Transcripts

"Commentary"-Prioritizing Money Matters

SUSIE GHARIB: Tonight's commentator asks our next president to be more fiscally prudent than his predecessor. He's Allan Sloan, senior editor-at- large at "Fortune."

ALLAN SLOAN, SR. EDITOR AT LARGE, FORTUNE: Now that the election is finally over, maybe our new president and Congress will actually pay some attention to our Federal budget problems. During the campaign, everyone talked about how many zillions they'd spend on new programs and boosting the economy. But right behind all that spending is an enormous problem. How are we going to pay for it? In its recent fiscal year, the Federal government reported a $455 billion deficit. But if you count the money borrowed from trust funds like Social Security, it was more than $700 billion. If you include what the Treasury borrowed to help out the Federal Reserve, it was more than a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars! Even by Washington standards, that's getting to be real money. And the current fiscal year is going to be even worse. The Bush administration managed to completely avoid fiscal reality. It cut taxes, spent heavily and borrowed heavily to make up the gap. It even borrowed the money to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the first time we've ever cut taxes in the middle of a war. The new administration will have to be more prudent fiscally than the Bush administration. It would be hard to be less prudent. So let's hope the newbies get their fiscal act together soon. Otherwise, our foreign lenders are going to crack down on us and stick our children and grandchildren with the bill. I'm Allan Sloan.