I realize that I have it too good. As revenge against those who think I have it too good, I'm trying as much as possible to have it even more too good than I have it now.
US Budget Deficit Drops to 5-Year Low
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER – 2 days ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration reported Thursday that the federal budget deficit fell to $162.8 billion in the just-completed budget year, the lowest amount of red ink in five years.
The administration credited the president's tax cuts for helping generate record-breaking revenues but warned of an approaching "fiscal train wreck" unless Congress deals with unsustainable growth in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
President Bush, appearing with his economic team to trumpet the news, noted that the deficit turned out to be $81 billion lower than it was projected to be in February. He said the deficit represents 1.2 percent of gross domestic product — less than the average of the last 40 years.
"By keeping taxes low we can grow the economy, and by working with Congress to set priorities we can be fiscally responsible and we can head toward balance," Bush said after the meeting across the street from the White House. "And that's exactly where we're headed."
The deficit for the 2007 budget year that ended on Sept. 30 was 34.4 percent lower than the $248.2 billion deficit recorded in 2006, reflecting faster growth in revenues than in government spending.
Administration officials said the government was on track to accomplish Bush's goal of eliminating the deficit by 2012. But Democrats said the improvement in the deficit this year did not mask the fact that Bush's economic policies transformed the budget surpluses of the Clinton years into record deficits and an unprecedented increase in the national debt.
The debate over the president's signature tax cuts and their affect on the economy are certain to be played out in the coming presidential campaign. Republican candidates are vowing to make permanent Bush's tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of 2010; Democrats want to roll back the tax cuts received by the wealthiest taxpayers.
Both revenues and spending climbed to record levels in 2007. Spending rose by 2.8 percent to $2.73 trillion while revenues rose by a faster 6.7 percent to a record $2.57 trillion, a gain the administration attributed to the economic stimulus from the president's tax cuts.
"This year's budget results further demonstrate how the president's tax relief, combined with spending discipline, has helped promote a sustained economic expansion, which led to revenue growth and resulted in a declining deficit," said White House budget director Jim Nussle.
But administration officials said while the short-term budget deficit was improving, greater efforts were needed to deal with the budgetary pressures that will arise in future years with the approaching retirement of 78 million baby boomers.
"For the sake of our children and grandchildren, Congress should begin to take action to prevent this fiscal train wreck," Nussle said in a statement accompanying the budget figures.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said that Bush would "go down in history as the most fiscally irresponsible president ever. The fact is that the nation's debt has exploded on his watch — rising by $3 trillion since 2001, to $9 trillion today."
Bush recently signed into law a measure increasing the government's borrowing ceiling to $9.815 trillion. It was the fifth debt increase of Bush's presidency. The national debt is the accumulation of the annual deficits.
During the Clinton administration, the federal budget ran a surplus for four consecutive years, something that had not been accomplished for seven decades.
While there were projections that the budget would run up surpluses of $5.6 trillion over the next decade, the bursting of the stock market bubble in 2000, the recession that followed in 2001 and the terrorist attacks, which led to increased military spending to fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, pushed the country back into deficit spending.
For 2007, defense spending, including war costs, totaled $529.9 billion, up 6.1 percent from 2006, an increase that outpaced the 2.8 percent rise in overall spending. Paying interest on the national debt also outpaced overall spending growth, rising by 5.9 percent to total $430 billion, making it the fourth-largest spending category.
While the administration contends that Bush's first-term tax cuts helped jump-start economic growth and are contributing to record revenues currently, Democrats dispute that view, saying the tax breaks were tilted to the wealthy and actually have contributed to the record deficits.
