Here's the opening of Robert Samuelson's new Washington Post column:
Everyone is going to play numbers games to judge George W. Bush's next economic policies. At the top of the list will be Bush's pledge to cut the budget deficit in half by 2009. Although this promise seems simple, it isn't.
Let's see. Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, says the pledge was made a year ago, when the projected deficit for 2004 was $521 billion, or 4.5 percent of gross domestic product. Thus, the administration's targets for 2009 are $260 billion, or 2.2 percent of GDP. But wait; the actual deficit for 2004 was $413 billion (3.6 percent of GDP). Should Bush be aiming for half of that?
Shouldn't a major economic columnist be able to remember the basic history of the Bush administration's economic plans over the last two years? The first "plan" to cut the deficit in half was released in July 2003. At the time, the projected deficit for fiscal 2003 was $455 billion. Kolton is referring to a second version that was released in January 2004. Why let the administration move the goalposts without comment?
Comments