The federal government is expected to be 477-billion dollars in debt this fiscal year, the deepest the nation’s ever been in red ink. Vice President Cheney was quote recently as saying President Reagan proved deficits don’t matter, but Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, also a Republican, disagrees. Grassley says “Deficits do matter…Whenever a society lives off of future generations, there’s something immoral about it.” The Congressional Budget Office warns the cumulative deficit that will accrue between 2005 and 2014 will hit one-point-nine trillion dollars, a figure that does -not- include President Bush’s proposal to make his tax cuts permanent. Grassley says he -does- support making those tax cuts permanent, and he explains why. He says “If we don’t make the tax cuts permanent, we will have the biggest tax increase in the history of the country without even a vote of the Congress. We would also go back to the highest levels of taxation that we’ve had ever in the history of this country, except for World War Two. That’d be very detrimental to the economy.” The C-B-O report says the fiscal picture from 2004 through 2013 has worsened by 986-billion dollars since its last deficit projections in August. Grassley says he knows where to place the blame.He says “I don’t happen to believe we have budget deficits because people are undertaxed. We have budget deficits because Congress overspends.” Grassley says part of the deficit figures are related to the war in Iraq. President Bush is expected to request another 40-billion dollars later this year for the rebuilding of Iraq.