The deficit hit an all-time high in dollar terms of $413 billion in 2004 and has been coming down since.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the deficit will improve further in the 2008 budget year, which began on Oct. 1, projecting a decline to $155 billion before the imbalance starts to rise again in 2009.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMSVWqL3tikhx7L_ompt0hDXO-5AD8S79O000
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Story #2: Deficit Numbers Way, Way Down; Libs in Denial
RUSH: Now, when I was flying up to Philadelphia yesterday, I had the TV on, and I was watching Neil Cavuto's show on Fox in the afternoon, and the deficit numbers were released yesterday. The White House went out and made a big deal about the deficit coming way, way down. Let me give you the numbers, by the way. Since the 2003 tax cuts -- and that is an appropriate starting point for this. Since the 2003 tax cuts took effect, the deficit, despite what's been spent on the war, despite the national disasters like Hurricane Katrina, despite the necessitated recovery after 9/11, despite all of the growing federal entitled programs. Since 2003, when the tax cuts went into effect, the federal deficit has gone down by nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars. In February of this year, the budget deficit for 2007, this year, was projected to be $244 billion. The numbers yesterday came in. The budget deficit is now just $163 billion. Now, it's interesting, you say, "Just $163 billion." That's a lot of money, but it's coming way, way down. This is inarguable as to why. It is the tax cuts. They create jobs. They create more taxpayers. They create more economic activity, which leads to more taxing.
It's the old volume discount plan, folks. It works. You get more people paying smaller rates of taxes, the small tax rates, or the reduced tax rates. They're not small, but the reduced tax rates create incentive to continue to earn dollars. It's the Wal-Mart strategy -- and that really irritates the left when you do that. With so I'm watching Cavuto's show, and he had one of these usual television debates on there. He had Al D'Amato speaking in favor of tax cuts, and he had some babe from the Democrat National Committee. She looked like a NAG member, by the way, National Association of Gals, who I guess was a lieutenant to Howard Dean. So D'Amato is making the case for tax cuts pretty well, and Cavuto goes to the babe. And the babe says, "Well, there's no way the president can take credit for this. There's absolutely no way. The president has added to the debt, irresponsibly."
Cavuto said, "Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. The debt is a total different thing than the deficit. The national debt is the sum total of all the deficits in the history of the country. The deficit, the annual budget deficit is how much the government spends, how much more it spends than what it takes in, and it's taking in a lot more than anybody projected, because nobody dynamically scores the effects of tax cuts."
And the Democrat babe said, "If Bush were really responsible for all of this, then he wouldn't have vetoed the health bill for children." It's a total non-sequitur. The babe knew she had nowhere to go, so she had to go get political and attack Bush for this silly attack they are making on the S-CHIP expansion.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_101207/content/01125104.guest.html
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Trade Deficit Lowers On Weaker Dollar While Budget Deficit Lowest Since Pres. Bush Took Office
October 11, 2007 1:25 p.m. EST
Jacob Cherian - AHN News Writer
Washington, DC (AHN) - According to the U.S. government, the budget deficit has hits its lowest in five years on record amount of tax revenue and the smallest pace of spending in George W. Bush's presidency. Additionally, the U.S. trade deficit narrowed in August as exports rose higher than expected while imports declined.
The trade deficit dropped 2.4 percent to $57.6 billion - that is the lowest monthly decline since the beginning of the year.
The deficit with China decreased by 5.3 percent to $22.5 billion with the U.S. selling more airplanes and soybeans and as China sold fewer computers.
Thanks in part to the devaluing dollar, the value of U.S. exports rose to $1.38 billion in August. The value of imports, meanwhile, tagged at $195.9 billion down by 0.4 percent.
"The trade deficit is smaller than expected on a weaker dollar," said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon, reports BBC News.
Concurrently, the Bush administration was strengthened by the budget deficit narrowing to $162.8 billion in the fiscal year closing on September 30 - that figure is the lowest since 2002, according to the Department of Treasury.
"This year's budget results demonstrate the remarkable strength of the U.S. economy,'' Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in a statement, reports Bloomberg. "We must keep taxes low and restrain federal spending."
Spending added 2.8 percent for the year in comparison with an average incline of 6.8 percent since 2001, when President Bush came to the White House. Revenue increased 6.7 percent in 2007, narrowing the budget gap by approximately 33 percent from last year's figure - $248.2 billion.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7008796696
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