Deficit hurtling to record high: Shortfall may be $477 billion
When your children and grandchildren come to you and ask why their taxes are so high, you can tell them to grab a history book and answer the following question:
Which Republican President(s) are responsible for running up the national debt?
a) Ronald Reagan
b) George H.W. Bush
c) George W. Bush
d) All of the above
If you selected "d) All of the above", you may go to the head of the class.
WASHINGTON -- The federal deficit will reach $477 billion this year, up sharply from last year's $375 billion level, and the government is on track to accumulate nearly $2.4 trillion in additional debt over the next decade, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Monday.
The government's $4 trillion debt could more than double if President Bush succeeds in making permanent an array of tax cuts that are set to expire by 2011, the CBO's annual budget report added.
Measured against the size of the economy, this year's deficit -- a record in dollar terms -- will still be smaller than six deficit years under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. CBO officials acknowledged the cumulative deficit would shrink dramatically from 2005 to 2014 -- from $1.9 trillion to $785 billion -- if all spending in Iraq and Afghanistan were to end this year. That is a scenario the White House and Congress do not envision.
But where the deficit goes from here, the CBO said, will depend in part on a major policy decision facing Congress: whether make permanent the $1.7 trillion in tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003, or to let them expire by 2011.
If they expire, the 2004 peak deficit would decline until the books balance in 2014. But if they are extended, the government would continue to run large deficits well into the next decade.
"If you look forward, sustained, large deficits in the face of a fully operating economy will have economic consequences," warned CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former economist in the Bush White House.
Regardless of those future decisions, the government's long-term finances have worsened considerably in the past six months, largely because of the war in Iraq and passage of the $400 billion law adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. In August, congressional forecasters predicted a 10-year deficit of $1.4 trillion through 2013. That figure has jumped nearly $1 trillion.
Of course, if you're an unelected President running for "re-election", why WOULD you want to be making difficult economic decisions during an election season? Why WOULD you want to take the risk of making things worse? Why WOULD you try and demonstrate some degree of leadership? Why WOULDN'T you want to put off making those difficult decisions as long as possible- preferably until after you've stolen another election?
Remember, y'all, we may be saddling our children with an obscenely large national debt, but children can't vote. Besides, by the time they can, the Bush Administration will be alive only in history books.
