Hope and change, hope and change ...
It seems that this was the message we heard last year, and we certainly were hoping for change after years of fiscal irresponsibility.
During the last year of the Bush administration, the budget deficit increased by about $450 billion. In the last year of Obama's presidency, it has increased by $1.8 TRILLION, or four times as much. What happened to fiscal responsibility? What happened to "not adding a single dollar to the deficit," as Obama promised just a couple months ago? Yet it seems that the public perception has been so well managed that people still believe that fiscal responsibility is on its way.
So how much is $1.8 trillion anyway? Given approximately 300 million people in the United States today, this is $6000 in debt for every man, woman and child. That's an additional $30,000 in debt for a family of five this year alone. And that number does not include interest and does not apply to the taxes that have already been paid.
So where is fiscal responsibility? Seems like the adage "if you tell a lie long enough, people will believe it" is true. Sorry, Virginia, but Santa Claus does not live in a white house in Washington, D.C.
