Hocking America's Future

I've always felt that the differences in governing between Republicans and Democrats were analogous to an automatic transmission.  If  you want the country to go backwards shift it into R and Vote Republican.  If you want the country to move forward shift into DRIVE and VOTE DEMOCRAT.

Case in point the national debt clock is running out of space.

The AFP notes an upcoming problem with the national debt clock, a “giant digital signboard counting the [US national debt] near New York's Times Square.”

“Sometime in the next two years, the total amount of US government borrowing is going to break through the 10-trillion-dollar mark and, lacking space for the extra digit such a figure would require, the clock is in danger of running itself into obsolescence."

You've got to hand it to those free market, chest thumping, "Government should be run like a business" republicans.  They really do run the government like a business, just look at the business models they follow...

We are living in a post 9-11 world but I digress...the "debt story" get's better.  Remember my analogy about republicans governing in reverse and Democrats DRIVING FORWARD governing towards a better future.

Ahem...

Toward the close of the millennium, with a booming economy fuelling annual budget surpluses, the clock began to slow and finally ran into its first mechanical problem.

"It wasn't designed to run backwards," Douglas Durst explained.

Believing that the signboard had served its purpose, the Dursts pulled the plug in 2000 with the debt total showing around 5.7 trillion dollars and the individual "family share" standing at close to 74,000 dollars.

So who was leading the country "towards the end of the millennium " into the 21st century, building a bridge to the future?  The Democrats.

So what happened?

The Bush presidency coincided with an upsurge in borrowing. The curtain was raised in 2002 and the digital readout flickered back to life showing a national debt of 6.1 trillion dollars with the numerals whizzing round faster than ever.

Instead the debt continued to rise at such a rate that the once unthinkable total of 10 trillion dollars veered from alarmist fantasy into the realm of impending reality.

And rising it is, it's almost unconscionable

Congress and this president showed their complete disregard for economic responsibility last week in raising the country’s debt ceiling to $9 trillion.

And who pays?  We all do  because  republicans  are hocking this country's future.