Letters and Blogs

Did Geithner lie about US creditworthiness?

On his recent visit to Beijing, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner gave assurances that the US was creditworthy and deficit spending was under control. Yet what he said was nowhere near the White House's official position.

In the budget proposal submitted earlier this year, US President Barack Obama proposed to accelerate deficit spending to previously unimaginable levels. In 2008, George W. Bush's last year in the White House, the US had a deficit of $459 billion. Over his eight years in office, Bush increased the country's debt by about $5 trillion, leaving Americans with more than $11 trillion in total debt.