Remember “fuzzy math?” That was President Bush’s colorful, yet simple-minded characterization of Al Gore’s social security and Medicare scheme during the never-ending 2000 presidential election. Well, it seems ole Georgy-boy had it all wrong. Apparently, he’s the fuzzy-numbered one.
The president is cockeyed when it comes to taxes. The dimmest of us are boggled that he hasn’t emerged from the fog of fiscal delusion. In case he gets this memo: George, you can’t slash taxes to the tune of $550 billion, provide a federal prescription drug benefit, increase spending for Medicare and defense (to fund the ongoing War on Terrorism); meanwhile, pay down the national debt — and then dream the budget somehow will balance itself. He did graduate from Harvard Business School, but apparently while racking up that C average, he overlooked the most basic tenet of bookkeeping. Spending more than you make equals debt.
Mr. President, if you have more debits than credits, if your balance sheet is shrouded in red and only speckled with black, you just cannot expect a balanced budget. No doubt, as soon as little-boy Bush emerged from Harvard’s gates, he consigned budgetary logic to oblivion. However, his elder, statelier father, George H. W. Bush, recognized the need for a fiscal responsibility.
The first Bush concocted the wonderful pejorative “voodoo economics.” It was a term invented before most of our times but in a similar context. During the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, Ronald Reagan campaigned on cutting taxes while increasing defense spending. President Bush 41 referred to Reagan’s ill-fated policy as voodoo economics because reducing income while increasing spending is contrary to reason. The result was a Reagan victory and a $4 trillion dollar debt eight years later … the same debt plaguing our lackluster economy today.
The current Bush took his case to the people. Last Thursday, Bush went to Lima, Ohio to strongarm deficit-disdaining Ohio Sen. George Voinovich into supporting his original $726 billion tax cut package. Even standing in front of an Abram’s tank plant with his usual go get ’em cowboy swagger, Bush was unable to persuade the historically frugal senator. In fact, the senator was a no show due to “prior engagements.” In political terms, this means Voinovich wasn’t buying what George was selling.
Neither are Americans. Even without Bush’s highbrow education, Americans understand you can’t drain the federal coffers without replacing what you’ve taken. In an April 2 and 3 Los Angeles Times poll, only 29 percent of people believed we can afford the tax cut right now — support dropped to 12 percent if the tax cut is subsidized by the Social Security trust.
Dismal support is fairly unanimous. A CNN/Gallup Poll conducted earlier this year suggests 67 percent of people consider the $6 trillion federal debt to be at least a major problem, if not a crisis. And our president wants to increase it? Bush needs to stop gloating to the world that we have the greatest military of all time, which we do, and start focusing on who butters his bread: the American people.
Here’s why the budget matters to students. Hopefully, most of us will graduate shortly and be on our way to prominent careers making mucho dinero. The only way we will realize the pot of gold at the end of the proverbial college rainbow is if we get jobs. If the federal debt increases, as it obviously will under Bush’s framework, inflation rises, our money loses value, things cost more and businesses go caput — all culminating in fewer jobs for all. This is not to mention that our and our children’s generation will be the ones to shoulder the debt Bush creates.
But we have everything else to worry about, and taxes won’t matter until we are older. The problem is that the taxes you will pay in 10 years are being implemented through tax policy today.
Next time you hear our Wrangler-in-Chief bloviating about his rich buddies’ burdensome taxes, remember Bush’s philosophy failed tragically during the Reagan administration. If we give that policy another opportunity, it’s likely to break the back of our economy and eliminate those jobs for which we’ve been studying so hard to be qualified.