Assuming Away the Budget Crisis

[ConservativeDemocrat]

DLC | New Dem Daily | January 4, 2005

Looks like those of us who were mildly pleased when the president promised jittery world financial markets that he'd get serious about our country's fiscal crisis misunderestimated Bush yet again. According to Sunday's New York Times, administration officials have decided to implement the president's pledge (which echoes a campaign promise to cut the budget deficit in half during his second term) by the speedy method of just cooking the books.

Moreover, to "make Mr. Bush's goal easier to reach, administration officials have decided to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit they predicted last February rather than last year's actual shortfall of $413 billion. By starting with the outdated projection, Mr. Bush can say he has already reduced the shortfall by about $100 billion and claim victory if the deficit falls to just $260 billion."

But wait, there's still more chicanery in the works in the form of budgetary tunnel vision that refuses to look at long-term budget shortfalls the administration's policies have produced. The president's budget will exclude "trillions of dollars in costs that lie just outside Mr. Bush's five-year budget window." More realistically, Wall Street analysts estimate that "budget deficits will total about $5 trillion over the next 10 years."

Add it all up, and it looks like the administration's deficit-reduction "plan" will qualify for a spot on the Times' bestseller list for fiction. Says respected budget expert Stanley Collender of Financial Dynamics: "I've been watching this more than 30 years, and I've never seen anything quite this egregious." Sounds like a reasonable assessment of a budget that uses year-old deficit estimates and fantasyland revenue estimates, while omitting the president's top domestic and international priorities and refusing to look at the long-range fiscal picture at all.
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The rest of this commentary can be found here.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[DCdem87]

1. The DLC can KISS MY ASS

its the damn conservative Democrats who are allowing bush to win these elections by not only voting for him but also capitulating to completely flawed republican policy. Most conservative democrats aren't even really conservative...they just open the door for more exploitation of the democratic party by the repugs.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

2. Here you go...

:* :* :* :* :*

There. Feel better?

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community