Jerome a Paris quoted an
article on the national debt today that contained this quote:
Our national debt stands at nearly $8 trillion. Our federal deficit, which had been scheduled to decline this year, will be about the same as last year (over $450 billion) after the disastrous costs of the hurricanes are added in. President Bush continually declines to say how we'll pay for the costs. But one rule has become much more clear: when Democrats are in control, we pay for the costs of government and our ballooning debt. When Republicans are in control, our kids and grandchildren pay.
This a recurring lie I hear from republicans and democrats alike. "Our grandkids will pay for the deficit." What a wonderful dodge.
But it's false.
In 2004 (the most recent year the White House has budget
statistics for), spending on interest on the national debt accounted for 7% of the national budget. That's 160
billion dollars. To put that in perspective, our national defense spending for that year - the entire totals put into our mammoth homeland security and military behemoths - came to 455 billion. The total budget deficit for 2004 was 412 billion. In short: we're spending about a third of what we spend on defense on paying the deficit
now.
Why's this important?
Because politicians on both sides of the aisle dismiss the deficit as a future problem. We all know how congress handles future problems - "Deal with them tommorrow."
It's not a future problem. It's a current problem. Instead of "The deficit will be a problem for our grandchildren", the frame should be "The deficit increases the problems we're having now."