Deficit Will Climb in 2006, White House Says
Somewhere along the way things have changed, and it would seem that the American sheeple weren’t even paying attention. How long has it been preached to us that the Republican Party is the party of smaller, more efficent, less intrusive government? GOP strategist Grover Norquist is proud of his goal, which is to shrink government to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub. And it’s not like tax-and-spend Democrats are the ones to get government out of the lives of Americans, eh? Those folks never met a tax they wouldn’t legislate into existence, nor a bloated social program they couldn’t fund into corrupt inefficiency. Of course, the reality that Bill Clinton, a Democrat, actually balanced the budget, seems an incovenient reality that Republicans are all too willing to completely ignore.
So why, then, is our fiscal house in such poor repair when Republicans have controlled Congress since 1994 and the White House since 2000? Why is Our Glorious Leader presiding over record deficits when he inherited a budget that Bill Clinton had brought under control? Why isn’t the mainstream media raising Hell and demanding scalps? Oh, right…it’s OK; Republicans are in control, and being a Republican means never having to say you’re sorry…or be held accountable for your perfidy and ineptitude.
So much for the Liberal Media….
Joel Kaplan, the White House deputy budget director, predicted that the government’s shortfall would climb to more than $400 billion in 2006 from $319 billion in 2005, largely because of relief efforts tied to Hurricane Katrina.
That shortfall would be equal to about 3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, a significantly higher share than last year and high for a country that is expected to experience its fifth straight year of economic growth.
The new deficit forecast is about $60 billion bigger than what the administration had predicted in July, before Hurricane Katrina.
“We believe that those increased outlays associated with Katrina recovery efforts are a temporary event,” Mr. Kaplan told reporters, adding that the administration is still hoping for the deficit to resume its “downward trajectory” and meet Mr. Bush’s promise for 2009.
Yeah, right; first it was the war in Iraq, then Hurricane Katrina, and you can bet that next year will bring a new excuse, as will 2008. The truth is that Republicans know that Our Glorious Leader is presiding over the biggest government the largest corresponding deficit in our nation’s history. Despite their insistence that the GOP is the party of smaller government and responsible fiscal management, they have no clue as to how to make that happen. Bill Clinton managed to balanced the budget; George W. Bush couldn’t do it if his life depended on it.
“The deficit is going up again, and that complicates some of the administration’s agenda,” said Robert Bixby, director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan research group that pushes for fiscal discipline. “It makes part of it easier for them to argue for greater spending restraint in nondefense areas, but it will make extensions of the tax cuts more difficult.”
Democrats are certain to seize upon the new deficit forecast in attacking Republican efforts to cut spending on social programs for the poor while extending tax cuts that tend to benefit high-income families.
And why shouldn’t they? Bush’s tax cuts may have made his base happy, but it’s a basic fact of business: you cannot balance a budget if you do not adjust your outlays to reflect your reduced income. And balancing the budget on the backs of the poor is a reprehensible, yet very Republican thing to do.
Some Republicans also made it clear they were unhappy, too.
“The expected increase in the deficit is to some degree understandable,” said Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “But it is still unacceptable. As a government, we must continue to try to control the rate of growth of spending.”
Since President Bush took office in 2001, the federal budget has swung from a surplus of more than $100 billion to deficits as high as $412 billion in 2004. Last year, the deficit narrowed unexpectedly to $319 billion, mainly because of a surge in corporate tax revenues and taxes on stock-market gains.
Mr. Bush has attributed much if not most of the rising deficit to several unforeseen shocks: a recession in 2001, the collapse of the stock market bubble, huge new spending on domestic security after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the cost of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But budget analysts outside the administration have long argued that the government spending has been very high under Mr. Bush while tax cuts have chipped away at revenues.
Though Our Glorious Leader will talk the talk, walking the walk has been a much different story. A true fiscal Conservative would have been able to balance a budget that eight years of BIll Clinton had brought under control. A true fiscal Conservative would understand that no household can maintain it’s current lifestyle if it’s spending more but taking in less. A true fiscal Conservative would understand that you cannot fund tax cuts on the backs of the poor. Yes, the economics of government is not necessarily the same as that of your average family, but the fundamentals are not altogether different. If you are spending more than you make, it won’t be long before the wolves are at the door. So, why hasn’t George W. Bush been able to figure out that simple truth?
It’s always been fashionable for Republicans to run down Bill Clinton, and the American sheeple have bought into the myths, because voting Republican is sure as hell easier than thinking. After all, didn’t Clinton get his helmet polished in the Oval Office by an intern? (And Bush is only responsible for the deaths murder of 2,200+ American soldiers) While they’ve been so focused on Clinton’s indiscretions, they’ve completely ignored what eight years of the Clinton Administration was able to accomplish…and what five years of the Bush Administration has completely dismantled.
Hey, at least Our Glorious Leader didn’t get a blowjob in the Oval Office, though….
