In Dubya's latest ad, he announces that Kerry is going to raise taxes by $900 billion. Kerry has never said he would do something like. Instead, Dubya's team looked at Kerry's proposed tax and spending plans, calculated a $900 billion shortfall and declared that Kerry will raise taxes to close that shortfall.
Why should Dubya's team have all the fun of making up numbers? Let's do the same thing to Dubya! But of course, Dubya wouldn't raise taxes, so I assumed for my headline that he is going to follow Greenspan's advice and slash Social Security benefits.
Here is how I get the $2.1 trillion:
(Sadly, I can't seem to get rid of the big gap before the table).
On the President's goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009 - per the CBO, he is $19 billion short of that goal. I took that $19 billion and multiplied it by 10.