Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Marching off of the same cliff.


With the obsessive fondness of the Conservative Party of Canada for all things American, should we be expecting this sort of madness any time soon north of the border?

A $2.7 trillion budget plan pending before the [U.S.] House would raise the federal debt ceiling to nearly $10 trillion, less than two months after Congress last raised the federal government's borrowing limit.

Well, as long as everyone's on board, right? Whoops, hold on there ...

The provision -- buried on page 121 of the 151-page budget blueprint -- serves as a backdrop to congressional action this week. House leaders hope to try once again to pass a budget plan for fiscal 2007, a month after a revolt by House Republican moderates and Appropriations Committee members forced leaders to pull the plan.

Oooooh ... sneaky. But no problems -- times like this require tightening one's belt, fiscal conservatism and stuff like that there, right? Right?

Leaders also hope to pass a package of tax-cut extensions that would cost the Treasury $70 billion over the next five years.

That's OK ... breathe deeply ... as long as you're focusing on what really matters: the welfare of the citizenry:

But the federal debt keeps climbing because of continued deficit spending and the government's insatiable borrowing from the Social Security trust fund.

Hmmmmm ... pilfering from Social Security ... stealing from the pension fund ... Holy crap! The Republicans really are running the U.S. like a business! You know ... like Enron.

1 comment:

Cori said...

You know, the conservative Republicans have long wanted to shrink the Federal government "till you could drown it in a bathtub" - However, the strategy of shrinking it by spending so much money that you can't afford any social programs defeats itself because there is then so much debt that you can't afford to lower taxes any more.

(Of course, you just wait for the Dems to get in office, then blame them for raising taxes to cover the horrendous debt the Republicans racked up. Works every time.)