Fiscal Responsibility Loses Popularity At White House

January 25, 2005 Lauren

The White House estimated on Tuesday that the U.S. budget deficit for 2005, including an extra $80 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan operations, will total $427 billion. Senior officials asserted that fretting over the deficit is “definitely not punk rock.”

“In the 2006 budget that we release on Feb. 7, OMB will estimate that the 2005 deficit, including the outlay effects from the supplemental we are discussing today, will be 3.5 percent of GDP or in nominal terms $427 billion,” said a senior administration official in a news briefing.

He referred to supplemental spending of more than $80 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, making the White House estimate for the deficit higher than the $368 billion forecast by the Congressional Budget Office.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan insisted on Tuesday that fiscal responsibility and economic accountability “are so, like, 1999.”

6 thoughts on Fiscal Responsibility Loses Popularity At White House

norbizness says:

January 25, 2005 at 8:49 pm

Little Scottie’s convinced me; I’m finally gonna start showing those unwanted credit card solicitation letters and spam e-mails some l-u-v.
Roxanne says:

January 25, 2005 at 9:59 pm

Real Republicans from yesteryear are spinning in their graves.
B.D. says:

January 26, 2005 at 6:32 am

This plays nicely into 2 White House gambits. First, they are spending so much now that eventually they will announce Draconian cuts to social programs and use that as an excuse to shrink the government. Secondly, rather than do it themselves, the White House will put the onus on Congress to make the cuts so that the President comes out smelling like a rose and the Congress takes the heat. Why Republican members of the House and Senate would go along with this is a mystery.
Monjo says:

January 26, 2005 at 9:50 am

Or you could argue that these huge deficits are what is keeping the American economy turning over. If you give a mean wage of $40,000, then this deficit helps employ over 1million people, all these people spend further money providing yet more jobs in the US economy (and making the GDP bigger).. etc.
Rick DeMent says:

January 26, 2005 at 12:06 pm

One thing you have to realize is that these numbers do not count the money that was “borrowed” from payroll tax receipts, so the numbers during the 90’s were not as rosy as they were only in surplus during the final two years of that run. However, that also means that the deficit numbers are all that much worse, depending on the year, to the tune of 80 to 150 billion dollars.

Additionally the price of oil has a huge impact on our economy, for every dollar the price of oil goes up, that represents an additional $7 billion plus dollars a year that it costs to run our economy, and that comes out of the tax base. This means that the current price of $48 pb +or – represents an increase in the cost to run our economy by $167 + billion dollars per year over the pre-war price of $25 pb. Which erases any benefit real or imagined that Bush’s tax cut … er loan might have had.
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