Cantor Concedes Flawed Republican Tax Cut Policy

For decades now, the Republican party has adhered to the notion that tax cuts reduce the deficit. The thinking goes that if the government taxes the very rich less, they'll spend more and it'll "trickle down" to the rest of us. Once the money drips down, deficits are reduced because the spending habits of the wealthy boost the economy. However, as we have seen the national debt explode since Reagan enacted this insane ideology, Republicans have unsuccessfully made their case in the real world. Today, G.O.P. Minority Whip Eric Cantor admitted it on live television....even if it came out unwittingly.

Bush's $490B Deficit Is Really $600 Billion

The White House announced yesterday that the budget deficit for FY 2009 was 'only' going to be around $490 billion dollars. That of course, is a far cry from the surpluses we saw under Clinton but hey, at least George Bush was giving us an honest account of where our nation stands and how much more of a burden we are putting on our children and future generations with this load of debt. Oh wait, who are we talking about here?

From ThinkProgress:

Yesterday, the White House “increased its estimate for next year’s deficit to nearly $490 billion, a record figure that will saddle the next president with deepening budget problems in his first year in office.” But, on ABC News’s Good Morning America today, Claire Shipman reported that the deficit is actually much higher because “creative White House accounting” didn’t include the war, the unemployment costs, Medicare fees, or the housing bill in its calculations. If those numbers are included, it brings “the grand total to about $600 billion.”

Um, yeah, what's $110 billion dollars anyways. The war is going to pay us back in spades, right wingers? The thing is, from the lowly pundits to the top of the White House, they are all a bunch of cheerleaders that rah-rah themselves in front of the public despite being down by 50 at the end of the 4th quarter.

How Is The American Economy Going?

What's the biggest issue facing our economy? Center for American Progress went out and asked as many people as they could:

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.