THE DEFICIT GETS WORSE, AND SO DOES BUSH
Red Handed

The latest in what has become a steady stream of bad budgetary news arrived last Friday, when newspapers reported that this year's deficit is estimated to be about $100 billion--twice as large as previous forecasts had suggested. President George W. Bush immediately offered a multilayered defense packed with jaw-dropping mendacity. First came denial. "Of course, it's all speculative to begin with," he told reporters. "I don't know the models that they guessed [sic], but it's guesswork thus far." (Actually, this year's revenue forecast, which is based on tax returns that have already come in, is fairly reliable. What's unreliable are the ten-year budget forecasts, which Bush was only too happy to treat as money in the bank while selling his tax cut last year.) Next Bush offered up what has in recent months become his all-purpose escape clause: "I want to remind you what I told the American people, that if I'm the president--when I was campaigning, if I were to become the president, we would have deficits only in the case of war, a recession, or a national emergency." Bush, somewhat morbidly, plays this line for laughs in his speeches, chuckling, "Never did I realize we'd get the trifecta." But this escape clause is not only a falsehood; it's actually a revision of a previous falsehood, which itself was consciously designed to cover up the fact that the budget is in far worse shape than Bush lets on.
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