It’s funny how we now pine for the days when the annual budget deficit was $300 billion.
In 1992, Bush 41’s final year as president, the nation’s budget deficit reached $290 billion, the largest it had ever been. Clinton was then elected, the deficit disappeared, and the nation enjoyed the largest surpluses ever created. Then Bush was elected, in part by promising to keep a balanced budget.
Nearly four years after taking office, Bush is exceeding his father’s travails by leaps and bounds. Last year, he broke his own record by overseeing a $400 billion deficit and today we learn that he’s on track to make that deficit look small by comparison.
The government tallied up a deficit of $299.5 billion in the first half of the 2004 budget year as the government moved closer to a record annual deficit.
That’s quite an accomplishment. A $300 billion deficit in just half a year. In fact, the deficit for just March was almost $73 billion.
Would this be a convenient time to note that Bush once insisted that we “owe it to our children” to have a balanced budget? Perhaps not.