From today’s Boston Globe, a story about the devastating deficits we face, and the new president’s ideas for facing them down:
“Pointing with concern to “red ink as far as the eye can see,” President-elect Barack Obama pledged yesterday to tackle Social Security and Medicare as a central part of his effort to control federal spending and named a special watchdog to eliminate government waste – even as he campaigned anew to spend the largest pile of taxpayer money in history to revive the sinking economy…The eye-popping estimates reflect plummeting tax revenues because of the recession and about $400 billion to bail out the financial industry and take over troubled mortgage lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Congressional Budget Office estimate released yesterday also sees the economy shrinking by 2.2 percent this year and recovering only slightly in 2010, with the unemployment rate eclipsing 9 percent early next year unless the Obama administration steps in”. See full article here: