$500 Billion More In Debt This Month Alone

After eight years of a president whose fiscal policies have made Ted Kennedy look like Herbert Hoover, we are reduced to this:

Since September 30, the day the national debt hit the $10-trillion mark for the first time, the government has run up over $500 billion in new debt. That’s more than the federal deficit for the entire 2008 fiscal year, which ended September 30. And it’s the most rapid increase in the national debt ever: over half a trillion dollars in less than a month - 23 days to be exact.

On the day President Bush was sworn in, the debt stood at $5.7 trillion. Less than eight years later, it’s within days of having swelled $5 trillion dollars on his watch - an embarrassing milestone for a president who considers himself a conservative and an advocate of fiscal discipline.

The CBO estimates that McCain's abandonment of his own record of fiscal discipline to make the Bush-Cheney tax cuts permanent would mean a bigger increase in the debt over the next four years. In terms of adding debt, McCain promises to be the real heir to Bush and borrow more money than an opponent regularly derided as the most liberal Senator.

If you care about balanced budgets and reducing debt, you have a fundamental duty to punish the current GOP. That includes McCain and Palin.