What a long, strange trip it’s been for George W. Bush when it comes to federal budget deficits.
As has already been reported, we’re on track for at least a $400 billion deficit this year and more deficits lasting indefinitely into the future. Didn’t Bush just tell America a few months ago that “we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations”?
Tomorrow, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office will release a revised forecast predicting a $500 billion deficit next year — for the math impaired, that’s half a trillion dollars. Some economists, even some Bush allies, believe it may even reach $535 billion next year.
Late last week, when asked by a reporter about the deficit, Bush said, “I am more concerned about somebody finding a job than I am about numbers on paper.”
What an odd response. The president with the worst record on job creation since the Great Depression is telling us his top economic concern is unemployment. I guess that’s the right priority; it’s a shame he hasn’t actually had any success in this area.
But calling the deficit “numbers on paper” is equally bizarre. To hear Bush tell it, these budget figures don’t mean anything. Record-high deficits and trillions of dollars added to the national debt are just inconsequential statistics.
Gone are Bush’s concerns about exorbitant annual expenditures in paying the interest on the nation’s debt. The fact that long-term interest rates have been going up steadily over the last year, precisely because of Bush’s fiscal policies, has become irrelevant.
This is the same Bush who once called for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution because we “owe it to our children” to stay away from deficits. In 2001, he described deficits as “dangerous” and promised to pay down “an unprecedented amount of our national debt.” In 2002, he promised “our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term.”
Now, after helplessly failing to deliver on his old priorities, Bush simply changes his mind and creates new priorities. How convenient.
Sounds like Bush’s promises are just “words on paper.”