The three trillion dollar man

The number jumped right off the page: $3,000,000,000,000.

That is the proposed budget which will be submitted by President Bush to Congress for approval this week.

Those were not the only characters jumping off the page, however.

Here's an excerpt from an article written by AP reporter Martin Crutsinger, dated today:

Bush, who was the first president to propose a $2 trillion budget, back in 2002, will leave office as the first president to hit $3 trillion with a spending plan. His blueprint for the budget year that begins next October projects huge deficits, around $400 billion for this year and next, more than double the 2007 deficit of $163 billion. Private economists believe the deficit could easily surpass the previous record in dollar terms of $413 billion set in 2004, especially if the country does go into a recession.

Just breathe that in, conservatives.

Bush, who has disavowed the principle of conservatism that matters most in government, fiscal responsibility, is officially the most reckless commander-in-chief in history with your money.

Take another breath…not FDR…not Lyndon Johnson.

George W. Bush presides over the largest government in American history.

Just six years separated the first EVER two trillion dollar budget and the first EVER three trillion dollar budget.

Six years.

Just in case you missed it the first time, sink it in by sounding it out: three, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero.

As G. Gordon Liddy would say, that's three thousand billion.

The budget, which takes as a given deficits amounting to nearly half of a trillion dollars, is fairly typical for a neoconservative: cut worthless government programs and, instead of decreasing the size and scope of government, rolling those resources into the burgeoning national defense budget.

In this way, we can have more money to fight wars we cannot win and to add to a deficit that had been a surplus before Bush took the oath of office.

And while the Federal Reserve Board is doing its best to further devalue the dollar, mounting debt as a result of fiscal irresponsibility will only expedite the process.

The good old days of "war is good for business" are over

In an increasingly global economy, war can be a death blow for an economy. Consider that our Big Board, the NYSE, will nearly tank every time an Iranian dinghy gets within 200 yards of a US naval ship in international waters.

(Heck, the death of a populist in Pakistan set the market into a tailspin.)

And no "stimulus package" is going to make up for the excesses of the Bush administration's failed foreign and fiscal policies.

Tax cuts should not coincide with increases in spending.

The war in Iraq has been disastrous for the US economy, wreaking havoc on consumer confidence and turning over your money to the military-industrial complex that doesn't even give its fair share back.

The Party's over

The candidate Bush (circa 2000) would vehemently disagree with the President Bush, who is the worst kind of tax and spend liberal. He takes your money and invests it in a war machine guided by a foreign policy that hasn't made us safer since the end of the World War II.

At least the do-gooders might do something good with your money. When leftists like Ted Kennedy Barack Obama steal your money, they blow it with the best of intentions.

At least give us that.

Bush's $3,000,000,000,000 budget won't pass Congress without some serious tinkering, but you can rest assured that when it does pass it will not have gotten magically smaller.

Bush, whose conservative credentials are now officially null and void, will make concessions, but only in favor of more--and not less--government.

For those pundits who are quick to call a John McCain presidency the end of the Republican Party I have but one question: where have you been in the past eight years?

There is no party for fiscal conservatives anymore, and I can give you 3,000,000,000,000 reasons why.