Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Didn't he say something about "cutting the deficit in half"?
The White House announced on Tuesday that the federal budget deficit was expected to rise this year to $427 billion, a figure that includes a new request from President Bush to help pay for the war in Iraq.
The White House's announcement makes it the fourth straight year in which the budget deficit was expected to grow; as recently as last July the administration had predicted that the deficit, which was $412 billion last year, would fall this year to $331 billion.
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Neither estimate includes the cost of privatizing part of the Social Security program, the leading element of Mr. Bush's domestic agenda. Estimates of the cost of creating those accounts range from $1 trillion to $2 trillion over the next two decades.
The Congressional Budget Office noted that if Mr. Bush wins Congressional approval to make his tax cuts permanent, a top priority for the administration, the deficit would grow by $2 trillion over the next 10 years. If war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan taper off gradually, the agency estimated that price tag over the next 10 years could total nearly $600 billion.
In a briefing for reporters on Tuesday, senior administration officials insisted they were still on track to fulfill Mr. Bush's campaign promise of reducing the federal budget deficit by half by 2009.
hahahahahaha....hohohohoho....heheheheheh....hahahahaha....*whew* oooh boy. These guys are hilarious.
UPDATE: How to send a nation into debt.
posted by chris at 1:19 PM
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