Deep Shade of Red Seen in Deficit (4.5 trillion additional deficit if Bush

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-deficit8sep08.story
THE NATION
Deep Shade of Red Seen in Deficit
The shortfall will reach a record $422 billion this year and $2.3 trillion in the next decade even without further tax cuts sought by Bush.
By Warren Vieth
Times Staff Writer

September 8, 2004

WASHINGTON — The federal deficit will hit a record $422 billion this year and $2.3 trillion over the next decade even if Congress does not enact any of the additional tax cuts President Bush is seeking, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.

Making Bush's previous tax cuts permanent would nearly double the 10-year shortfall to $4.5 trillion, the nonpartisan agency said. Proposals to partially privatize Social Security and scale back the alternative minimum tax, both of which have been endorsed in principle by the president, would add even more red ink.

The agency's estimate of the deficit for this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, was revised down from a March prediction of $477 billion, mainly because income tax collections have been higher than expected. But the agency raised its 10-year deficit forecast from $2 trillion, primarily to reflect additional spending authorized by Congress.

Although the revisions were not huge, the new figures became instant fodder on the presidential campaign trail. Democrats used them to criticize Bush's economic policies, while Republicans said they showed the president's tax cuts were boosting the economy.

"Last week the Bush administration said outsourcing was good, yesterday George Bush said the economy was great, and today George Bush is celebrating a record federal deficit," Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry said in a statement. "W stands for wrong, the wrong direction for America," he said, referring to the president's middle initial.<snip>



"There's just no indication the deficit has any intensity in this campaign," said Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "It's just not on the radar screen for voters."

[Old and In the Way]

1. "There's just no indication the deficit has any intensity in this campaign

Republicans ran for 50+ years as fiscal hawks....but the fiscal disaster that a Republicann pResident and Republican Congressional majority has wrought on this country in 3.75 years is "not on the radar screen for voters"?

Only because a compliant corporate media has not told the American people the truth about how Republicans have set the table to bankrupt our media.

[Centre_Left]

2. The people do care...

...but they blame both parties for the lack of fiscal discipline. And they are largely correct. The deficit is more a systemic effect of representative democracy than a purely political issue.

[cornfedyank]

3. I listened to a western Senator say it was just a function of the economy

i thought yeah, maybe. To me it is a hell of a big stack of quarters.