Deficits

The U.S. government released figures for our 2005 trade deficit last week. It's a new all-time record, eclipsing the previous record set in 2004, which eclipsed the previous record set in 2003, which eclipsed the previous record set in 2002, which eclipsed the previous record set in 2000. (The trade deficit in 2001 was at the time the second-highest ever in history, not quite matching the level set the year before, but easily surpassing any previous year.)

The deficit spending for the federal government has also hit one after another all-time record high. Already in just five years, President Bush has put more on the national credit card than all other previous Presidents combined.

Bush is the first President ever to have an MBA, which stands for Master of Business Administration. He's supposed to be running this country with the efficiency of a for-profit business. How many CEOs would still have their jobs after five consecutive years of runaway red ink?

The situation would be bad enough if its effects were confined to Bush's actual term of office, but they aren't. The next generation, and probably the generation after that, will suffer for Bush's profligacy [reckless wastefulness]. Last year, the United States imported about $725,800,000,000 more than we exported. That's more than $2,400 per man, woman, and child. The federal government is spending about $2,050,000,000 per day more than it takes in. That's $6.86 per person per day, or over $2,500 per person per year. That means that each and every one of us is putting our children and grandchildren in hock for almost $5,000 a year to pay for George W. Bush's insane economic and foreign policies.

I guess the phrase "family values" really boils down to "how much is a baby worth these days?" Maybe we could take all those underperforming school children and export them to China and Saudi Arabia and Iran as indentured servants to pay off our national debt. After all, if we ship them out of the country, they're not "left behind" any more.