Last week, just as everyone was settling in to weigh the delightful prospect of a new administration and a new Congress — reformers all, to hear them tell it — a cold-water dash of realism smacked us in the face.<\/p>\n
This one was administered by the killjoys at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), who announced that the next president, whoever he is, will probably inherit a budget that is at least $500 billion out of balance — a record sum that will limit his ability to do any of the wonderful things being promised daily in the upbeat rhetoric of the campaign.<\/p>\n
Barack Obama and John McCain scarcely blinked at the news; I didn’t really expect them to do anything more. The last thing candidates want to admit is that, if they win, they will be unable to deliver the goodies they have promised the voters.<\/p>\n
Both of them are telling their audiences that they will outdo the Bush administration in every respect. They will not only bring fundamental change to Washington but deliver the big goals everyone craves — peace and enhanced national respect abroad, energy independence, more jobs, affordable health care, a cleaner environment, improved schools and, of course, lower taxes.<\/p>\n
You will not hear them admit that, before they do any of those things, they will have to pay a gigantic annual interest bill on the rapidly expanding national debt — or else our foreign creditors will stop lending us the money to pay our bills.<\/p>\n
No one is going to be elected on the promise that he will satisfy the bankers in Shanghai and the money managers in Moscow.<\/p>\n
But that is the reality. Our country has so thoroughly abandoned any pretense of fiscal prudence, accumulating public and private debt at a breakneck pace, that no president can avoid asking: How do I keep our creditors at bay?<\/p>\n