Borrowing is out of the question, at least for the moment. Having already given the nation $638 billion in new debt since the beginning of fiscal 2002, the Bush administration has its hands tied since hitting the national debt limit of $6.4 trillion on February 20th, some 44 days ago depending on when you read this article.

Obviously, Bush would borrow the money if he could. And he would probably borrow a lot more than the $75 billion he's now asking of Congress. The man thinks nothing of plunging you, your children and grandchildren, deeper and deeper in debt in order to push his go-for-broke attempt to establish the New World Empire.

Thinking that April 15th will bring some sort of windfall bonus to government coffers would be a serious mistake. The feds thought that last year, and the result was a serious shortfall in expected revenue that had to be made up for by borrowing.

The U.S. Treasury reports revenues so far this year even worse than at the same time last year, and last year was a disaster.

Do you think that the government tightens its belt because its income is down? Think again.

The budget for fiscal 2002 was a little over $2 trillion. The budget for 2003, just passed a few weeks ago, was for $2.13 trillion. And now, Bush and the Government Accounting Office (GAO) have submitted a 2004 budget totaling $2.2 trillion.

Anytime they have a shortfall in tax receipts, and rather than raise taxes, the government simply borrows the difference. Without batting an eye, they put it on the credit card.

A good part of this so-called borrowing is the money they steal from entitlements like Social Security, Medicare and sixteen others entitlement accounts. But they've already counted these into their budget as "off budget revenue" and when there's a shortfall in expectations here they'll borrow to make up for that too.

When one of these entitlements has a shortfall and wants to draw upon its so-called "trust fund," the government must either borrow the money or take it from the current budget's tax receipts shorting some other program. Since the beginning of fiscal 2002, several entitlements like Airports & Airways and Unemployment have needed money. Unemployment alone has required more than $38 billion to date with more to come.

The bulk of what the Bush administration is now calling "expected deficits" is made up for by borrowing from investors—people, organizations, and other countries willing to loan the government money because it's backed by every taxpayer in the United States. What has always been known as "the safest investment in the world."

So far, we've borrowed $3.7 trillion from these investors. And as these bonds, bills, notes or "securities" mature at the rate of about $5 billion a day, the Treasury replaces them with new issues as fast as they can. The alternative is to draw down on current tax receipts and cut back on the annual budget.

There's a lot of good faith to be maintained here. If investors ever begin to suspect that the U.S. Government has its back against the wall, is broke, or has no other way to raise money without shorting the very citizens guaranteeing loans—they may begin thinking that their money is at risk.

Not only could these investors stop loaning their money, but there could be a run on the Treasury. The securities now held can be cashed in before maturity at any time.

This is why you didn't hear much about the nation's financial position while the Bush administration was trying to pick up a "coalition of the coerced" and it's why you are not hearing much about it now while we invade Iraq and try to enlist the support of other nations to help the belligerents rebuild that nation afterwards.

To accomplish his goals, George W. Bush is even willing to create so much ill will in other nations of the world that the 80 to 97 percent of the people in these countries who are against the invasion of Iraq, including our coalition allies, might begin to boycott American products and send our trade deficit through the roof, a trade deficit already standing at more than $240 billion.

Precisely how much is at stake at this point is more difficult to assess than the cost of the invasion and rebuilding of Iraq.

The most crucial question is why Congress hasn't simply rubber-stamped an increase to the national debt limit and allowed Bush to continue his fantastic borrowing venture. This is usually accomplished automatically with little or great political grandstanding, but always with the same resultant increase. Today, there isn't anything mentioned or anything scheduled on the subject.

And while every State and City in the country is in financial straits, the only thing they can count on is that the budgeted money for federal programs like Education, Agriculture, Homeland Security, and so forth, will be used elsewhere until the Bush administration can continue borrowing us into oblivion.