Letter: Bush’s deficit spending has left nation worse off

Friday, Oct. 8, 2004 | 8:55 a.m.

During past Republican administrations there was a great deal of wailing about deficit spending and the national debt that was in the multi-trillions of dollars. The cry from Nixon, Reagan and George H.W. Bush was that we were placing a heavy financial burden on future generations by the great national deficit. The usual villain for Republicans was the Democratic Party with every Democratic president and Congress from the time of FDR bearing the title of "tax-and-spend" liberals.

President Bill Clinton left office in 2000 with a $5.8 trillion surplus in our treasury and the prospect of eliminating the national debt in a decade. The Republican wailing and moaning about an ever increasing national debt plaguing future generations has grown very silent since our second war effort in Iraq. No longer do we hear about deficit spending and its future effect upon our children. The squandered trillions in surplus are never mentioned. Bill Clinton is still the devilish villain of the Republicans and is never given credit for the surplus he left.

George W. Bush has made the surplus disappear with all the skill of a magician on the Las Vegas Strip. He has squandered this surplus by offering tax-cuts and rebates to the wealthy and multi-national corporations. All the while he proposed pitiful rebates to the rest of us with policies that have seen increased cost-of-living expenses.

In past campaigns, the Republican battle cry was: "Are you better off today than four years ago?" Frankly, I was better off under Bill Clinton than George W. Bush and I won't forget that fact in November.

VIRGIL A. SESTINI