budget deficit

Here's an interesting and well-written USAtoday article about the future budget deficit. The problem is being made much worse by the medicare prescription-drug plan, which is a fine idea if it were actually helping seniors more than it helps drug companies, and the privatization of social security, which will cost much more than the administration is letting on. All this while fighting a war AND lowering taxes. Not a smart combination. Here are a couple quotes from the article:

"According to government estimates, the ultimate drain from the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit will be greater than the current national debt.

That's right. All prior unbalanced federal budgets will someday be topped by a single pre-election program for Medicare recipients."

"Bush and Congress had no problem with telling the voters that we can afford a war in Iraq and a prescription-drug benefit. These days, sacrifice seems limited to soldiers dispatched to Iraq and then forced to serve additional tours of duty.

Next month, the president is likely to flesh out his proposals for the partial privatization of Social Security in his Inaugural Address and his State of the Union speech to Congress. The truth-in-budgeting test for the president will be whether he will admit that his plan for individual accounts will be accompanied by huge transition costs. The political temptation will be to mask his Social Security arithmetic in a fiscal fog."