Federal Deficit Cut In Half

OF COURSE DEMOCRATS are not impressed, according to Stephen Dinan. They look at the budget surplus inherited by President Bush’s administration and see nothing but failure.

"No amount of Republican Party spin can obscure the bottom line: The Bush administration and congressional Republicans inherited a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion in 2001, and in just 70 months turned that surplus into a projected deficit of $4 trillion," said House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat.

It’s their right to ignore the recession and the tech crash and imagine that President Clinton gave the economy to President Bush in fine fettle.

But it certainly is impressive that, despite the huge increases in federal spending over the last six years, and despite the huge tax rate decreases, and despite the three years of economic flatline after the NASDAQ took its tumble we are back to a federal deficit of 1.9 percent of GDP.

Of course the real story on the federal budget is the $10 trillion unfunded deficit on Social Security and the $40 trillion unfunded deficit on Medicare. The smart assumption to make is that the government will renege on its promises. That is going to cause a lot of suffering.

But meanwhile President Bush can savor a small victory.

"We have now achieved our goal of cutting the federal budget deficit in half and we've done it three years ahead of schedule," the president said, crediting his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts with spurring economic growth and thus more tax revenue.

As he should, of course, he doesn’t take all the credit. It’s not just his fiscal policies but “the hard work of the American people” that did the trick.

Don’t forget supply-side economics, either. That’s the idea that when you reduce marginal tax rates you speed up the economy.

Sphere: Related Content |

Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

TAGS

Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Living Law

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

mysql close 0