I thought a deficit was a debt

When the Bush/Cheney administration finally admitted that we are in a recession or economic turn-down, or whatever it can be called, they proposed and Congress passed a so-called bail-out package of $700 billion dollars. This was to be given primarily to the mortgage bankers and used to help the tens of thousands of people who were in trouble with these complicated mortgage plans that supposedly made it possible for people to buy million dollar homes when they thought they could only afford a couple of hundred thousand. Now it turns out that apparently the bankers haven't chosen to use the money they had been given (about 1/2 of the 700 billion) for that mortgage relief. They have decided instead to give the money to other banks and financial institutions. They also report that they don't think it's anyone's business what they did with the money and chose not to tell us. Forget whose money they were given. Mr.Paulsen has done with it what he pleased.

Now the new administration is talking about using another 300 billion mostly for tax relief for those who make less than two-hundred thousand a year. This so called stimulus package is intended to make life easier for the tax payers and it is hoped will cause people to spend more money, helping the economy. As a footnote, all of this will increase the deficit to 10 or is it 12 trillion dollars? Of course most of this money will continue to be borrowed from China, some from India and perhaps Brazil. Those countries of course are the nations with the fastest growing middle classes and are outpacing us at a rapid rate. In addition our new administration plans on presenting a massive and much needed national health plan which will cost many more billions but bring us up with other nations.

All of this makes about as much sense to me as most current economic discussion. If anyone of us found ourselves in serious debt with no known way to work our way out of it, how would we react to the advice that we need to go out and borrow as much money, or charge as much on credit cards as we can? Go to whoever will loan us funds and then spend all that we can? I know, bail out plans are supposed to make the sluggish economy work, but the debt also piles up. Unlike the government we can't just print more money without becoming counterfeiters, while apparently Uncle Sam can.

The sad thing for Mr. Obama is that he is inheriting this mess and we all know that deficit spending goes back to the Reagan administration and has been added to by many trillions by Dubyah. With the American public's inability to remember facts for very long, however, it will soon become Obama's deficit and mess.