I'm not trying to lump anyone with anyone. Our elected political leadership over a long time has gotten us into this financial mess. But the facts can't really be avoided. At the beginning of George Bush's first term the federal budget was not only balanced, but generating more revenue than was being spent. Alan Greenspan was very concerned that the national debt would actually be completely paid down in only a year or two and he was diligent in avoiding pointing out to Congress that they would actually have a lot more money to spend...because he believed that they would!

Eight years later, when Bush left office, the national debt was $10.7 trillion, the federal budget was creating year-over-year deficits that were growing dramatically, the economy was careening into recession, we were fighting two wars, and even the Republican candidate for President observed that Congress was "spending like drunken sailors". The national debt right now is about $12.6 trillion and economists project that it will grow to $14.6 trillion by 2014. Each year we are spending more than a trillion dollars than the government takes in in taxes. That deficit is growing each year.

For the first six years of Bush's term the Congress was controlled by the GOP, and for the final two and into the present, it's been the Democrats. And yes, the Democrats seem to be spending at a rate not seen during even the most profligate years of GOP controlled Congresses.

Those facts are unassailable. And they demonstrate what I've been trying to say--but folks like you seem to think I have a liberal agenda. Read that into my forewarnings if you wish. But the federal budget cannot be balanced with only cuts in spending. I've pointed out before that even if ALL spending by the federal government other than defense, Social Security, Medicare and the interest on the national debt was eliminated we would still be almost $1 trillion short of a balanced budget. Even if we then completely eliminated all spending by the Defense Department, we still wouldn't have a deficit-free budget.

Do you think I want to pay more taxes? No way. But I'm telling you all that the arithmetic tells us that taxes will have to be increased, and probably fairly substantially. The arithmetic shows that it's unavoidable.

Study the numbers yourselves, folks. It doesn't take a college degree in math. But to just keep ranting that by electing conservatives who will cut spending, the problem of the deficit and the national debt will be solved is just plain incorrect. BOTH the liberals and those who called themselves conservatives got us into this mess. That includes George Bush as well as Barack Obama and Congresses lead by Denny Hastert and Bill Frist as well as the Reid-Pelosi duo.

Read a recent statement by a well-known former GOP Presidential candidate who is known to be more conservative than middle of the road, Pat Buchanan. In his column last month in the conservative online publication The American Cause entitled, "Obama's Problems--And Ours", he concludes his review of the shortcomings of several previous administrations and the Obama administration by saying...

"... in 2012, the party of Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will have to tell the country how it proposes to end these wars without losing them, how to bring manufacturing back and how to cut spending by $1 trillion a year, if taxes are off the table.

That Republicans failed under George W. Bush few Republicans today deny. That Obama and his White House are failing today few Democrats will privately deny.

The question raised by the successive failures is whether either party has a cure for the maladies that afflict America. Or are those maladies beyond the power of politics to heal?

Have we become a people incapable of accepting the sacrifices previous generations made, and of producing leaders with the vision and strength of character that our leaders of old possessed?"

Again, I implore you all to look at the numbers, just as Pat Buchanan has. See if you can figure out how ANY candidate from ANY party can cut $1 trillion out of the federal budget...how ANY candidate or party can begin to resolve our fiscal crisis without raising taxes.

If you can find a way, please post your ideas here. We're headed for a trainwreck and there's no way any of us can get off. We keep changing engineers and one is worse than another.

You can read Buchanan's entire column at http://www.theamericancause.org/inde...t01returnid=29 Or, you can read all of his columns in The American Cause at http://www.theamericancause.org/index.php