L’annonce vient d’\u00eatre faite d’une r\u00e9vision du d\u00e9ficit budg\u00e9taire du gouvernement US pour 2009, passant des $418 milliards d’il y a deux mois \u00e0 $482 milliards. Commentant la nouvelle, le site WSWS.org<\/em> observe aujourd’hui<\/a> que cette r\u00e9vision n’est encore que partielle, qu’il y manque une notable partie des co\u00fbts des guerres en cours (autour de $150 milliards en plus) et l’intervention du gouvernement, dans sa nouvelle croisade interventionniste jusqu’aux marges du socialisme, en faveur de Fannie & Freddie ($100 milliards pr\u00e9vus, sans doute plus)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abThat’s not the real number, former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said of the deficit in a comment cited in the Washington Post. It’s upward of $500 billion and counting. It’s a mind-boggling number.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThis staggering rise in government indebtednesswhich has more than doubled in the current 2008 fiscal year to $389 billion, from $162 billion in 2007 and will be nearly half a trillion in 2009further undermines the international creditworthiness of the US and places even greater downward pressure on the US dollar.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbAccording to the New York Times, When Mr. Bush took office, he predicted that federal debt held by the publicthe amount borrowed by the government to pay for past deficitswould shrink to just 8 percent of the gross domestic product in 2009. He now estimates that it will amount to 40 percent.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tOn peut donc proph\u00e9tiser avec une certaine assurance que le futur pr\u00e9sident va trouver une situation budg\u00e9taire catastrophique. Le pr\u00e9sident de la commission s\u00e9natoriale du budget, le d\u00e9mocrate Kent Conrad, d\u00e9crit le moment de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 qui attend le successeur de GW Bush: \u00abThis is going to make it extraordinarily difficult for whoever’s going to become president I don’t care who the president is when they come and meet with their secretary of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve chairman, their top economists, it will be a sobering moment.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tLe mot d’ordre, constate WSWS.org<\/em>, sera donc l’aust\u00e9rit\u00e9, ou la responsabilit\u00e9 fiscale. Prenant le cas de l’\u00e9lection d’Obama, qui devient sans aucun doute la cible favorite de WSWS.org<\/em> puisque le candidat d\u00e9mocrate repr\u00e9sente, selon le site, l’habituelle tromperie d\u00e9mocrate (ou pseudo social-d\u00e9mocrate), l’article d\u00e9crit une situation radicale.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abIf he wins the November elections, whatever minimal spending proposals Barack Obama has made during the campaign including his so-called universal health care plan, tax credits for middle and low-income families and miniscule increases in infrastructure spending will quickly be shelved in the name of fiscal responsibility.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbMoreover, the political groundwork for major cutbacks in vital social services is already being laid. In their reports on the budget deficit, both the New York Times and the Washington Post complained of fiscal pressures due to the growing Medicare and Social Security costs a thinly veiled suggestion that the next president will have no choice but to gut these programs, upon which tens of millions of seniors depend for income and health care.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbNowhere is there a suggestion that military spending which at nearly $700 billion consumes well over half of the US government’s discretionary spending and is more than the rest of the world’s military spending combined should be cut, let alone eliminated.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbFor his part, Obama has pledged to expand the military by nearly 100,000 soldiers and marines and increase spending. Given the costs of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as new weapons systems, It’s hard to see how we could spend less on the military in the near term, Richard Danzig, a former Navy secretary who advises Obama on national security, told Reuters in an interview last week.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tL’analyse de WSWS.org<\/em> nous para\u00eet un peu trop sombre, ou trop radicale. Obama d\u00e9pend tout de m\u00eame d’une base \u00e9lectorale qui a d\u00e9j\u00e0 le Pentagone dans le collimateur (notamment le programme JSF<\/a>). Un massacre impitoyable des promesses sociales d’Obama, sans toucher au monstrueux gaspillage du Pentagone, para\u00eet assez difficile, notamment par ses r\u00e9percussions au Congr\u00e8s, dans la majorit\u00e9 d\u00e9mocrate, autant qu’aux \u00e9lections mid-term<\/em> (novembre 2011), o\u00f9 les \u00e9lecteurs d\u00e9mocrates pourraient se r\u00e9volter. (Les d\u00e9clarations du m\u00eame Richard Danzig cit\u00e9 par WSWS.org<\/em> sur les d\u00e9penses du Pentagone sont notablement ambig\u00fces, voire po\u00e9tiques, ce qui implique surtout l’incertitude. Par exemple, dans une interview du National Journal<\/em> du 12 juillet<\/a>, Danzig explique: \u00abThe Hindu religion has a goddess, Kali, who is the goddess of destruction, and we need a Kali: We need some creative destruction. We need the ability to recognize that some programs shouldn’t be pursued and some pressing expenses need to be cut back. The answer to that isn’t ideological; it’s got to be based on a one-by-one look at the programs.<\/em>\u00bb) Dans l’article de Defense News<\/em> du 7 juillet<\/a> consacr\u00e9 \u00e0 des d\u00e9clarations d’Obama sur les questions de d\u00e9fense et largement cit\u00e9 dans notre F&C<\/em> du jour<\/a>, divers experts estiment que les r\u00e9alit\u00e9s budg\u00e9taires contraindraient Obama \u00e0 r\u00e9duire les d\u00e9penses du Pentagone, s’il ne le pr\u00e9voit pas lui-m\u00eame ces r\u00e9ductions:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abObama is selling an economic plan that is completely dependent on being able to get out of Iraq, one defense official said. The only way he can get his domestic agenda, which is very important to his Democratic base, is to take the money from defense accounts.<\/em> ()<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbDouglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel who is now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said the reality of the U.S. economy, Obama’s agenda and other federal spending pressures bode ill for defense spending overall.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbIf he’s elected, he’ll probably quickly discover that he will have to cut annual defense spending to about $300 billion, Macgregor said. The nation simply cannot af ford the current levels. <\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n