This is an excellent op-ed in today's New York Times by Nicholas Kristof, focused on the debt and the lack of fiscal responsibility which has permeated White House economic policy for the last five years. As Kristof points out, "More than two centuries of American government produced a cumulative national debt of $5.7 trillion when Mr. Bush was elected in 2000. And now that is expected to almost double by 2010, to $10.8 trillion." There are reasons why we are now so far into debt that three-fourths of the debt have to be purchased by foreigners -- many of them are related to the economic policies passed by the administration and Congress over the last five years. Bush was able to pass his tax cuts of 2001 based on projections of future levels of revenue that proved to be false; yet the tax cuts are still in place, and Congress is calling for more (i.e., repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax and the Estate Tax). As the article points out, in a speech Bush gave after presenting his first budget in 2001, he said, "I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years. That is more debt, repaid more quickly, than has ever been repaid by any nation at any time in history." He stated that the U.S. would be "on a glide path toward zero debt." This has turned out to be almost ludicrously false. The debt held by the public is $4.5 trillion today. And each time Bush and Congress pass expensive legislation without figuring out how they are going to pay for it (as they are trying to do with Social Security right now), it only increases this amount. In one of the richest countries in the world, every baby is born tens of thousands of dollars in debt. There is a reason why GAO Comptroller David Walker calls our fiscal irresponsibility "the greatest threat to our future." We are currently on an unsustainable path.