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January 02, 2005

Bush Budget Lies

The things about Bush lies is that just when you don't think he can do soemething more intellectually corrupt and deceptive, he tops himself.

The next federal budget looks to be a monument to Enron budget accounting, according to this story.

The headline is that Bush is already breaking his promise to cut the deficit in half -- using accounting frauds to disguise it.

The federal deficit this year was $413 billion, so according to his campaign promise, Bush has to lower the deficit to $207 billion by four years from now.

Except Bush is claiming that since he wrongly projected that the deficit this year would be $521 billion, he will use that lie from last year as the baseline for what he needs to but-- so presto, chango, he's already cut the deficit by $100 billion. Magic!

Oh yead-- the costs of the Iraq War. Doesn't appear in the upcoming budget.

Costs of his social security privatization-- excluded from the budget.

And if Bush's tax cuts are made permanent, the deficits over the next ten years are expected to average over $500 billion per year, according to Goldman Sachs and other independent analysts.

And check out the comments by Bush's officials on the costs of social security privatization:

White House officials say it is reasonable to treat the expected transition costs separately, because they will eventually be repaid as the government's obligation to pay benefits declines sharply after 30 or 40 years.

"These aren't costs, they are savings," said Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's spokesman, at a recent news conference.

This is inane. If I spend $30,000 next year on college, I can't drop it from my budget because it will increase my earnings in the future.

It's Enron the Potomac.

Posted by Nathan at January 2, 2005 10:40 AM

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