taxpayers expect for an additional trillion dollars a year?

Here’s what we’ve received for that astronomical sum:

1. A devalued and declining dollar, which makes every dollar in our bank accounts and in our retirement accounts worth less and less every day and portends rising inflation and a falling stock market.

2. An imploding housing market with no end in sight, which leaves many homeowners with mortgages in a negative equity situation and leaves virtually every homeowner with a net worth that falls every day.

3. A total national debt approaching $10 trillion dollars, which must be paid back by each of us and/or our children and/or our children’s children’s children…who are poorer before they’ve even been born.

4. A crumbling national infrastructure that will require more and more tax dollars just to maintain our roads, bridges, ports and the like in their current condition.

5. A severe tightening of credit that leaves each of us with fewer opportunities to educate our children, invest in our businesses, or improve or upgrade our homes.

Republicans are supposed to be for a smaller government that regulates less, and Democrats for a larger government that regulates more.

Under Bush, we have the worst of both: a much, much larger government that regulates less, and regulates less effectively.

The upside: thank goodness, Mr. Bush gave most of us a $300 tax rebate when he took office, and he’s giving us another $600 tax rebate as he leaves office. Forgive me if I don’t seem grateful.

The government giveth, the government taketh and taketh and taketh away.

Newsprism