Since Bush has been in office, a half trillion dollars was added to our nation’s deficit. How much of that was due to our disastrous and costly war? A third. How much for our social welfare, including for Katrina? A sixth.

That leaves half, more precisely 48%. Where did that half of the additional deficit come from? It came from the TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH. Half. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the tax cuts, experts say we could be running a surplus.

Those figures come from the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, if you’d like to check them.

The deficit is one of the biggest misrepresentations ever perpetrated by our media. What is it? A debt we’re passing on to our children and grandchildren? Yes, but hardly just that.

Think of it in terms of your credit card bill. The balance keeps getting bigger, you watch that balance, and perhaps you fantasize that maybe you’ll just never pay it off, so who cares.

But then you look at the interest you’re paying. You look at the payment you have to make every month just to pay that interest, then your stomach feels sick. You resolve to pay off the balance so that you don’t have to keep paying that interest. You may have bought an appliance with that credit, but the interest buys you nothing.

Does the credit card company care whether you pay off the balance or not? Not at all. As long as you owe the balance, they get to collect your interest. You could owe forever as far as they care.

The deficit is like that balance. Sure we don’t have to pay the balance, but we certainly pay the interest. Big financial institutions love to keep America in debt because they collect the interest. The more debt the better.

That’s the wickedness of the tax cuts for the rich. We give money to the rich, only to have to borrow a quarter trillion more to do it, which just means more interest we have to pay to the same rich people who got the tax cuts.

That’s like borrowing a hundred dollars from your friend, to give to him for whatever odd reason, maybe you think he’ll jump-start the economy with it, except now you owe him a hundred dollars, plus ten percent interest. In the end, he gets the one hundred, (he’ll get his one hundred back eventually), plus he gets ten dollars a year until you pay him back in full. Sweet deal, some friend.

And that guy owns the media. He has no interest in the media spelling out for you what an unfortunately bad deal you just made. You gave him a tax cut, and borrowed from him to do it. With interest.