I'm not sure how many of you watch the news or read the news blogs on a daily basis. I know I can't, it's way too depressing to do every day. But when I saw that George W. Bush, our President, claimed he was fiscally responsible I almost snorted tea out of my nose and onto my monitor. Fiscally responsible? Seriously?

In a press conference on Thursday morning (Sept. 20) our ever popular leader had this to say when asked if there was a risk of the United States economy going into recession.

"You need to talk to economists...I think I got a B in Econ 101. I got an A however in keeping taxes low, and being fiscally responsible with the people's money."

 

 

 

 

Hmmm. First up, I'm fairly sure that George W. Bush got a C in Econ 101 when he was an undergraduate at Yale. I've read that in the usual liberal rags and websites, like this one. Does that mean he was exaggerating in his favor? No, he'd never do that.

I also can't say I'm a great economist either but I do know a thing or two about fiscal responsibility. Regardless of your political affilliations it's hard to deny that George W. Bush has not been been spending our money without prejudice. In fact, you could very easily argue that keeping taxes low IS NOT being fiscally responsible, especially during a war when we need every cent we can get. Where is the responsibility? Where are the sacrifices? In other wars, people were rationed. In this one, Mr. Bush told us to go out shopping after the 9/11 attack.

In my opinion, and the opinion of many others, fiscal responsibility means reducing or eliminating debt, balancing a budget, controlling spending, not borrowing, and well, all that stuff you were taught in Econ 101 (ahem, sorry, couldn't resist).

So I'm not entirely sure what Mr. Bush means. If you go here you can see the US National Debt is enormous. I mean gigantic. It goes up so quickly I can't even put a figure here for you, by the time this is published it will be even bigger. I also recall that we had a surplus at one point, or was that just a big ol' fat dream?

Many people will argue that none of this is Mr. Bush's fault. The war was necessary (I could write a book on against that one), the economy sank due to 9/11, he's doing a great job, and yada yada yada. But whatever you believe can you really say that a President who's sunk this country into enormous debt and reduced the value of the dollar to that of the Canadian dollar (it hasn't been this low in decades) is fiscally responsible?

If so, then I wonder, should George W. Bush write for Wisebread? Maybe he can tell us all what we've been doing wrong. I for one thought I had the right idea, but now I'm thinking of getting 18 credit cards and buying a new Porsche. Screw it, my kids can handle the debt, I just wanna have fun!

Oh, and in case you missed it, here's the clip. You'll notice he stutters on the word "fiscally." Guilty conscience maybe?