How is the U.S. government under Bush different from the management of United Airlines? United Airlines' management is no longer making its payments to the employee pension fund. Bush is not only not making payments to the employee pension fund, they are snarfing back money from the pension fund to cover current operations. Edmund Andrews writes:
The New York Times > Washington > As U.S. Debt Ceiling Is Reached, Bush Administration Seeks to Raise It Once Again: Less than a day after President Bush implied that Senator John Kerry lacked "fiscal sanity," the Bush administration said on Thursday that the federal government had hit the debt ceiling set by Congress and would have to borrow from the civil service retirement system until after the elections.
Federal operations are unlikely to be affected because Congress is certain to raise the debt limit in a lame-duck session in November. Congressional Republicans had wanted to avoid an embarrassing vote to raise the debt ceiling just a few weeks before Election Day.
Since Mr. Bush took office in January 2001, the federal debt has increased about 40 percent, or $2.1 trillion, to $7.4 trillion. Congress has raised the debt ceiling three times in three years, raising it most recently by $984 billion in May 2003.
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said that the federal government was about to breach the limit again and would be able to keep operating only if it started tapping money intended for the civil service retirement fund, the pension system for federal workers.
"Given current projections, it is imperative that the Congress take action to increase the debt limit by mid-November,'' Mr. Snow warned in a statement, declaring that his arsenal of financial tools "will be exhausted" at that point.
The announcement came a few days after Congress adjourned and one day after Mr. Bush battled Mr. Kerry over economic and social policy in their final televised debate.
In that debate, Mr. Bush accused Mr. Kerry of proposing major new programs without the money to pay for them. "My opponent talks about fiscal sanity," the president said....
White House officials and Congressional leaders knew for at least two months that federal borrowing would soon exceed the legal limit. Mr. Snow warned on Aug. 2 that the ceiling would soon be reached, asking lawmakers to raise the limit then...
Why? Because the Republican congressional leadership is scared to go on record raising the amount of money the U.S. government is allowed to borrow before the election.
Posted by DeLong at October 15, 2004 10:30 AM | TrackBackThat sound you heard was my head exploding. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is fiscal sanity? AAAAARRRRRGGGHHH?
Posted by: Michael Patrick at October 15, 2004 11:01 AMYES! The real reason Sec. Snow should be removed from office! OK, his persistent dishonesty is another very good reason.
Posted by: pgl at October 15, 2004 11:26 AMHow can the electorate of the United States expect to defeat the terrorists when the Republican Party is totally populated with bully cowards?
Posted by: PrahaPartizan at October 15, 2004 11:26 AMEach individual detail is troubling, but it is the whole picture that really gets ya down. Colleagues who are planning to vote for Bush are glowing about Edwards' gaff over Christopher Reeves, but just walk away or claim that "things are different since 9/11" when substance is discussed. Rove has won. His way of doing things is now ok.
Josh Marshall's stuff from just the past couple of days offers the pong of what's going on in the election, and it's dreadful.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
Posted by: kharris at October 15, 2004 11:27 AMYES! The real reason Sec. Snow should be removed from office! OK, his persistent dishonesty is another very good reason.
Posted by: pgl at October 15, 2004 11:27 AMIt's different because UAL at least ostensibly seeks to operate within solvency, if possible. The gov under Bush does no such thing.
Posted by: Lewis Carroll at October 15, 2004 11:35 AMYou mean this Administration and the majority party in both the House and Senate don't actually believe in "fiscal sanity"?
"I'm shocked - shocked! - to find that gambling is going on in here!"
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Brad, you really oughta check out David Rosenbaum's latest "fact check" in the TIMES. It'll make you pull your hair out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/15/politics/campaign/15facts.html
The title says it all: "Are Americans Better Off Economically Under Bush? It Depends on How You Look at It"
WOOF.
Posted by: Brad Reed at October 15, 2004 01:24 PMAlan Greenspan today has told us there is no need to worry about the rise in energy costs. Evidently the Fed thinks economic growth will not slow too much given this rise. Si, I suppose we have more increases in short term interest rates to expect.
Posted by: anne at October 15, 2004 01:28 PMA November special session to raise the ceiling?
Getting stuffy in here ... wonder if there's a special session later to get up and open a window.
Posted by: RonK, Seattle at October 15, 2004 08:18 PMEasy.
Passengers aboard United Airlines flights are not guaranteed to experience a spectacular crash.
