RSS« On Euro Accounts | On Arab Military »
October 14, 2004
FT Editorial, precisely my thinking
The FT Editorial yesterday
.... Nor was the surplus used to look further forward and protect the future solvency of programmes such as Social Security. Although it was never as big as the simple forward projections that produced a 10-year $4,600bn (£2,570bn) forecast surplus, there was at least $1,000bn to play with which could have helped fund a move to replacing a pay- as-you-go system with private accounts. Today, using realistic assumptions, that 10-year surplus has turned into a $5,000bn deficit. Neither candidate truly addresses the question of defusing the demographic time-bomb and closing yawning deficits.
Meanwhile, Congress has continued to spend and Mr Bush has failed to veto a single spending bill. Mr Kerry at least supported Mr Clinton's deficit-reducing budgets and backs restoring the pay-as-you-go rules that require offsets to new tax cuts or spending. Mr Bush would exempt tax cuts from the rules, deluded by the fantasies of Reaganomics that they pay for themselves.
The next president needs courage and wisdom to grapple with economic problems that have been left to grow. We cannot know whether a John Kerry White House would meet that test. But on the evidence of the past four years, it is fairly clear a second George W. Bush administration would not.
There it is.
Posted by The Lounsbury at October 14, 2004 10:08 AM
Filed Under:
Aug-Dec 2004
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.aqoul.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/1455
