We all know that Bush has plans to reduce his party's tax-cut-and-spend federal budget deficit in half by 2009. A tall order considering he doesn't plan to turn away from his tax cuts, and he's hell bent on tempting a further $2 trillion deficit by privatizing Social Security. So how will he do it?
By lying, of course.
The New York Times reports that the White House intends to cite old projections for the budget deficit in order to make it seem as if the budget has been reduced.
To make Mr. Bush's goal easier to reach, administration officials have decided to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit they predicted last February rather than last year's actual shortfall of $413 billion.
By starting with the outdated projection, Mr. Bush can say he has already reduced the shortfall by about $100 billion and claim victory if the deficit falls to just $260 billion.
So without doing a single damn thing, the budget deficit drops by over $100 billion. Clever, clever, clever lies. And combined with his intention to "not count" the potential Social Security deficit ($2 trillion) incurred by privatization in with the overall federal budget deficit, he furthers a fiscal policy of "out of sight, out of mind".
How about this... Why doesn't he just use a pencil and change the "-" to a "+" and voilà! The deficit magically turns into a surplus.
Don't think he hasn't considered it.