More Lies
White House projects record deficit for 2009
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush’s budget chief blamed the faltering economy and the bipartisan stimulus package for the record $482 billion deficit the White House predicted for the 2009 budget year.
…President Bush inherited a budget surplus of $128 billion when he took office in 2001 but has since posted a budget deficit every year.
The budget doesn’t include the cost of the wars in South Asia, so add another $80-100 billion to the deficit, and it doesn’t adjust for the Social Security over payments that are just being spent as they come in, as if they were general revenue, so the deficit is in the neighborhood of $800-900 billion.
There was no budget surplus. The “surplus” was all excess Social Security payments to cover the cost of Boomers retiring. The taxes were almost, but not quite in balance with spending. The tax cuts were not in response to too much being collected, they were a transfer of the retirement payments of workers to the wealthy.
The “Social Security Problem” is the fact that Congress is going to have to pay that money back and the budget deficits will no longer be hidden behind the Social Security surpluses.
4 comments
What’s really depressing is the interest being paid on that debt and most of it is going out of the country. I can’t see us ever breaking even again. The demands of crumbling infrastructure and all the other things hanging over our heads will just continue to run up the debt. We are in the spiral down.
The interest on the national debt is on track to be they largest item in the Federal budget in the not too distant future and no one will talk about it.
When they have to start paying back what they borrowed from the Social Security trust fund and make those interest payments, taxes will go through the roof.
I don’t think I have to point out this is a feature, not a bug, and serves well to bankrupt the government so they have to raise taxes, which makes people vote for government to be “less involved in their lives.”
In my entire life Federal taxes have never been a major concern. Federal taxes have barely made it on the radar. State and local taxes have always had a bigger impact on my paycheck and my business. The only annoyance I ever felt with Federal taxes was the incredible mess that is the filing system, and almost all of that is due to the deductions.
The IRS is not nearly the personal aggravation as the Republicans getting involved health care decisions, private communications, etc. and not getting involved in the businesses that are trying to kill or bankrupt me based on greed.