8/21/05 The Credit Card President

I have a friend who is married and has two kids. His wife was out of work and they were struggling to make ends meet. I heard that the factory he worked for closed up shop and moved to China leaving him without a job.

Concerned about his situation I called to see if there was anything I could do to help. To my surprise he said they were doing fine, in fact, they had just bought a brand new big screen TV.

It turned out they had just gotten a couple new credit cards and were living in the delusion that everything was alright as long as they could run up debt on the credit cards. They seemed to have no thought for what would happen when the credit cards came due and they were drowning in interest payments.

This friend reminds me of what our current president is doing. He has run up the national debt to horrible new heights and then pretends the economy is booming. His short-term thinking ignores the future costs of running the country on credit. By then he will be out of office.

During the Clinton years we learned that paying down the debt is good for the economy. Simple logic tells us the same. Yet as soon as Republicans get into office they run up the debt. Why are they so addicted to living on credit?

Democrats have become the party of fiscal responsibility. Reagan ran up the debt to new heights, Clinton came in and not only paid down the debt, but created huge surpluses. Bush immediately squandered those surplus and created ever-higher debts.

Bush can rightly be called the credit card president. Like my friend, living in the delusion of economic prosperity while running up credit card debt. The question I have is: is Bush that stupid or is he pulling a con-game on the American public?