Can somebody explain the "shrinking deficit" to me?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119189497675953035.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

Yesterdays' Wall Street Journal editorial claims that "tax cuts are working" because the federal deficit has shrunk by 35 percent.

Something tells me that this falls into the "lies, damn lies, and statistics" catagory.

One possibility is that the rich who pay most of the income tax (as they should, since they make the most income!) are making so much money in the Bush economy that tax revenues are actually up. That would be one consequence of giving more to people who already have much.

And what's the deal with the 5 billion a week we sink into Iraq? On budget or off?

Any other explanations?

If the powers-that-be say that the deficit will be (say) $500 billion and it really turns out to be only $400 billion then the deficit has shrunk by $100 billion.

I believe that all the numbers are mythical. You or I would look at what we had in the bank. These guys? They conjure up shit....

9,061,511,000.00 as of October 10, 2007 yikes... I think it was just above 5 Trillion when Clinton left office...

but NATIONAL DEBT has almost DOUBLED since Worst. President. Ever. took office.

preceding 42 presidents combined. nice thought huh?

Other things to remember is that the Clinton administration ran a surplus during two of his years as president (In some accounting methods, he ran a surplus four of his years but two of those resulted from money taken from SS; unfortunately, this accounting gimmick has taken place for awhile including during Clinton.).

Anyway keeping in mind that we ran surpluses during Clinton, we then returned to deficits under Bush but yet, the Bush administration wants to take credit for lessening the deficit. Obviously, this is nonsense. Let's say I take over a small company that earns $1 million of revenues per year. My first year as CEO, I do something that results in those revenues dropping to $500,000 per year. My second year, those revenues go up to $600,000 per year and as a result, I'm able to blow my horn and say that I increased revenues by 20% while completely ignoring the fact that revenues are still substantially down from what they were two years ago. Basically, this is the game the Bush administration (and the Reagan administration) plays with these statistics.

After a while less blood flows from he wound.

Works the same with cutting the throat.

.

:hi:

It's never appeared in the budget, only in supplementals.

So much for the "shrinking deficit".