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Wednesday, February 01, 2006
One Disconnect Among Many
In his State of the Union address last night, the President asked Congress to make his 2001 and 2003 taxcuts permanent, and told the American people this would make the economy even stronger. In the very same speech he mentioned efforts to "stay on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009."
There is an obvious disconnect between these two statements. While the President attempts to "cut the deficit in half" by shaving bits and pieces from the already-meager pool of funding available for non-defense discretionary programs, he is advocating an action that will have a cost larger than most people can even wrap their heads around. Making the tax cuts permanent and extending alternative minimum tax relief would have the nation facing large and growing deficits every year for the next ten years. Total deficits, the Congressional Budget Office Estimates, would be between $3.5 and $4 trillion over that period, which hardly indicates that Bush will be cutting budget deficits in half any time soon.
Bush's assertion that he can cut the deficit in half while extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts simply does not add up. Last night he spoke of fiscal crisis and "unprecedented strains on the federal government." Those strains are not going to go away, nor will the government's need to spend on both discretionary and entitlement programs. Extending the tax cuts will only drive the country further into debt, and will do nothing to help cyclical budget deficits.
Posted by Becky Lewis
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