Bush: We like debt, we'll take it ALL!

We've all seen it. You have a friend (or a self) who is overextended in debt. They have maxxed out their credit cards. They have used up every friendship and familial connection to borrow money. They are often seen digging thru other people's sofas looking for enough cash to buy a 99 cent cheeseburger for dinner. (Okay, that last one really only applies to college students.) Anyway, when a friend finds themselves in such dire straights, what do you do? You sit them down, make them face the problem, and work out a logical plan for repayment, including a strict budget and no credit, right?

Well, not if you are the American Federal government. If you are the Bush Administration, you instead take on all that debt yourself and let the friend go out and start racking up new debt. Or rather, you take all that debt and put it onto someone else who is barely getting by but has been paying their bills (the American taxpayer).

Sigh. Has it really come to this? Will it be under a supposedly Republican president that we see government essentially nationalizing the financial system by buying up insurance companies and bank debt? Does anyone think Barack Obama had planned anything so overtly socialist as this for this first term? I went to bed last night under GWB, and I woke up this morning under FDR.

Can anyone talk me out of seeing it this way?