Is something missing here?

[Karmadillo]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iYxBOXge5E3Wk0j2fNlQ810oN3eAD99DR5TG1

Meltdown 101: How did $1 trillion deficit happen?
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER

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Q: Just how did we go from a string of four consecutive surpluses from 1998 through 2001 to the fix we are in now?

A: The surpluses at the end of the last decade reflected a boom-time economy, which was enjoying the longest uninterrupted expansion in U.S. history.

When the last recession began in 2001, that cut into revenues. Then the government's budget picture darkened even further after the 2001 terrorist attacks as government spending was increased to pay for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

more...

[havocmom]

1. Let me guess, the didn't mention tax cuts for the fat cats of the economy?

Start a war and cut taxes. NOT a recipe for success.

edit for typo

[Karmadillo]

3. You win. Amazing how the AP "forgot" all about the tax cuts. They do their job well.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1811

Tax Returns: A Comprehensive Assessment of the Bush Administration's Record on Cutting Taxes
PDF of this report (76pp.)
By Joel Friedman and Isaac Shapiro

Revised April 23, 2004

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This analysis offers a comprehensive review of the Bush Administration’s tax cuts. It assesses their costs, benefits to different
income groups, and economic effects to date, as well as down the road. It both synthesizes previous findings about the individual tax measures and includes new findings about their combined effects, using new distributional analyses by the UrbanI nstitute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center and fresh cost estimates by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The early returns on the effects of the tax cuts have not been good.

■The Bush tax cuts have contributed to revenues dropping in 2004 to the lowest level as a share of the economy since 1950, and have been a major contributor to the dramatic shift from large projected budget surpluses to projected deficits as far as the eye can see.
■The tax cuts have conferred the most benefits, by far, on the highest-income households — those least in need of additional resources — at a time when income already is exceptionally concentrated at the top of the income spectrum.
■The design of these tax cuts was ill-conceived, resulting in significantly less economic stimulus than could have been accomplished for the same budgetary cost. In part because the tax cuts were not as effective as alternative measures would have been, job creation during this recovery has been notably worse than in any other recovery since the end of World War II.

If the Administration’s latest tax proposals — which would make permanent most of the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 and establish new tax cuts on top of that — are enacted, the long-term results are likely to be even more troubling. Over the next 10 years, total tax-cut costs will equal $3.9 trillion, reaching nearly $600 billion or 3.3 percent of the economy in 2014 alone. (These calculations include the effects of the higher interest payments caused by the tax cuts.) The resulting higher deficits will slow future economic growth, saddle future generations with sizable interest payments, and leave the nation ill-prepared not only for the retirement of baby boomers but also for responding to potential future crises — from security matters to natural or environmental disasters — the particulars of which are unknown today.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. The surplus disappeared because bu$h started spending it

like a drunken TANG from the get-go. And slashing taxes for his rich buddies at the same time.