George W. Bush, who has the worst record of any president in American history when it comes to deficit spending, really wants us to believe he has a plan to cut the deficit in half. He doesn’t.
Bush held a press conference the other day, and while most of the discussion focused on Iraq and the arrest of Saddam Hussein, there was one exchange that was particularly irritating.
A reporter noted that “the dollar has fallen quite sharply, and Wall Street is increasingly worried about the deficit,” and then asked, “Will you have a specific plan for reducing the deficit, or will economic growth alone take care of the problem?”
Bush responded, “[Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua B.] Bolten laid out a plan that will shrink the deficit in half in a five-year period. And that’s based upon reasonable growth assumptions. And it’s a plan that depends upon Congress to continue to hold the line on spending.”
This is the kind of answer that makes me want to tear what’s left of my hair out. In just 39 words, Bush was able to combine falsehood, deception, fantasy, and hypocrisy. In a way, that’s pretty impressive.
Let’s start with some suspended doubt, just for a moment. Let’s say the Bush administration actually has a plan to cut the deficit in half (which it doesn’t, but play along). Bolten is working under the assumption of a $500 billion deficit, easily the worst in U.S. history. When Bush says that can be cut in half by 2009, he’s saying that the deficit will still be $250 billion by then.
In other words, after inheriting the largest surpluses in American history, Bush swore up and down during the 2000 campaign that he’d keep a balanced budget and pay off the national debt. Instead he’s generated more debt in fewer years than ever even thought possible, he’s run the highest deficits in the history of the world, and he thinks he deserves credit — a pat on the back, even — for mapping out a plan whereby we’ll still have $250 billion deficits in 2009. As if that were a good thing.
But let’s get back to reality: the Bush administration really doesn’t have a plan to cut the deficit in half. It has budget projections that show that if the U.S. has no new tax cuts, no major spending increases, no national emergencies, and strong economic growth, then maybe the deficit will fall to $250 billion by 2009. That is the plan.
Meanwhile, as the end of the decade approaches, Baby Boomers start retiring and the unprecedented strain on Social Security and Medicare begins. It’s a train wreck that we can see coming, but instead of dealing with it, Bush insists tax cuts are the way out. After all, the cuts will produce large — but not as large — deficits.
While Bush calls the assumptions upon which his “plan” is based “reasonable,” an analysis prepared by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office brings another word to mind — unrealistic.
Indeed, as the Center for American Progress noted earlier this week, the CBO analysis shows that Bush’s deficit-reduction “plan” is based on budget estimates that “leave out big expenses, like the new Medicare legislation, and don’t take into account the extension of tax benefits — something Bush has been pushing for months. In reality, the deficit would remain over $300 billion a year for the next ten years.”
In fact, the AP noted this week that Bush intends to extend tax cuts schedules to expire as well as push a variety of other expensive spending programs. A budget aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist recently noted that these efforts, coupled by spending increases that have remained consistent since 1998, will produce a 2009 deficit of $666 billion.
Which makes the final part of Bush’s answer at the press conference this week even more outrageous. The president noted that the deficit may be cut in half by 2009 if Congress “continue[s] to hold the line on spending.” This, of course, completely inconsistent with reality, as both the White House and Congress have been spending more money, at a faster clip, than any tandem in a generation.
As the LA Times’ Ron Brownstein recently noted, “In just the last few months, Congress, at Bush’s request, has doled out $87 billion to rebuild and secure Iraq and Afghanistan; approved a $401-billion defense appropriation bill, the largest ever; completed a $1-trillion tax cut on top of the $1.35-trillion reduction the president won in 2001; and approved a Medicare prescription drug benefit that will cost at least $400 billion over the next decade, probably more. If the energy bill is revived next year, add to the list at least another $26 billion in tax cuts for energy companies.”
The result, Brownstein noted, is a federal debt that could soar to at least $7 trillion by decade’s end. “That means future taxpayers will have to pay at least $350 billion a year to service that debt, precisely as they are shouldering big bills for homeland security, defense and retiring the baby boom.”
But don’t worry, Bush has a “plan.”