June 13, 2006
WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE SURPLUS?:
Bush May Meet Vow To Halve The Deficit Three Years Early (JED GRAHAM, 6/12/2006, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY)
Aided by surging tax receipts, President Bush may make good on his pledge to cut the deficit in half in 2006 — three years early.Tax revenues are running $176 billion, or 12.9%, over last year, the Treasury Department said Monday. The Congressional Budget Office said receipts have risen faster over the first eight months of fiscal '06 than in any other such period over the past 25 years — except for last year's 15.5% jump. [...]
The CBO forecast in May that the 2006 deficit could fall as low as $300 billion. Michael Englund, chief economist of Action Economics, has long expected a deficit of about $270 billion this year. Now he thinks there's a chance the "remarkable strength in receipts" will push the deficit even lower.With the economy topping $13 trillion this year, a $270 billion deficit would equal less than 2.1% of GDP, easily beating the president's 2.25% goal. Bush made his vow when the White House had a dour 2004 deficit forecast of 4.5% of GDP, or $521 billion. The actual '04 deficit came in at $412 billion, or 3.5% of GDP, before falling to $318 billion, or 2.6% of GDP, in 2005.
It was a sucker bet when he made it, but Democrats, the media and the far Right never seem to tire of playing the sucker for him. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 13, 2006 5:54 PM
OJ:
Do you think there will ever come a day when I visit this site to find some kind of news piece or comments that are critical of the decisions of this administration? Maybe I'm not paying too close attention, but I'm not sure it really happens around here? Does it?
Posted by: Jaco at June 13, 2006 9:57 PMJaco,
Look no farther than two posts up on differentiating between another Afghanistan and another Iran.
Sure. The President should be impeached for signing CFR. US troops should have been withdrawn from Iraq by Memorial Day '03, no later than Labor Day. He also ought to regime change Cuba, Syria and North Korea. He mishandles Iran rather consistently. Having run against gay marriage he should have pushed the amendment through Congress in late '04/early '05, even if he doesn't believe in it. He should have shut down the CIA rather than just intentionally debilitated it. He should have stuck by Miers once he nominated her. He ought not to personally address Congress for the State of the Union, just convey a written message.
He's done plenty wrong, but it pales by comparison to what he's gotten right.
Posted by: oj at June 13, 2006 10:18 PMDo you think there will ever come a day when [someone] visits [ a Leftist site] to find some kind of news piece or comments that [are not] critical of the decisions of this administration? Maybe I'm not paying too close attention, but I'm not sure it really happens around [t]here? Does it?
Compare and contrast the response given here with what you'd get at such sites, too.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at June 13, 2006 10:51 PMOJ - nice response. Some notes
CFR - I recall your position is that it was ok for Bush to sign given the country and the Congress wanted it. And you don't consider it a negative for your boy McCain.
US troops out of Iraq by May '03 - seems too soon, Iraq would have a civil war zone with no govt in charge.
Regime change Cuba, Syria, N.Korea - he couldn't get support on an obvious candidate like Iraq, why would he get support on these?
Gay marriage amendment - the votes aren't there as recently shown.
Dismantle the CIA/Stop the SOTU - these are radical steps that would take up a lot of political capital that Bush probably didn't think it was worth spending.
AWW:
No, everyone who voted for it in Congress, the President who signed it and the judges who've upheld it have violated their constitutional oaths and should be impeached. But it's great politics.
www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2002/04/hoist_on_his_own_petard.html
No, we'd have let Sistani and company decide on a transitional regime immediately and not engaged in an occupation.
www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2003/09/the_one_year_tour_1.html
Cuba just take a Predator. It's easy enough to manufacture pretexts for the others. Take out North Korea's nuclear program with a missile attack and his own military will do him.
The votes were there after the election.
No one would care if the SOTU reverted to the historic norm. Shutting CIA is worth the political capital he's instead wasted fighting them.
Posted by: oj at June 13, 2006 11:47 PMWhat oj said.
Also comments and posts here try to stick to the facts without semantic antics, e.g., the NYT had a headline over this story that read something like (sorry I don't have the link), "Bush Fails to Meet Target Date for Reducing Deficit."
Jaco. Do you think you'll ever read in the pages of the NYT or the rest of the liberal media something which will actually tell the truth about the president and the administration?
Actually, the president is as nearly perfect as we're likely to get this side of Ronald Reagan, and that's mostly just because the dragons W has been given to slay aren't as big. It seems silly to quibble with near perfection.
As for OJ's criticisms, they seem like quibbles, except for Iran and Iraq, where OJ is wrong, and CFR, where the President is wrong. The only solace I can take from CFR is that it nicely makes the point that the Constitution is just a piece of paper and we have the freedoms we have only because the American people insist upon them.
Posted by: David Cohen at June 15, 2006 10:43 AM