Today, Congress along party lines of Republicans for and Democrats against, approved a bill that will allow the deficit to be increased to $9 Trillion dollars. That is $9,000,000,000,000. Lots of zeros. It represents about $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. This increase is to avoid a election damaging (and rich angering) tax increase that will allow more money for Iraq (building countries on our dime is expensive) and Medicare (cause of a fiasco of the pharmacy program).
In other news of fiscal irresponsibility or at least an odd sense of prorities, Republicans shot down a measure to increase funding to Veterans medical services by $1.5 billion. Unlike the above where its just borrowed, this would have been paid for by closing loopholes in the corporate tax law. Loopholes are defined as an ambiguity that makes it possible to evade a difficulty or obligation. Basically the law would have forced corporations to pay the taxes they owed anyway and would have used the money to help our Veterans. You know the whole "Support the Troops!" thing the republicans are always using as a defense for Iraq criticism.
Apparently we can borrow money to add $91 billion to rebuild Iraq, but Congress can't be bothered to close some tax code that would have paid for additional Veteran benefits. Am I the only one that finds that idea completely nuts?
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