This schtick is getting tiring. The country is falling apart, and the GOP and its shills pretend that it's all good.
Iraq is wonderful! say the GOoPers, It's the press' fault for focusing on unimportant things like, you know, soldier deaths.
And was the deficit a
record $374 billion? Who cares! It's a good thing!
New Bush administration figures that show a record $374.2 billion deficit for the federal budget year that just ended prove that the president's economic policies have shoved the country in the wrong direction, Democrats say.
White House officials and their Republican congressional allies counter that the numbers show just the opposite: The economy is on the mend, even as deficit still has further up to go.
The numbers
don't show "just the opposite". The numbers show an administration that has no concept of fiscal responsibility. An administration that has brough us back the era of big government after Democratic president Bill Clinton had ended it. An administration that has turned trillions of dollars of projected surpluses into trillions of dollars in projected debts.
There's nothing "fuzzy" about this math.
What's fuzzy is this:
Because the figures were lower than the White House's July projection of $455 billion, administration officials cited it as evidence that their attempts to fortify the weak economy were working.
Democrats aren't playing that silly game:
Some Democrats have accused the White House of purposely padding its deficit forecast last July to lay the groundwork for casting the final budget numbers as good news. Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., raised that question anew on Monday.
"We need to find out what kind of shenanigans caused the estimate to be so off, whether OMB deliberately estimated high numbers so everybody could jump for joy this week," Hollings wrote in a letter to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles, R-Okla., requesting hearings on the inaccuracy of the administration's July projection.
And as if record deficits weren't bad enough, Treasury Secretary Snow is now
urging the fed to raise interest rates.
Interest rates should go up, Treasury Secretary John Snow told The Times of London newspaper, asserting that he would be "frustrated and concerned" if they didn't.
Meanwhile in Washington, Snow's office reported that the federal budget deficit hit a record $374.2 billion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. The administration anticipates the deficit to exceed $500 billion, which could drive rates higher.
Snow's comments come prior to next Tuesday's meeting of the Federal Reserve Bank's Open Market Committee. Analysts don't expect the panel to change rates. But historically low borrowing rates, which fueled record car sales and round after round of mortgage refinancing for the past three years, may be about to rise. Analysts say rising deficits force Washington to borrow money at higher rates, which raises private borrowing costs.
"This economy has been driven into imbalance by low interest rates. Now rising rates threaten to choke off the very sectors - consumers and housing - that have kept the economy afloat," said Pearl Kamer, chief economist for the Long Island Association and finance professor at Adelphi University.