This is published on Vox Verax.

The game of fiscal chicken

by Tom Maertens

It's astonishing that the debates, both Repub and Dem, have avoided the tremendous debt overhang the U.S. is facing.David Walker, the Comptroller, says that our unfunded liability is now at $53 trillion -- more than the entire private wealth in the country. We can reduce some of this liability by reducing Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security benefits, but those are difficult decisions. What are the candidates going to do? All the choices, including raising taxes, are hard.Second, the budget deficit is projected at $168 billion this year, while we are at the top of the business cycle. What happens at the bottom of the cycle? $400 billion deficit? $500 billion? That looks to me like a major structural deficit.Bush already ran up more than $4 trillion in debt. The debt service on that money is $200 billion per year. Bush and the Republican Congress have mortgaged our future, yet nobody seems to care. Tax and spend is reprehensible; borrow and spend is good government. How dare someone suggest we pay our bills.Perhaps the Repubs are hoping for a replay of '93 when Clinton's balanced budget amendment -- passed without a single Repub vote -- raised taxes and helped (eventually) result in a surplus.Of course, the Dems got creamed in '94, partly because of Clinton's tax increase. The Repubs seem to be playing the same irresponsible game of chicken, and the Dems aren't calling them on it. In fact, the Dems were thoroughly pusillanimous in opposition, letting the Busheviks pass a repeal of the estate tax, which affects the top 1/4 of 1 percent, 8200 of the ultrarich who financed the campaign against the 'death tax.'The debate moderators seem more interested in who's the most religious candidate.Makes you wonder....Does anyone care? Does anyone even know?