The General Fund budget, which is the budget cited in deficit numbers, will likely be about $300 billion. The debt issued includes surpluses from military retirement, Federal pensions and small trust funds. This has held about $150-$200 billion more than the declared deficit for the past five years. Thus, we can expect to see about $500 billion added to our national debt this year, which will probably move us past Germany and France in terms of debt-to-GDP ratio. We’re still in safe range but starting to head into dangerous territory.

The $500B was to cover expenditures until April 15 when all the money started flowing in.

Bush = Poor little rich kid “deer in the headlights”. Having a ball being misunderestimated.

1. Accusations that the administration is employing the famous UPOD business principle — “under-promise, over-deliver” — are not entirely unjustified, considering that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office had originally forecast a deficit of just $350 billion. Still, both were wrong by a very large margin (15.4 percent for the CBO and 30 percent for the White House), and the positive reversal of fortune clearly had nothing to do with fiscal discipline in the Congress.

2. The real culprit here for the errors is the practice of static scoring of tax revenues, which is still employed by the government despite experience. Both the White House and the CBO score the loss of tax revenue from tax-cuts as though they did not affect the behavior of business owners, shareholders and other investors — a sure recipe for missing the mark.

And, as always I know of no lies, none, nada, Bush has ever told and have yet to see a single one documented.
Except for the war, the economy, WMD, White House leaks, you’re 100% correct.

I think it’s interesting that the chart also shows a steady decline in poverty during the Reagan years. I wish I was an economist so I could understand why this was so, given the “decade of greed” and all.

In fact, it is $100 billion less than the $2.5 trillion revenue estimate the administration touted when it set out in 2001 to sell its policy of never-ending tax cuts.

So he missed it by 4%, right? Are you pointing out that he missed it by 4%, or is my math wrong? And were there years or time frames attached to those projections?

I read in my right-wing talking points fax from Mr. Rove this morning that two years ago Bush promised to halve the deficit by 2009…and with these new numbers we’re nearly there already.

I think the problem with the left wing talking points, in contrast, is that they address the argument that “a $300T deficit is good,” when in fact nobody has said this. What has been said is that the tax cuts have made the deficit lower than projected, because tax revenues have increased (though, as you showed, the revenue increase may have been off estimates by as much as 4%.)

The deficit is 100% as real as evolution and global warming. I feel remarkably comfortable with that comparison.

I will grant you Bush is juts as much of a selling poltician as any other and his Admin like all others, will try to put a good face on things. Human nature. And, as always I know of no lies, none, nada, Bush has ever told and have yet to see a single one documented.

Dugger

The deficit is about as real as global warming, evolution, and “embryonic stem cell research (and only embryonic stem cell research, dammit) will cure Parkinson’s”.

This is proof, if anyone still needs it, that this administration is desperate for something to boast about.

OR…

It’s an attempt by the Administration to highlight something that the MSM REFUSES to do so. Does the President not have 1st Amendment rights?

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty04/pov04fig03.pdf

What we’re setting ourselves up for is a crash of great depression proportions.

Dugger, even if/when a democrat proposes changes, you just stick your fingers in your ears and start screaming neocon talking points. Or you accuse them of “hating bush like the klan hates blacks”, which is about the dumbest comparison that has ever come out of your mouths. People like me hate Bush because he has spent 6 years lying to us, advancing the interests of people who hurt america, of leaving us to suffer while he clears brush or plays guitar. That has about as much to do with hating or denigrating someone simply because of the color of their skin as…well, fuck, I can’t even come up with a good analogy. The two are completely unrelated. Its the most assinine thing you’ve said on here, and thats pretty damn impressive.

Also, it doesn’t hurt to note that three years in a row this administration has basically released the worse case scenario for the budget numbers, than bragged when its closer to the middle case. Thats hardly meaningful.

BTW, lets not forget that even Bush’s own administration officials are saying that tax cuts don’t pay for themselves. They never will.

This is proof, if anyone still needs it, that this administration is desperate for something to boast about. On Mr. Bush s watch, triple-digit budget surpluses have turned into annual triple-digit budget deficits. There s no information in the midsession report to alter that utterly dispiriting fact. Yes, the report is expected to project that this year s deficit will be somewhat less gargantuan than last year s  probably somewhere between $280 billion and $300 billion, versus a $318 billion shortfall in 2005. That s not much to crow about.

But Mr. Bush is likely to gloat, anyway. Earlier this year, the administration conveniently projected a highly inflated deficit of $423 billion. With that as a starting point, the actual results can be spun to look as if they re worth cheering.

The razzle-dazzle won t end there. As he did in his remarks on Saturday, Mr. Bush is sure to use today s event to credit tax cuts for a projected  surge in tax revenue. The Treasury is expected to take in about $250 billion more in 2006 than in 2005, for a total take of $2.4 trillion. Devoid of context, the number looks impressive.

In fact, it is $100 billion less than the $2.5 trillion revenue estimate the administration touted when it set out in 2001 to sell its policy of never-ending tax cuts. Even with this year s bigger haul, real revenue growth during the Bush years will be abysmal, averaging about 0.3 percent per capita, versus an average of nearly 10 percent in all previous post-World War II business cycles. That might be excusable if the recent revenue improvements could reasonably be expected to continue. They cannot. Much of the increase in tax receipts is from corporate profits, high-income investors and super high-earning executives, sources that are just as unpredictable as the financial markets to which they re inevitably linked.

So, the revenue surge is neither a sign that the tax cuts are working nor of sustainable economic growth. A growing number of economists, most prominently from the Congressional Budget Office, point out that upsurges in revenue are also the result of growing income inequality in the United States, an observation that is consistent with mounting evidence of a rapidly widening gap between the rich and everyone else. As corporations and high- income Americans claim ever more of the economic pie, revenues rise, even if there s no increase in overall economic growth.

If Mr. Bush looked behind his headline numbers, he, too, could see that the rich are getting richer while the rest are, at best, only holding ground. It would make sense to use some of the windfall revenue to enact policies and programs that tilt against growing inequality. Unfortunately, he s flogging more tax cuts that will deepen the divide.

If you want to hear some first class hemming and hawing, ask a Democrat what major policy changes they would make regarding the current economy. And then lets see them run on it.

Dugger