Cutting the Deficit

Ah, yes, the famous mid-session review showing we'll "cut the deficit in half in 5 years." The problem, as I note in the November issue, is that those projections (from an agency that answers to the White House, run by a former assistant to the president) assume current law, with sunsets built into the recent tax cuts. So we've got simultaneously the push to make those cuts permanent and the trumpeting of a deficit reduction projection that he's got to know is predicated on the assumption that this doesn't happen. The Congressional Budget Office runs projections with both assumptions, and the picture looks quite different. Though Bush is right that Kerry playing Mr. Fiscal Conservative isn't particularly plausible.