Why Can’t We Balance The Budget?

Why can’t we seem to balance the budget in this country? It’s not because our taxes aren’t high enough, it’s because the looters in Congress and the White House keep spending more and more of our money every year. Take a look at how President Bush’s budgets have ballooned during his time in office and you’ll see exactly what I mean:

“Today’s Washington Post has a front-page story on President Bush’s proposed budget of nearly $3 trillion. It inspired me to take a look at other Washington Post stories on Bush budgets. Let’s take a walk down memory lane:

February 28, 2001: “In his first address to Congress, Bush likened his $ 1.9 trillion budget to a family budget…”

February 5, 2002: “President Bush yesterday proposed a $ 2.13 trillion budget for next year…”

February 4, 2003: “President Bush announced a $ 2.23 trillion budget for fiscal 2004 yesterday…”

February 3, 2004: “President Bush sent Congress a $2.4 trillion spending plan yesterday…”

February 13, 2005: “President Bush sent Congress a $2.57 trillion budget…”

February 5, 2006: “President Bush plans to propose a $2.7 trillion budget tomorrow…”

Today: “President Bush took aim yesterday at domestic spending as part of a plan to balance the budget in five years without raising taxes while increasing funding for the Iraq war and permanently expanding the military. With the $2.9 trillion budget he submitted to Congress…”

If you’re keeping score at home, $1.9 trillion to $2.9 trillion is an increase of more than 52 percent.”

The reality is that even if the President and Congress didn’t have the courage to cut a single one of the multitude of wasteful government programs, they could easily balance the budget if they did nothing but held the line on spending.

But, long term, it’s not going to happen unless we pass some sort of Balanced Budget Amendment that forces the Federal Government to live within its means. If we don’t do that, expect to see the budget crash through the 4 trillion dollar mark before 2015, if it even takes that long.

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