Speaking this past weekend on behalf of Nancy Farmer in Missouri, Governor Howard Dean, MD uttered what has to be my favorite comment:
"The Republicans don't manage money. They spend it and borrow," he said.
Now while that might just be a play on the Republican riff about "tax and spend" liberals, the sequence of the words is important. To "borrow and spend" doesn't mean the same as "spend and borrow." Because, if you borrow money for a big purchase or a long term investment, what you intend it for is part of the consideration of those who are going to lend it. But, if you spend too much and then have to borrow to make it up, you're not planning for the future; you're a spend-thrift who expects someone else to bail him out.
And the next stop, of course, is bankruptcy court. When George W. Bush was a simple oil man, his Saudi friends bailed him out. Who's going to bail us out of the hole he's dug for the U.S?