The Wall Street Journal headline is grim:
Grim Voter Mood Turns Grimmer #
Underpinning the gloom: Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the economy has yet to hit bottom, a sharply higher percentage than the 53% who felt that way in January.
Wow. I think the barrage of terrible economic news this week has people realizing that you can’t borrow your way out of a debt problem.
So far this fiscal year, the US has paid more in interest on its rapidly rising debt than it’s taken in from all corporate taxes. That’s just the service on the debt, people. And interest rates are at all time lows. From the WSJ.com:
Years of deficit spending by Washington have led to a mounting national debt. Interest payments so far in fiscal 2010 amount to $185.25 billion; by contrast, corporate taxes collected by the government during the same 10 months were $139.71 billion. Interest payments in July alone were $19.9 billion.
The Fed and Treasury officials admit they’re out of options for dealing with economic crisis. As a nation, we are living paycheck to paycheck. Yet we’re STILL maxing out every credit card we can get.
Soon, we won’t be able to get more credit cards. Then we’re totally screwed.
Barack Obama inherited a bad situation and made it orders of magnitude worse. In July, he and the Democrat Congress spent twice as much as they took in. You can’t make it up in volume, Nancy.
To be honest, I would hate to be a member of the next Congress. They will face a crisis that few living Americans have ever seen. And it looks like Republicans have a better chance of controlling the House, at least, with each passing headline:
Republicans, meantime, are gaining ground on a number of issues that have traditionally been advantages for Democrats. More Americans now think the GOP would do a better job on the economy—an advantage the party last held briefly in 2004 but has not enjoyed consistently since the mid-1990s. On one of the Democrats' core issues, Social Security, just 30% now think the party would do a better job than the GOP, compared to 26% who favor the Republicans. That margin was 28 points in 2006.
No matter how you spin it, business is being stifled by two things: debt and taxes. Obama campaigned on raising both. At least he kept that promise.
Now, will the American voter keep alive the promise of America? We have 83 days to make it happen.