This is not unlike the current draft discussion.
We're clearly short on troops to meet out committments - and certainly in a bad position for responding to any new emergencies. But the Bush administration promises there will be no draft "under any circumstances."
Well, what if something happens with Korea? And what if something happens with the debt finally triggering a run on the dollar? Similar, no?
They actually ACCUSE Kerry of being responsible!
Posted by: Dave Johnson at October 15, 2004 10:55 PMThis is not unlike the current draft discussion.
We're clearly short on troops to meet out committments - and certainly in a bad position for responding to any new emergencies. But the Bush administration promises there will be no draft "under any circumstances."
Well, what if something happens with Korea? And what if something happens with the debt finally triggering a run on the dollar? Similar, no?
They actually ACCUSE Kerry of being responsible!
Posted by: Dave Johnson at October 15, 2004 10:56 PMNovember?
Picture Kerry winning. Picture an intact Republican Congress refusing to come out of the bathroom on the first night of the honeymoon to raise the debt limit. Picture an insolvent United States government. Picture the destruction of the U.S. government. Picture Kerry being blamed for it even before his inauguration
Picture chaos.
Then, picture vengeance. What will it look like?
Posted by: John Thullen at October 15, 2004 11:44 PMBrad has just succeeded in the near-impossible. He is unfair to the Republican rat bastards. EVERY Administration plays these tricks, faced with a game of chicken on the debt ceiling. These games are common: along with all of the other bipartisanly ridiculous forms of government accounting.
As far as I know, the "pension funds" are not segregated trust funds in the sense that a lawyer would understand: they are just accounting entries. And Unk Sam is still AAA, although the Bushies are trying mighty hard to lower the credit rating to junk. "There is much ruin in a nation."
Posted by: Joe S. at October 16, 2004 05:27 AMThe way I understand it, with the Bushies, it's ok to bust the bank (or the nation) if it's for military reasons, i.e., to implement Bush's theory of pre-emptive invasion to keep oil sources safe, especially or perhaps only if those military excursions feed huge amounts of taxpayer money to favored industries/corporations. It doesn't seem to matter if these illadvised invasions/occupations are successful, just that Bush can claim to be forceful, decisive, etc., and enough people continue to believe him and his spin-makers.
However, by Bushies standards, it IS fiscally insane to spend taxpayer dollars on programs that might actually benefit US middle and lower income taxpayers or even those that make so little money they don't pay taxes. Or to continue to enforce environmental protections or pollution control regulations that protect public health, protect endangered species, provide people with wonderful places to visit, as opposed to enabling corporate interests to wring every last bit of short term profit (laying off all costs on the public of course) from those same public lands and leaving them environmental disaster areas. Also known as using public lands, land that is supposed to belong to all of us, to further subsidize various industries.
You just have to look at things from the "right" perspective, then it makes sense.
Posted by: azurite at October 16, 2004 08:54 AMRe: Snow. If I remember correctly, wasn't he CEO of CSX before he replaced O'Neill as Sec'y of the Treasury? And isn't CSX rated last of all US railroads for service, etc? I seem to remember that there was some recent litigation in which CSX was found responsible for Amtrak's car train (that goes to Florida)having a serious accident--because CSX, despite numerous complaints and warnings, had failed to repair its tracks. The derailment would've occurred during Snow's tenure. My impression is that the Bush Administration likes to recruit failed execs (of which Bush is one)into its ranks. Whether it's to give them an opportunity to screw up our finances and functioning the way they did the corporations they ran, to develop good contacts (to get a cushy job with Carlyle or a similiar entity when they "rejoin the private sector"), similar failed philosophies or because Bush feels more comfortable with people are very similar to himself, I don't know. That Bush, given his administration's record, could speak about his administration's fiscal responsibility at a debate without getting laughed off the podium is something I don't understand.
Posted by: azurite at October 16, 2004 09:06 AMThe "pension fund" is the G Fund of the Thrift Savings Plan, which is sort of like a 401K plan for federal workers (including Congresscritters). After the debt ceiling is raised the fund is restored, with interest, to what it would have been if they hadn't been messing around with it in the first place. Check out Mike Causey's on-line column for a better explanation of what's going on, he's explained this several times over the years.
In other news, Mary Cheney is gay. What, you wondered what was making her parents hog the news cycle? Let's call it a Snow-job, okay?
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