A prize to Andrew Sullivan, who wrote this while blogging the SOTU, in which Bush claimed that his upcoming budget "stays on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009":
FISCAL SANITY? I'm having trouble believing this president on that particular issue. 2009? I thought the goal was 2008. And why not balance the budget? You know: like Clinton did.
He's absolutely right, unlike Robert Samuelson and many others in the media who have completely forgotten the history of these "plans".
To review: In July 2003, the Mid-Session Review was released by Bush's Office of Management and Budget (2.6 MB PDF). It promised that that the deficit would be cut in half by 2008, a claim the administration touted intensively for months. But as we recounted at Spinsanity, the "plan" excluded a number of costs that the administration supported.
In early 2004, a second "plan" to cut the deficit in half was released that also excluded a number of costs supported by the administration. This new five year plan pushed the target date back to 2009. (Note: We recount all of this in Chapter 7 of All the President's Spin if you want to read the full story.)
Now Bush is again touting the so-called plan, but once again it excludes a series of likely costs and makes implausible budgetary assumptions. In addition, the White House is using an inflated deficit projection as the original figure that is being cut in half (rather than the actual deficit for 2004) to make their goal easier to achieve.
Will reporters explain this pattern of deception and point out how the administration keeps shifting the goalposts? Do they even remember any of this?
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