National Debt Clock Goes Dark–or Is It Just Snooze?
September 10, 2000 in print edition C-6
It was a sign of the times. And so, too, is its demise.
New York real estate developer Seymour Durst conceived the idea of a National Debt Clock in the late 1980s, and put it up near Times Square in 1989.
“It was developed, erected and maintained by my father to focus attention on the soaring national debt,” said Douglas Durst, now president of his father’s business. “It has served its function.”
And so, the younger Durst presided over the clock’s plug-pulling Thursday–a testament to big budget surpluses and a renewed sense of fiscal responsibility in Washington.
Heh heh. Funny thing, Mr. Durst. Seems the last eight years have seen the most fiscally irresponsible president in this country’s history run the national economy into the ground.
We’ve had a foolish war of choice in Iraq, plus a war on a country that attacked us in 2001, coupled with tax cuts for our wealthiest citizens and government bailouts of big business. The bill for all of this largesse has been passed on to the next generation. Way to go, George W. Bush.
And the National Debt Clock has to be reconfigured because it’s run out of digits.
That’s one heckuva legacy, Shrub.
