The 9-11 Bubble

From Tom Friedman in today's New York Times (registration required):

"The very reason Mr. Bush had the luxury of launching a war of necessity in Afghanistan and a war of choice in Iraq, without a second thought, was because of the surpluses built up by the previous administration and Congress. Since then, the Bush team has been slashing taxes in the middle of two wars, weakening the dollar and amassing a huge debt burden -- on the implicit assumption that nothing will go wrong in the future."

Says Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International: "The 9/11 crisis has been used as a license to spend and cut taxes rather than to set priorities and focus our resources on what is critically important to our nation's security."