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July 08, 2003
Good article on Bush's lies
Orcinus has an excellent article up that examines George Bush's aversion to the truth. Not only does he look at matters surrounding the WMD, but also other issues, including his war record, the "trifecta" joke, and Enron.
One bit he points out that I was unaware of is that while Bush employed the "trifecta" joke (saying he wouldn't engage in deficit spending unless we had a national emergency, a war, or a recession - and lucky him, we hit the trifecta) as a means of blaming 9/11 and the resulting War or Terror™ for his returning the country to deficit spending, even before 9/11, the situation was such that the country would have been engaged in deficit spending and raiding the Social Security Trust to cover it.
Throughout the campaign, Bush had been insistent that budget surpluses would be continuing, and never does he appear to have told any public audience at any time that deficit spending might become necessary. Indeed, the only times that Bush ever seems to have brought up the subject of deficit spending were those when he accused Al Gore of planning to lapse back into the practice.It's a fairly long article, but well worth the time.Moreover, the story is fundamentally false as a purely chronological matter: Bush was already facing the certainty of deficit spending at the end of the summer of 2001, well before the attacks of Sept. 11. The surplus built up during the Clinton years -- some $4 trillion worth -- vanished over the spring and summer that year, and budget experts sounded the alarm about looming deficits then. The Congressional Budget Office warned Bush on Aug. 29 that Social Security funds would be needed to balance the books, forcing him to abandon a campaign promise not to use the retirement fund for other government spending.
Indeed, that is just what Bush proceeded to do in his actual budget, presented in January. According to the CBO, Bush’s budget plan would drain every dollar of the $527 billion surplus from the Social Security Trust Fund for the next two fiscal years even while creating a deficit. It would continue to raid the fund for varying amounts each year through 2012. Even with the fund’s help, the federal budget is expected to be in deficits through at least 2005.
Most serious economists peg the source of these nagging deficits on Bush’s tax-cut plan, the deepest portions of which have yet to kick in. The administration sternly denies this, with Bush offering a familiar defense: "This nation might have to run deficits in time of war, in times of a national emergency or in times of recession, and we’re still in all three," he told reporters in January. "It makes sense to spend money necessary to win the war."
Yet it’s clear that while Sept. 11 may have deepened and broadened the budget-deficit problem, the administration was faced with chronic budget deficits no matter what -- largely because of the Bush tax breaks.
Posted by thorswitch at July 8, 2003 06:25 PM
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