Letter: Bush economy is nothing to brag about

Saturday, Oct. 14, 2006 | 8:01 a.m.

In President Bush's latest Rose Garden news conference, he crowed about the shrinking fiscal year 2006 budget deficit. That bragging is incomprehensible when you consider he has added $3 trillion to the national debt in just 5 1/2 years in office. He seems to forget that he has squandered the Clinton surplus and does not understand basic economics.

Bush points to his tax cuts as the reason that the deficit is smaller than forecasted. The tax cut and his throwing money at an unjust war in Iraq are at the core of his unsound fiscal policies and hence at the heart of the nation's economic woes. As of Friday the U.S. National Debt Clock was recording a debt of $8.547 trillion - $28,521 of indebtedness for every man, woman and child in the United States.

Bush and his administration simply do not understand that deficit spending is spending money that you do not have. Even the simplest of minds understands that you can't spend money you do not have. Just look at how many times he has gone to Congress to get the national debt limit increased. The bottom line is that when Bush took office, the national debt limit stood at $2.23 trillion. His last request to Congress to raise the limit took that number to $9 trillion.

The next president will have to return to a sound and fundamental economic program - lower spending, cut out the pork, slice popular programs, reduce foreign aid commitments, and, on the flip side, increase the revenue through higher taxes. Neither the conservatives nor the liberals will like this, but the alternative is a nation facing bankruptcy, unable to pay off its obligations, and the redemption of the debts to foreign governments, financial institutes and private investors.

Ray Harbert, Las Vegas