Picture the end of the Clinton era with a surplus and picture the end of the Bush era with a deficit. What happened in between?
9/11 happened among other things, but that was just the beginning.
Let's invade Afghanistan and we'll take money from the surplus to pay for it. While we're there let's let Bin Laden escape Bora Bora so he can fight another day. Great military strategy.
While we're there let's invade Iraq on some trumped up reasons caused he threatened my daddy during the gulf war. We can pay for this out of the surplus as well. Oh, and anyone who thinks that Hussein was in bed with Al Qaeda, well that's just downright pretty stupid.
While we're at it let's create the Office of Homeland Security, we can also pay for this out of the surplus. While we're at it let violate the constitution in several areas to increase our surveillance activities at the expense of everyone's civil liberties. (I personally don't have a problem with this but it is out of the framework established within the constitution)
Well, we also need this cumbersome organization called TSA to monitor travelers so they don't hijack another plane (a good thing) and we can also pay for this out of the surplus as well. Then we can piss of the public by patting down old people and making young children cry, won't that be fun.
But now the surplus is running out what can we do to replenish the coffers, I know, let's give tax breaks to the wealthy and not raise taxes. After all the banking, lending and investment institutions are doing so well, what could go wrong.
Enter Barrack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the United States and he gets all of the above from the exiting administration. There's no playbook for the disaster that's portrayed here. The Dems have the opportunity to make a difference and blow it. The Repubs take the word "yes" out of their vocabulary and bog down the system.
Universal health care that the President seems insistent about becomes the rallying cry against any kind of social reform. The tea baggers say let them die, wow isn't that humane. Yuk, yuk.
Unemployment is up, jobs are lost overseas, corporations are now individuals (stupid) and the programs to help the nation are decried as tax and spend (more stupidity). The Repubs are now a two party system with the religious not-so-right making great headways within the tea bagger's ranks to the detriment of the principles of this great nation.
It's only going to get worse and I wish it didn't have to be that way but the pendulum has not swung completely to the other extreme yet. Give it time, it will. While we're waiting why don't you go a buy some really big ticket item and write a check for the full amount with funds you don't have, after all, it's the American way.