Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(February 2005)
An ex-Brit gives his views - (without
fear or favor) - of the American Scene
America’s
budget deficit situation:
 A
local Congressman mailed me a copy of the Annual Report
on the United States Government for 2004, (Statement
of Revenues and Expenses). The overall deficit for
fiscal year 2003 was quoted as $374,291,000,000, (Yes,
that’s over three hundred and seventy four
billion dollars), and did we improve upon that in 2004,
oh yes, the overall deficit for fiscal year 2004 was
quoted as $412,553,000,000 an increased deficit of
$38,262,000,000 with major deficit increases in military
spending, homeland security, and State and Foreign
affairs - I’m not sure from the figures given
if they included the costs of America’s wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq plus other military adventures
taking place in far away places, although there is
a footnote stating that it includes extraordinary expenses
attributable to post-eleventh of September 2001 programs
for homeland security, local terrorism preparedness,
and military and civilian operations in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
I wonder how much of the civilian funds,
if any, have found there way to Vice President Cheney’s
old firm, Halliburton?
 This President has been responsible
for creating a precipitous decline in the balance
of the United States national budget assets from a multi-billion
dollar credit situation when he came into power,
to a current multi-billion dollar deficit situation,
bringing our economy once again into the embarrassing
position of becoming the largest debtor nation in the
world. The war in Iraq alone is costing in the region
of four and a half billion dollars per month. Today,
Monday the 24th of January, 2005, President Bush requested
additional funding for the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq in the sum of $80B, which will bring the total
for the fiscal year to $105B.
The current assessment of the budget deficit for
the fiscal year of 2005 has been quoted as being
around 370 billion dollars and It has been reported
that this does not include the cost of the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, nor the cost of the proposed
Social Security Privatisation Scheme.
If we go on at this current rate of spending, and assuming
my mathematics to be correct, the national deficit will
reach at least $1.6 trillion dollars by the end of President
Bush’s second term in office.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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