Forecast by whom? Credible why? Extrapolatable from what data? Hint: It’s gotten *worse * every year under this administration.
Also not well supported by actual fact.
Which suggests that the deficit would *not * get smaller.
The *fact * is that he has *not * been a budget cutter, rather the opposite. There is no basis outside your own imagination for giving him your support.
The Congressional Budget Office. CBO is expecting the deficit to decline to $348 billion in 2005, if current laws and policies do not change, and to decline further in 2006 and 2007.
I guess it depends on your definition of growth. The GDP growth for 2004 is going to wind up somewhere between 3.5 and 5%, it looks like. That’s above-average economic growth.
Bush’s claim that he can cut the deficit in half has always been bogus in three ways: (1) it relied on his tax cuts not being extended - yet he wants to make them permanent; (2) it relies on his not fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax; and (3) it relied on an inflated projection of the FY 2004 deficit. If you pretend the deficit is even bigger than it is, it’s easier to ‘cut’ it, since all you’re doing is cutting your own BS.
Much as I’d love to see Bush cut his own BS, it’s still not anything remotely approaching honest fiscal policy.
If Bush is re-elected the Republicans will take that as a mandate to further cut taxes. Look for reductions in taxes on dividends and corporate taxes. These are the spoils that corporations will get if Bush wins. Which means the deficit will mushroom even further, unless the economy magically becomes so robust as to offset the loss in tax revenue.
That their earlier estimate was $55 billion even higher is not good news by any reasonable interpretation. But there’s more, relevant to who will be President in the next term:
Where is that going to come from?
Mine includes jobs and personal income. Yours is indistinguishable from RNC campaign talking points.
During the RNC, I read an article in The New York Times about potential '08 candidates making the rounds speaking to Republican groups, kind of positioning for the '08 nomination. The names I remember right off hand were Giuliani, Frist, Pataki, and Hagel.
On this topic, here’s a rather interesting piece in which Brad DeLong wrestles with Matt Yglesias’ examination of Andrew Sullivan. FWIW, it seems that Sullivan changed his tune on Bush by September of last year, which IIRC was before Bush started un-distancing himself from the FMA. But in my intermittent reading of him this spring and summer (since I didn’t really discover the blogsphere until earlier this year), his abandonment of Bush sure looked like it was pushed to completion by the FMA.
Giuliani’s too old, Frist too compromised, Pataki too accomplishmentless, but Hagel is a stand-up guy. I could support Voinovich, but he’s too old too, as McCain will be.
Maybe so – but I wouldn’t be surprised if they put up a Giuliani-Bush ticket, on the understanding that if all goes well, Jeb can go for the top spot in 2016. It would be a balanced ticket – New York and Florida, two huge electoral-vote states – and the separation in time between Bush Admin II and Bush Admin III would be enough to play down any talk of a “dynasty.”
There is really only one–Giuliani. He is the most successful, and perhaps most popular, living Republican politician.
You know, Sam, I truly dislike the idea of questioning people’s motivations. But I like to think that I can see through rationalized excuses – and Sullivan doesn’t sound like that. He’s spoken his mind, criticizing Bush’s fiscal profligacy while supporting him. If anything, gay marriage may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, as regarding Sullivan’s grudging support despite his reservations on fiscal policy. But to jump from there to “one issue” is an extreme I am very much disinclined to accept. Dealbreaker, maybe. Single issue judgment, no way. I take his honest analysis of his own gradual disillusion with Bush at face value, as I also do your integrity in posting what you think. I don’t care for the person it would make me if I were always looking for hidden motives.
First, it depends on who wins this election.
Second, it also depends on how well the 2006 elections go for the Reps.
Finally, some comments on candidates that have already been proposed:
McCain: Too old in 2008.
Giuliani: Will need to be elected to higher office (Governor of NY?) in 2006.
Hagel: Likely candidate.
Elizabeth Dole: Won’t she be in her mid-60’s in 2008?
Watts: No chance.
Frist: Possible.
Ridge: Quiet likely, if Bush wins this election.
Jeb: No chance.
Owens: Likely candidate.
Sanford: A small-state Governor? Not a chance.
Racicot: If Bush loses, no chance. Even if Bush wins, not very likely.
Pataki: Not likely.
Let me expand on my earlier comment that the deficit will only continue growing. First of all, I do agree that the economy is starting to take off, and jobs are growing, albeit more slowly than they usually do at this time in the cycle. We are going to have a growth period, though oil prices and concerns about terrorism may stop it from ever reaching the ridiculous growth rates we got in 1983-2000. Why I think the deficit will keep growing is more based on spending and taxes.
There’s no way to predict how much will get spent, or how much earned in taxes. In 2000 the Congressional Budget Office’s prediction was for over three trillion in surpluses between 2001 and 2010. If anything, the recent experience should teach us that such numbers can be way off. Just look at what we’ve spent money on. In 2000, people estimated the cost of a prescription drug bill as 200-300 billion, not the 535 billion we eventually got. And airline bailouts, agriculture bills, handouts to the relatives of 9/11 victims, and invasions of various countries were not in the equation at all back in 2000. What new spending programs will occur in the next four years that aren’t even being imagined right now? And what tax cuts? After all, the dividends tax cut was never mentioned by Bush during the 2000 campaign.
I read DeLong’s arguments, and one thing really struck me: He uses ‘fiscal profligacy’ interchangeably with ‘tax cuts’. Never heard that before. He claims that because Sullivan supported the tax cuts, he should support big spending? Ridiculous. Both may create the same deficit, but one does so with a much larger government and higher taxes. DeLong knows better, so I’m not sure why he does that. Maybe just sloppiness, or perhaps he’s making a slightly dishonest argument.
Bill Clinton would like to have a few words with you. 
I doubt McCain will be too old at 70. That age barrier has already been broken by Ronaldus Magnus G
In a Bush II term, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cheney resign & a Party-preferred '08 Pres-candidate elevated to VP. Who that would be I don’t know.
If Liz Dole has accomplished anything as Senator by then, perhaps her (what the hell is she doing? I was hoping she’d be channeling her hubby.)
In that case- Dole-Rice '08!
The exception that proves the rule. Can you name another small-state Governor who became President?
What does “not a chance” mean when you say it, then?
Since you ask, would you consider Georgia a “small state” either?
I don’t see why the whole small-state business should matter. In this election both candidates come from states already locked down for their respective parties, which would appear to indicate that the parties don’t necessarily want the candidate from the state where the largest number of electoral votes is at stake. South Carolina has the quality of being early in the primary cycle, which helps any S.C.-born candidate if the nomination is actually contested.
It’s clear that you didn’t read Krugman any more accurately than Sullivan did before laying into him.
The problem that Krugman pointed out to begin with was that Bush was creating dishonest numbers. It wasn’t just that he was proposing a $1.3 trillion tax cut; he was using the same twelve-digit pots of money for different things at the same time, to make the impact of his proposals look way smaller than they were.
Sullivan, ignoring Krugman’s emphasis, responded “if Krugman doesn’t like tax cuts now, he never will.”
DeLong, who can read, appears to be referring to the combination of massive cuts and fiscal sleight-of-hand as “fiscal profligacy.”