The Birth Tax Balloons

Every man, woman and child in this country would now have to give $30,000 to the feds just to get us back to break even:

The U.S. Congress approved a $781 billion increase in the federal government's debt limit, the fourth time lawmakers have raised the cap since President George W. Bush took office.

The Senate voted 52-48 to increase the legal limit on federal borrowing to $8.97 trillion, up from $8.18 trillion. The House approved the measure last year, meaning the legislation now goes to the president for his signature.

The increase was approved about 30 minutes after the Treasury postponed the scheduled announcement of the sale of three-month and six-month Treasury bills. Treasury Secretary John Snow warned Congress in increasingly dire terms that the government couldn't continue to pay its bills, and risked defaulting on its obligations, without an immediate increase in the debt ceiling.

The fiscal irresponsibility of the Republican Administration continues. Four raises of the federal debt limit in five years. Unbelievable. And it's only getting worse. According to the article, "The Treasury said in January it plans to borrow $188 billion from January to March, the most ever for a single quarter." We had a surplus in the beginning of 2001, remember?

It is great news that two threatened GOP Senators up for re-election voted against their party on this, in Nevada (Jon Ensign) and Montana (Conrad Burns).  The heat must be on them from the Western libertarian constituency, who's more inclined to side with the Democrats if they continue to show fiscal responsibility like this.  That's what happens when you stick together (every single Democrat voted against raising the debt ceiling); you force members the other party to make choices they don't want to make. This vote and yesterday's vote on pay-go (which ended in a 50-50 tie, again with all Democrats voting together) should be highlighted come November.