Whoopee! Bush announces a mere $300 billion 2006 deficit

I repeat ... Whoopee-doo! Only a $296 billion deficit -- we may not reach a $10 trillion National Debt before Mr. Bush retires in 2009 ... or earlier, of course. His speech today brought cheers and excitement from the GOP party faithful from Texas to Oklahoma and will likely fill the screen of my television set this evening.

Then again, take a close look at the graph showing both surpluses (before Bush) and deficits (Bush and beyond) from 2000 through 2008 (projected).

What do you see?

Even if we were to discount the cost of the needless Iraq War (approximately $130 billion ... or one million dollars for each soldier on the field in Iraq), we are adding enormously to the National Debt each year.

Add to that the continual decline in median income in the US (not average income, but median income ... thanks to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer under the Bush tax "cuts"), adjusted for inflation ... and I see nothing "good" about the numbers that Bush provided in this morning's speech. I've watched salaries go down, jobs downsized and a continuous rise in interest rates, gas prices and (most recently) the cost of pharmaceuticals ... that can only make me sad when my mind thinks about the "economy."

But then, to say the least, I don't believe that the US economy has been the saddest loss to our country during the Bush years (the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and loss of having held a place close to the moral high ground internationally make the National Debt pale in comparison), so I certainly don't see this as an occasion for joviality or the kind of hoopla I am already hearing behind my back from where I am currently seated at my PC here in the alcove -- from Fox News blaring on the television set.

The woman below grieves for her loved ones and for the destruction around her brought to Iraq by us. But she is a symbol of even more -- she symbolizes our losses too.