hit counters

Friday, September 10, 2004

Cooking the numbers

Paul Krugman points out the obvious today in the New York Times: the Administration deliberately overstated budget estimates earlier in the year to make it look as if they were making progress on the budget deficit. In fact, the deficit from Bush's "spend now, pay later" approach to governance is at an all-time record high. The Congressional Budget office projected last week the deficit for 2004 would reach $422 billion.

Furthermore, Krugman notes:

"The administration claims to have a plan to cut the deficit in half over the next five years. But even Bruce Bartlett, a longtime tax-cut advocate, points out that 'projections showing deficits falling assume that Bush's tax cuts expire on schedule.' But Mr. Bush wants those tax cuts made permanent. That is, the administration has a 'plan' to reduce the deficit that depends on Congress's not passing its own legislation."

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home