White house using old budget numbers

[franmarz]

In this mornings Tampa Tribune, on page 7, was an article that said the white house has decided to measure progress against the $521 Billion deficite they predicted in last Feb-that they will use last years actual shortfall of $413-thus covering themselves if the deficite falls drastically. This is like a kid cheating on his math homework and hoping no one sees it, like putting it on page 7.

[baby_bear]

1. Everyone should read this - amazing

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/politics/02fiscal.html?oref=login

The original is in the Sunday NYTimes, but it was also printed in the Seattle Times and apparently in other papers as well.
What is so amazing is that the administration is doing this OUT IN THE OPEN, with total impunity. I mean, it's one thing to try to sneak this through, but I guess they realize that the American people are so stupid that even when they know they are getting ripped off, they don't even care.

In Plan to Reduce Deficit, White House Turns to Old Projections
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: January 2, 2005

<snip>

WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 - To show that President Bush can fulfill his campaign promise to cut the deficit in half by 2009, White House officials are preparing a budget that will assume a significant jump in revenues and omit the cost of major initiatives like overhauling Social Security.

To make Mr. Bush's goal easier to reach, administration officials have decided to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit they predicted last February rather than last year's actual shortfall of $413 billion. By starting with the outdated projection, Mr. Bush can say he has already reduced the shortfall by about $100 billion and claim victory if the deficit falls to just $260 billion.

But White House budget planners are not stopping there. Administration officials are also invoking optimistic assumptions about rising tax revenue while excluding costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as trillions of dollars in costs that lie just outside Mr. Bush's five-year budget window.

"I've been watching this more than 30 years, and I have never seen anything quite this egregious," said Stanley Collender, a longtime author on budget issues and a senior vice president at Financial Dynamics, a communications firm in Washington. "They are cutting the deficit from a number they never believed in the beginning," Mr. Collender said, referring to the decision to measure progress against the unrealized $521 billion deficit projection. "What if they had forecast that the deficit would be $800 billion last year? Would they take credit for having cut it by half?"

</snip> (much more)
This should be on the front page of every paper. It's on p 14 of the NYTimes and similarly buried in the Seattle Times.

ARRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!! This is like something out of The Onion!!
Isn't this the kind of scam that government is supposed to protect us from, not subject us to? They aren't even subtle - they come right out and tell us that they are going to rip us off before they do exactly that.

Is it the sheeple? The Democrats in Congress? Help me out here. Why are they allowed to get away from this?

b_b

[bearfan454]

2. We are headed for economic Armageddon just like the economists say

The rest of the world can see these dumb fucks don't have a clue about anything except helping corporations, their rich buddies, and stealing from the Treasury with no bid Halliburton contracts.

When the oil producing nations switch their oil currency from the dollar to the Euro, we're fucked economically.