Submitted by Scott Baker, Oct 2, 2007 10:46

Apparently, the Sun has so given up on ever paying off the DEBT, that it has forgotten that the 9 trillion dollar debt (or 50 trillion if you count all future obligations) is the real issue, not the deificit. True, we are digging ourselves into a hole more slowly, but the sides of the hole are even more unscalable. Through a combination of smoke and mirror accounting that would make an Enron accountant blush, stary-eyed growth projections, and contradictory assumptions - like assuming the tax cuts will go away in 2010, thereby bringing in more revenue, while at the same time assuming they won't when campaigning for the dollars of deep-pocketed donors - the Bush administration has made it seem we can go on like this forever. Oh, and I haven't even mentioned our practice of living off the kindness of foreigners to prop up our increasingly sagging dollar. Well, the foreigners have about had it with that, and everything from middle east oil to China manufactured goods is headed up, in dollars at least. At some point, those countries will start focusing more on their own internal demands and less on the needs and wants of the world's largest debtor nation: the United States.

I still remember when Conservative meant fiscal restraint, as in conserving dollars. Now, it's appropriate to talk about no-tax-and-spend Republicans. We are living off the success of the past and until we get a true pro-growth, pro-fiscal restraint administration who's willing to stand up to a pork-barreled Congress, we will continue to have more waste and fraud, as well as bridges to nowhere. Oh, and simply slashing taxes on the rich and hoping for the best is not a fiscal policy either. Leaders should lead, not just dole out money to whatever lobby has the most clout. In today's era of unprecedented global growth, we need policies that get us to 6% growth, not half that. We need policies to engage all our citizens as entrpreneurs and flexible and educated knowledge workers. Think of what America would be like without the Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Jack Welches of our time; now think of what it could be if we could double the number of those kinds of people. The real deficit is lack of brainpower, not lack of money. We need more ROB - Return on Brainpower.

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