Sunday, July 16, 2006

You might want to hold off on that cheerleading.


Whoo hoo! It's freakin' party time! (All freakin' emphasis added.)

The White House on Tuesday slashed its forecast for this year's budget deficit to $296 billion, crediting its tax cuts for the improvement, but Democrats said the deficit's size was nothing to boast about.

The updated projection for the 2006 fiscal year was $127 billion lower than the $423 billion shortfall the White House forecast when it unveiled its budget in February, but only slightly below the $318 billion dollar gap of 2005.

And why might you want to hold off tapping that keg just yet? How about this from 2004?

How does the idea of the deficit getting $70 billion bigger translate into fiscal success? It's easy, when you combine Washington's bizarre budget accounting rules, the increasingly superheated campaign season, and some Orwellian rhetoric. You see, last February, President Bush projected the deficit for this year would hit $521 billion. Now, thanks to a growing economy, the Bushies figure it will come in $76 billion below that number. Thus, we have a whole new way to game the budget debate: Overestimate deficits at the beginning of the year, come in below that forecast, and declare victory.

Ouch. Or there's this from January of this year:

One administration official who briefed reporters on the deficit while requesting anonymity said the White House forecast was released early in part to blunt pressure to increase spending.

The release of the record deficit figures also may allow the White House to boast if this year's actual shortfall turns out to be lower than the estimate, as was the case last year.

Robert Reischauer, president of the Washington-based Urban Institute and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, suggested the White House is setting itself up to ``overestimate and then gloat that the deficit is lower than projected, acting as if the mis-estimates represent a true deficit reduction.''

And what kind of terrorist-loving, America-hating, commie, pinko, leftist rags are pumping out this defeatist swill? I'm glad you asked. You can find that first excerpt here, and that second one here.

What? You were expecting "Mother Jones" or something?

1 comment:

M@ said...

Or we can look at the right wingers in Canada who would complain when the surplus was bigger than the projected surplus.

You see, when the American right wing does it, it's fine, good for them! We should run our country that way! But when the Librano$!!!1! do it, it's teh sucks!!1!!one!