Why did Bush do nothing to address the national debt?

Question

Will this failure to handle this basic task hamstring the US in several ways?

Answer 1

Bacause he is an idiot. All he cares about is oil.

Answer 2

Go ask Congress.  They vote on and pass the budgets and can also override Presidential vetoes.  They are the culprits, yet no one seems to direct their ire at the source of deficit spending, our gluttonous Congressmen.  Bush should have vetoed the spending bills and shut down government until these idiots got their act together.

Answer 3

He HAS addressed it -- he CREATED it.

Answer 4

He did.  He came very close to doubling it.  It is expected to hit $10 trillion sometime about the day that he leaves office in January.

WILL hamstring the U.S.?  Where have you been?  It already has.  Just watch the big banks scrambling to raise capital.  Or Cheney asking foreign governments to buy U.S. Treasury bonds.  No need in asking us, we're already tapped out.  When the government borrows $5 trillion dollars in just 7 years, that saps the credit markets to the tune of an average of $700 billion per year.  And people wonder why they can't get a loan to buy a house despite having stellar credit? The reason why we have the worst recession in the housing market since the great depression is that people can't get the loans to buy all those pretty new houses because the banks aren't able to issue the loans in this tight credit market.  

The war is the base cause of it all; it's costing a LOT more than advertised.  

Defense budget:  2000:  $290 billion

The Bush Administration moved some stuff from Defense to Discretionary Spending, so we have to use a few "pluses" now.

Military budget:  2008:  Defense dept:  $636 billion, VA:  $71 billion, Homeland Security:  $50 billion, Military retirement:  $120 billion, plus several other, less expensive projects brings the total to about $1.1 trillion dollars.

China was smart enough to buy almost $2 trillion of those U.S. treasury bonds.  They know we will never have the money to pay them back, so they just threaten to dump them back on the market and not loan us any more money whenever we even mention fair trade or fair monetary policy.

We're going to be paying almost $500 billion per year in interest on the national debt IF the government could quit borrowing tomorrow.

But we can't.  We will have to beg China to loan us another $500 billion per year for the next several years.  Even if we pulled out of Iraq tomorrow, and cut military spending back to peacetime levels, we would still have a deficit.  

It's beginning to look like it's too late to keep our economy from falling into a recession, no matter what we do.  Let's just hope it's not too late to prevent another Great Depression.  

It's a perfect storm.  I can see it now.  Practically no available credit, mounting losses from foreclosures, massive numbers of unsold houses because of the tight credit markets, so home equity falls.  Unemployment is already the highest it's been in decades.  A little push and the airline and auto industries finish collapsing, resulting in massive layoffs.  It causes a chain reaction.  More layoffs.  More plant closings.  The next thing we know, our economy's had a 40% recession, like the Great Depression.  Just because the last Great Depression  began 79 years ago doesn't mean that it can't happen again.  All of the elements are there.

Answer 5

We of the U.S. Congress

and the right honorable

President deserve your

absolute loyalty and

cooperation. Now you

gonna get it. We just might

shut down the whole economy

and put you to picking corn for

the ethenol factories we built!

So shut up and get to work.

Answer 6

If you get those illegals out of the country, our education, medical and entitlement programs would all go back on track. If you want to hold him accountable for things, first hold the people accountable who allow illegal activity to bankrupt our system. Then worry about the budget.

Answer 7

He did do something. He raised it. By a lot.

Tell your kids to start learning Chinese, because some day they're going to call in their debt and we'll be screwed.

Answer 8

He did.  He doubled it.  He had help, but he got the budgets he asked for, and it is his budgets that are responsible.

Answer 9

"Hamstring?" try 'cripple'. Seriously, we are in deep do-do, me thinks. The problem now is that the next President will have trouble funding his  retreads on the first limo after this. Would you lend us any more money? The Chinese and the rest are anything but stupid.

Answer 10

If the "real" current 2008 US national debt figures and the current US unemployment figures were released to the public there would be mass demonstration riots in every street across the United State. The total nation-wide debt currently is $53.2 Trillion ($66.0 Trillion if you include Social Security debt)

http://one-simple-idea.com/DisparityTren...

The recent US unemployment figures which were publically given claimed to be only 5.9 per cent place this figure with the current United States population figures.

11.4 million plus Americans were looking for work last month.This May 2008 figure didn't include American people who have recently lost there welfare payments after 26 weeks or the current homeless.Americans currently on disability, single mothers on welfare. Low paid under 15 hours a week workers or the recent amount of Americans who have lost there jobs by or through natural disasters and companies closing down. The June unemployment figures are predicted to be tripled the May 2008 figures.  

The current US national foreign debt figure increases by billions of dollars daily, link to clock. http://zfacts.com/p/461.html

The US government and US media have been keeping the US publics main focus on the election and the US led wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, propaganda on Iran and gas prices to keep Americans from being concerned of this real dire issue. This is why George Bush didn't announce or address this issue.

Answer 11

Its easier to put stuff off and not talk about it than to address it and get the issue out in the open.  Theres so much stuff going in in the US that i dont even know whats going to happen.  So long social security, hello working till im 90!