{"id":1411,"date":"2004-03-16T12:26:43","date_gmt":"2004-03-16T17:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1411.html"},"modified":"2004-03-16T12:26:43","modified_gmt":"2004-03-16T17:26:43","slug":"whats-causing-the-record-deficits-not-the-2001-recession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/whats-causing-the-record-deficits-not-the-2001-recession\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s causing the record deficits? Not the 2001 recession"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When asked to explain the largest budget deficits in the history of the world, President Bush generally relies on a series of unpersuasive excuses, starting with the economic downturn that turned into a recession shortly after he took office in 2001.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/03\/16\/politics\/16BUDG.html\">New York Times reported<\/a> today on a report from nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that explained that this claim, like most of Bush&#8217;s assertions about the economy, simply isn&#8217;t true.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[A] report released on Monday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that economic weakness would account for only 6 percent of a budget shortfall that could reach a record $500 billion this year.<\/p>\n<p>Next year, the agency predicted, faster economic growth will actually increase tax revenues even as the deficit remains at a relatively high level of $374 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The new numbers confirm what many analysts have predicted for some time: that budget deficits in the decade ahead will stem less from the lingering effects of the downturn and much more from rising government spending and progressively deeper tax cuts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So what, pray tell, is the principal cause of these enormous deficits, which will ultimately add $1 trillion to the national debt <i>every other year<\/i> for the rest of the decade? As the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbpp.org\/1-28-04bud.htm\">Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently explained<\/a> it&#8217;s &#8212; surprise, surprise &#8212; Bush&#8217;s tax cuts for the wealthy that are the &#8220;single largest way policymakers have increased deficits.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When asked to explain the largest budget deficits in the history of the world, President Bush generally relies on a series of unpersuasive excuses, starting with the economic downturn that turned into a recession shortly after he took office in 2001. The New York Times reported today on a report from nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}