Let's Cancel The Porkulus Before it Buries Us

The Pelosi-Obama Deficits - WSJ.com: "We've never fretted over budget deficits, at least if they finance tax cuts to promote growth or spending to win a war. But these deficit estimates are driven entirely by more domestic spending and already assume huge new tax increases. CBO predicts that debt held by the public as a share of GDP, which was 40.8% in 2008, will rise to 67.8% in 2019—and then keep climbing after that. CBO says this is 'unsustainable,' but even this forecast may be optimistic."

Here's why. Many of the current budget assumptions are laughably implausible.

Need a good belly laugh? Read the assumptions behind the conclusion that we will have ONLY $9 TRILLION in deficits over the coming decade.

It is amazing that Obama's economic advisors had the gall to get on TV yesterday and try and pin these deficits on George Bush. Shameful.

We are burying our children and their children in debt. Disgraceful.

Chinese Students Know the Score Even if Mainstream Media Doesn't

UPDATE 3-Geithner tells China its dollar assets are safe | Reuters: "Chinese assets are very safe,' Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting scepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home." [italics mine]

First of all - I only learned of this startling event by reference made to it in a blog at NRO. Did anybody see this on the news or read about it in their newspapers? Had Geithner been a Bush cabinet member it certainly would have been all over the front pages.

Secondly, congratulations to Reuters for reporting it, but notice the words in italics. This is not an opinion piece, but supposedly a news report. Yet the reporter claims to know the motivation for the audience's laughter, and, what's more, his theory is ludicrous. Had Geithner just said, "China is wise to practice thrift, and invest in foreign bonds," perhaps this theory might have some credibility. But Geithner wasn't commenting on the wisdom of China stockpiling foreign reserves, he was commenting on the safety of the assets that had already been stockpiled (primarily in US Treasuries). It was the assertion that the already stockpiled debt was safe which prompted the loud laughter from the audience.