Everyone is asking; “Where’s the money coming from,” how can President Bush emphatically promise that everything will be rebuilt and rebuilt better than it was before the hurricane(s)? It’s almost as though news people suddenly realized how much one billion dollars adds up to and two hundred of them seems like a phenomenal amount.

Forget about asking where this $200 billion plus figure came from and who could make such an estimate before flood waters have even drained. And forget about asking how the levees broke, how storm surge reached into an old pirate's cove city surrounded by miles of shallow waters and bayous, or why the Army Corps of Engineers and the people of New Orleans settled for hurricane Category Three protection standards instead of building to withstand Category Four or Five. Forget about trying to find what the maximum sustained winds from Katrina’s softer side really were, what happened to the contamination from bio labs compromised, and so forth. These questions will have to wait. The rage and the question before politicians today is – where is this amount of money going to come from?

It’s too early to expect that these children just learning to walk in the muck of fiscal indebtedness will suddenly realize that the federal government has been borrowing two or three times this amount every year. What’s another $200 billion? Already up to their necks in committed muck, it’s almost humorous to hear them yelling about getting their feet wet.

If this questioning keeps up, if it’s not replaced by another Michael Jackson type deed, we might even make some headway into a general public's understanding of the great burden we’re leaving our children and grandchildren when we permit our elected representatives and their chosen staffs to borrow us into oblivion.

It’s much too much to expect that these inquiring news minds might start to realize that the government has perfected borrowing to the point that they can run a scam by “pretending” to borrow our retirement and health care money and then make us pay these same taxes again plus interest. Believe me, I’ve seen that one raise its ugly head several times only to go by the wayside, but this is the first time it might arise because of a disaster instead of the other way around.

The very same politicians who’ve made a mockery of “trust funds” want us to trust them to not only protect us after natural disasters, but to trust them to defend us from our enemies, the main thing for which we pay taxes, and trust them when they tell us who are enemies are.

I can forgive these so-called investigative newshounds for standing on North Carolina's beaches while slow moving Ophelia presented her soft side winds and like some other landlubbers told us that winds coming out of the North were “southerly” winds. That’s the direction the debris was heading wasn’t it, towards the South?

I can even forgive them for standing in the face of a hurricane while telling everyone else, who still has electricity or the luxury of battery operated televisions, to evacuate or “hunker down.” We all know that news people are impregnable and can’t be decapitated by flying sheet metal or have a palm frond stuck through one ear and out the other. And we know that Joe-six-pack doesn’t take this to mean he’s much safer at home with his hurricane party.

But I’m really having trouble adjusting to the fact that these news people don’t seem to realize that the federal government has already run up the national debt $548 billion with another final month about to be added to this fiscal year. Again, what’s another $200 billion, especially when it can be added to next year’s tab if we wait a bit?

Worst of all, when a little more immediate borrowing in an emergency to relieve suffering (the constitutionally authorized purpose of treasuries) would seem appropriate, our illustrious leaders are relying on charitable contributions (give whatever you can) and seem to be stalling until the new fiscal year begins on October first before they start asking China, Japan, and others to loan us more money. All this, just to close out the fiscal year with their books looking a little better. So they can say; See, we did better than last year and didn't hit the $600 billion mark after all.

And don't forget that good old "stay the course" George has promised to cut the budget deficit in half by the end of his reign, so it's very important (to him) not to have figures rising instead of falling even if it means fudging the books more than usual.

Since the day George W. Bush was sworn in as President, the national debt has increased $2.2 trillion, a record. What’s another ten percent added to your debt as long as he can blame the hurricanes? Do you think Karl Rove came up with the $200 billion figure?