Last April Congress called for an increase in the debt limit -- the national debt is expected to hit $8,184 billion in mid-February -- however they have yet to act. Lawmakers are expected to take up the issue in February after voting on final tax and budget reconciliation bills, marking the fourth time during President Bush's presidency the debt limit has needed to be raised. In a recent letter to Congress, Secretary of the Treasury John Snow said that unless the debt ceiling is raised by mid-March, "we will be unable to continue to finance government operations."

Raising the debt ceiling has no immediate economic consequences, but instead indicates the instability of Bush and Congress' long-term fiscal policy. In 2010 the national debt is forecasted to be 70 percent of GDP. And pressure for the government to spend will only grow more as baby boomers retire and place new demands on both Social Security and Medicare. As Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office stated,"It's not where we are. It's the trajectory we're on." Lawmakers need to put an end to their reckless spending -- Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts alone are costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars every year -- so that we can put an end to this downward spiral of fiscal irresponsibility.

Here is how the debt limit has been increased during the Bush presidency:

• June 2002: ceiling raised from $5.95 trillion to $6.4 trillion
  
  
• May 2003: ceiling raised to $7.4 trillion
  
  
• November 2004: ceiling raised to $8.184 trillion

Over the past fifty years lawmakers have raised the ceiling over seventy times, however never by the amounts quite like we have seen over the past four years.