Don't call them conservatives

"Critics have pounded the Bush administration for its faulty intelligence in the run-up to the war in Iraq. But President Bush peddled tax cuts with data that ultimately proved equally faulty - yet the tax cuts remain cemented in place."

I have thought for some time that the biggest threat to the United States wasn't al-Queda, wasn't Nukes in Iran or North Korea but was the Bush administration itself. I have discussed the undermining of the Bill of Rights and the separation of church and state. I have discussed the imperialistic ambitions of the neo-cons. Today Nicholas Kristof discusses the totally irresponsible manner in which they have handled the economy and explains how we are on A Glide Path to Ruin.

The biggest risk we Americans face to our way of life and our place in the world probably doesn't come from Al Qaeda or the Iraq war.

Rather, the biggest risk may come from this administration's fiscal recklessness and the way this is putting us in hock to China.

"I think the greatest threat to our future is our fiscal irresponsibility," warns David Walker, the comptroller general of the United States. Mr. Walker, an accountant by training, asserts that last year may have been the most fiscally reckless in the history of our Republic. Aside from the budget deficit, Congress enacted the prescription drug benefit - possibly an $8 trillion obligation - without figuring out how to pay for it.

George W. Bush in February, 2001:

He foresaw a $5.6 trillion surplus over 10 years and emphasized that much of that would go to paying down the debt.

"I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years," Mr. Bush said then, between his calls for tax cuts. "That is more debt, repaid more quickly, than has ever been repaid by any nation at any time in history." His budget message that year promised that the U.S. would be "on a glide path toward zero debt."

The reality now:

More than two centuries of American government produced a cumulative national debt of $5.7 trillion when Mr. Bush was elected in 2000. And now that is expected to almost double by 2010, to $10.8 trillion.

So what does that mean:

President Bush has excoriated the "death tax," as he calls the estate tax. But his profligacy will leave every American child facing a "birth tax" of about $150,000.

That's right: every American child arrives owing that much, partly to babies in China and Japan. No wonder babies cry.

Well at least we know what George W. Bush's legacy will be. Move over Herbert Hoover, there is a new kid on the block.

I'm sure my conservative friends will agree when I say, "Don't call them conservatives".