Likely Vote to Up National Debt Looms

This is from Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans cast symbolic campaign-season votes Wednesday to increase spending for border and port security — one day before a likely vote to increase the national debt by an additional $781 billion, to $9 trillion.

The uncomfortable vote to increase the debt is the fourth since President Bush took office, and it comes as Republicans struggle to pass a budget plan for next year. GOP leaders have already dropped Bush's plans for tax cuts and curbs to Medicare, but now his cap on appropriated spending is in danger as well.

The debt limit increase is an unhappy necessity; the alternative is a first-ever default on U.S. financial obligations. The Senate devoted just two hours to the topic Wednesday evening, with only one Republican participating. Action on the debt limit is overshadowing the weeklong debate on the GOP's budget blueprint.

Also, it comes as Republicans try to convince their supporters that they are getting serious about restraining spending.

Yet, in a series of budget votes this week, Republicans approved symbolic increases for politically sensitive programs such as education, port security and veterans' benefits while distancing themselves from Bush's proposal in an election year.

The debt limit bill is the fourth such measure required since Bush took office five years ago. If approved, the latest version would mean that the debt had grown over that span from about $6 trillion to $9 trillion — about $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

"We are plunging deeper and deeper into debt and it is increasingly financed by foreigners," said Sen. Kent Conrad (news, bio, voting record) of North Dakota, top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee. "We keep on spending, we keep on cutting taxes, we keep on funning up the debt."

The debt had grown from $6 trillion to $9 trillion. President Bush added $4 trillion to the national debt over this past five years. The U.S. Treasury is broke--broke due to the tax cuts given to the rich, broke due to the disastrous war in Iraq, broke due to the incompetence of Katrina. And yet the Republicans still play this insidious game of spending money for guns and butter even though the U.S. has no more money.

The crap is going to hit soon.