The Daily Snark 6/30

August 2nd could prove to be a very bad day for all of us. Borrowing 44% of the governments spending is just not sustainable. We can increase the debt limit, but that does not deal with the actual problem; it merely postpones it. And before anyone goes and blames the "tax cuts for the rich," keep in mind that Bush's tax cuts equaled about $70 billion per year. That would cover about half of the shortfall for this upcoming August. Pretty clearly, raising those taxes back up would not put us on the path to fiscal stability. The problem lies in the $306 billion the Federal government will spend during those 21 business days.

Really, the only way to create a balanced budget is to slice all Federal spending in half, save for payments on the debt. That would leave us with about a $5 billion monthly surplus. God help us.