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.

Another Day, Another Lie

It is a full-time job to take account for all the lies that George W Bush tells the American people and the world. This post will just cover one of the big whoppers. So, remember when Bush said that he was sending an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq for his unwinnable war? Well he wasn't telling the whole truth. See those 21,500 combat troops need support, which comes to an additional 26,500 men and women being ripped from their families and sent to Iraq.

DefenseTech has more:

President Bush and his new military chiefs have been saying for nearly a month that they would "surge" an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq, in a last, grand push to quell the violence in Baghdad and in Anbar Province. But a new study by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says the real troop increase could be as high as 48,000 -- more than double the number the President initially said.

That's because the combat units that President Bush wants to send into hostile areas need to be backed up by support troops, "including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police, and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical, and other services," the CBO notes.

I have never expected the President to be honest about anything. This is just one more piece of evidence to get rid of Bush as soon as possible. The country can not take this much longer.