In the year 2009 double-dealing returned to Washington, DC. Shortly after his inauguration, President Barack Obama pledged to cut the nation's annual budget deficit in half by the end of his first term. At the time, he identified exploding health-care costs
as the chief culprit behind rising federal deficits. He warned that the
country could not continue its current rate of deficit spending without
facing dire economic consequences. He said, "I refuse to
leave our children with a debt they cannot repay. ... We cannot and will
not sustain deficits like these without end. ... We cannot simply spend
as we please.” Yet within four short years, the USA’s sovereign credit rating has been downgraded twice, from AAA to AA on August 5, 2011, and again to AA- on September 14, 2012.
Talk
is cheap. By September 20, 2012, after 44 month’s of empty words,
health care costs have continued to rise. Having risen by 3.9% in 2010,
health care costs are expected to rise by another 7.5% in 2013, or more than three times the projected rates for inflation and economic growth.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, the national debt has exploded by
$5,387,546,974,859 in the last 44 months, resulting in an average annual
increase of $1.5 trillion, versus an average of $612.4 billion during
the presidency of George W. Bush (see chart below). And there are still
four month’s to count until inauguration day.
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