A scathing Talk of the Town piece on Bush’s State of the Union speech in this week’s New Yorker:
“… Bush’s only serious (that is, expensive) domestic program, as always, is yet another mammoth tax entitlement for the rich and the superrich. The new plan would make permanent his earlier tax cuts, which, in a gimmick designed to make future deficits look less terrifying, were scheduled to expire in 2010. This new round of relief for the unneedy, like the previous three, is to be financed (though the President didn’t mention this part) by confiscating the Social Security trust fund, curtailing federal activities that benefit society at large, and borrowing more trillions — taking out a fourth mortgage on the future, payable to foreign creditors. …”