Deficit Projected To Be Higher This Year, But Truly How High

It is almost hard to imagine, but eight years ago the White House and Congress projected a $5.6 trillion dollar surplus during the decade. Thanks to a number of things (mostly Bush's terrible leadership) our national debt will nearly double instead, coming close to TEN trillion dollars. Bush promised us that if we cut taxes to the wealthy we'd see a huge within a few years. Well he turned Clinton's surpluses into deficits reaching over $400 billion dollars but for a while a strengthening economy (on the outside) reduced the deficit to a mere $163 billion for 2007.

Now the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is predicting the U.S. to be $250 billion in the red for 2008. Now that number is far from accurate. For starters, only $30 billion is factored in for the war. Bush has requested far more than that and based on how the Democrats in Congress like to grab their ankles for the President, they'll most likely give him all of it.

Then there is the economy. The CBO is predicting growth this year at a slower rate than 2007 albeit, but their data is not as current as the market's and you know where many people think we're headed to....recessionland. With a recession, revenues are going to be down substantially. And to cap it off, Democrats again (blogger smacks head into table repeatedly) have agreed in principle to support $145 billion in deficit spending to "fix" our economic troubles by ingeniously giving more tax cuts where we do not need them. Eight hundred dollars in my pocket is great for buying crap that I do not need, but there are much better ways for the government to spend $145 billion. You know, like paying down the principle on our national debt, or a health care system that works, or fixing our infrastructure, or.....you get my point.

Basically, that $250 billion dollar shortfall predicted by the CBO is probably going to end up being Bush's worst year yet. Oh and you know how timely it is for him to hand it off to the next guy (or gal) to truly fix his gigantic mess.