Most of the media has noted that the Congressional Budget Office expects a deficit next year of almost $500 billion. The New York Times, to its credit, even put the news about the budget shortfall on the front page, while noting that the federal government’s budget situation is “deteriorating rapidly.”
Carpetbagger regular Chief Osceola reminded me yesterday that there’s a detail about the deficit that a lot of people are missing and the media is underreporting — the cost of the war and occupation of Iraq.
As Reuters mentioned yesterday, the existing deficit estimates are shaped “without factoring in the mounting cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.”
It’s a point that can’t be overemphasized. The Bush administration knew this war was coming for several months, by some accounts, almost a year. Yet, while shaping the budget, Bush (or more accurately, Bush’s aides) deceptively left the costs for Iraq out of the budget to conceal the impact the GOP’s massive tax cuts would have on the deficit.
This is not a point that has gone unnoticed on Capitol Hill. As Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) mentioned on Meet the Press over the weekend, “We’re spending $4 billion a month just to keep our troops [in Iraq] and there’s not even a penny put into next year’s budget. The administration hasn’t even budgeted one penny for it yet. It’s almost like we want to keep this a secret.”
A man who promised to return “honor and dignity” to the White House has intentionally tried to hide his administration’s budget failures in the hopes we aren’t paying attention. It’s scandalous, or at least, should be.