Bush administration admits to record deficits

Jeez, it looks as though the GOP is losing the press. Their spin on the upcoming budget deficits isn't getting much respect.

And why do the Republicans need to spin the deficit? Because it'll be in the range of $400-450 billion each of the next two years (probably more) -- far surpassing the previous record of $290 billion notched by papy Bush. And far surpassing the administration's previous bogus estimate of $300 billion.

So what is the aforementioned GOP spin?

Republicans say the more important measure of red ink is how it compares to the size of the U.S. economy, because that illustrates the government's ability to afford carrying the debt.

And the AP reporter's response?

Even gauged that way, a shortfall 4 percent as big as the economy — as this year's and next's will probably be — begins to approach the dimension of the deficits of the 1980s and early 1990s that both parties agreed were untenable.

True, true. And yeah, I'm as shocked as you that the GOP spin wasn't unquestionably accepted. But the GOP has blown away any semblance of rationality.

And the kicker -- those deficit numbers don't include the costs of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's $48 billion/year, according to Rumsfeld's numbers, pushing the deficit to a potential mind-boggling $500 billion.

That's half a trillion, or a full trillion dollars over the last two years of Bush's presidency.

And it only gets worse from there:

n the longer term, the administration figures will not count the hundreds of billions of dollars it would take to make permanent the tax cuts Congress enacted in 2001 and earlier this year. The White House's budget projections are expected to be for the next five years, but many of those tax cuts expire in 2010 — leaving the costs of extending them outside that five-year window.

"There's no way OMB can make the budget a pretty picture," [South Carolina Rep. John Spratt, top Democrat on the House Budget Committee] told reporters, using the acronym for the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

Only two years ago, the government ended its budget year with a $127 billion surplus. That was the fourth straight and the second largest ever.

So we have record-shattering deficits, the highest unemployment rate in almost a decade, a steady stream of body bags in Iraq, and a credibility crisis as people finally tune in to the administration's lies.

So how is 2004 Bush's election to lose?

Posted July 15, 2003 01:00 AM