No one should be surprised that Bush lied when he said his just-released budget puts us on a path to eliminate the deficit. In fact, the numbers contained in the document itself tell quite a different story.
Over the next ten years, if things unfold as he plans, we would actually add another $1.9 trillion to our national debt. Of that number, $1.6 trillion would be paid to the top one percent of Americans in the form of permanent tax cuts. These households would receive an average of $67,000 annually in tax cuts--or more than the entire income of an average household. (Oh yeah, and if you make more than a million a year, the tax cut comes to $162,000, or more than the incomes of three typical households).
You can guess what programs see cuts. Project Head Start. Schools. Pollution control. Health research. And again, the homeland security dollars that are spent on those same beloved 'early responders' that he so carefully posed with after 9/11.
In fact, there are a lot of ways you can slice and dice numbers--especially budget numbers.
So let me submit one calculation free of charge for use by the President's handlers. With a total military budget request of a mere $716 billion next year...and assuming a steady rate of casualties in the surge-propelled year ahead...every American will be asked to pay less than $3 per U.S. serviceman killed in Iraq.
See, that's not so bad, is it?
diderot
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