While Max was speaking, I was listening.
I clicked through a link to this page at the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities. The CBPP writes:
The 2004 deficit of $422 billion reveals a budget in much worse shape than CBO projected in early 2001. At that time, CBO projected a surplus in 2004 of $380 billion... As can be seen, the actual result for 2004 is $800 billion worse than projected in 2001. Nor is this result peculiar to 2004: over the ten-year period from 2002 to 2011, our current projections are about $870 billion worse on average each year than the projections issued in early 2001, or $8.7 trillion worse over the decade as a whole.Calculations based on CBO and Joint Tax Committee data show that of the $8.7 trillion deterioration over the 2002-2011 period, $5.5 trillion is attributable to tax cuts, defense funding increases, and domestic program increases enacted by Congress. (The rest is due to economic or technical factors.) Tax cuts account for the majority of the $5.5 trillion deterioration that is due to the actions of policymakers. In other words, the tax cuts have increased the deficit more than all program increases combined.
The IRS estimates that there will be 130,597,000 individual tax returns this year.
If it was your money in 2000, it is your debt in 2004. An $8.7 trillion deterioration in our fiscal position works out to $66,617 per tax return.
Some may argue, with some merit, that all of that loss is not Mr. Bush's fault. The recession, the dot com bust, 9/11, and corporate scandals may have helped undermine our fiscal position.
The CBPP notes that of the $8.7 trillion deterioration, a full $5.5 trillion is attributable to policy choices. The last time I looked, the GOP controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress.
The $5.5 trillion deterioration in fiscal position due to policy choices works out to $42,114 per tax return.
That is about the price of a brand new 2004 BMW 530i.
This year, I have yet to hear Mr. Bush remind voters that "It's your debt."
Actually, part of the issue here is pure slimeball conservative tactics.Much if not all of the surplus was money the government was supposed to be stockpiling for social security. These are the funds that were being raised by the most recent increase in social security payroll taxes passed with Alan Greenspan's blessing. So, insofar as they stated "it's your money" the conservatives were being truthful. However the structure of the Bush tax cuts was to give this money primarily to the wealthiest people in the country. So, it was our money, but it's now the property of the ultra-rich. How do you like them apples? Throw in the odd fact that the social security taxes cut off at somewhere around $85,000 in income, and you realise that these people have no more right to that money than the people who paid it in.
It should be noted that when this tax increase was put in place it was intended to be saving social security through the retirement of the baby boomers. It is no coincidence that there is now talk of retirees needing to have lowered expectations. But Greenspan should be held responsible for first endorsing the tax increase, then endorsing Bush's tax cuts, and now warning that social security expectations should be decreased. Somewhere in there he has clearly made an egregious error.
Posted by: Daniel Maskit at September 13, 2004 06:52 PM