Don Quixote's Budget for Bush

President Bush has submitted his budget for FY 2006 in the amount of 2½ trillion dollars and a record deficit of $457 billion dollars, even though he still insists that he will cut the deficit in half by 2009 (after he is out of office.) This all is predicated on spending cuts by Congress (called passing the blame) and economic growth of over 6%. That’s all very optimistic. But let’s assume his numbers are right, and see where we really stand.

Missing from Mr. Bush’s budget are a few rather important items; 1) Not the first penny for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which right now is costing $1 billion a week; 2) Not a penny for his plan to privatize Social Security which analysts say will cost a couple of trillion dollars in the next number of years; and 3) not a penny of coverage for the tax cuts he wants to make permanent. All told those three items could add as much as another quarter of a trillion dollars on to the budget.

The average American better stop and think very carefully about what this Quixotic math means. It means that if you do a household budget for your family without figuring the cost of rent or mortgage, without figuring the cost of food, and without figuring the cost of transportation, you can go on that long dreamed of first class vacation to Tahiti, and still have extra money in the bank. Magical? No, idiotic. See you in the poor house.