EDITORIAL
Federal government is bleeding red ink

They used to call Democrats the "tax and spend" crowd. That typology is so passe. Now the operative phrase out there, according to The New York Times, is the "detax and spend" policies of Republicans in control of Congress and the White House.

In his first year, President Bush inherited a $127 billion Clinton surplus. Now the combination of a shrinking economy, trillions in tax cuts and huge run-ups in spending has caused the nation to hemorrhage red ink. Next year's shortfall has ballooned to $480 billion, not counting the war in Iraq.

These estimates fail to include the full costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or even of extending the latest tax cut to the working poor. Independent estimates suggest that the deficit will barrel on through the next decade at a cost in excess of $4 trillion once Congress' hypocritical commitment to "sunset" various tax cuts is quietly reversed.

You'd like to think tax cuts plus Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's low interest rates would bring a roaring recovery, which Greenspan hints "could well be" in the offing, although "downside risks ... are also apparent." Investors, however, are driving up the "very market-set interest rates" on which the economy depends for growth.

This year's budget deficit will be 4.2 percent of the total economy. If it weren't offset by the Social Security surplus, it would be 5.7 percent.

The deficit will "create major problems for us in the future unless we turn it around," said Greenspan, amid few signs that was at all likely.

Among the problems is the approaching huge bump in Social Security and Medicare costs as baby boomers retire.

Even scarier than the projected deficits, and even more troubling for the country's long-term economic health, is that large deficits appear here to stay — sapping the economy and piling on debt that will have to be paid by generations to come.