Hoss
10-11-2006, 08:34 AM
WASHINGTON — The federal budget deficit, helped by a gusher of tax revenues, fell to $247.7 billion in 2006, the smallest amount of red ink in four years.
The deficit for the budget year that ended Sept. 30 was 22.3 percent lower than the $318.7 billion imbalance for 2005, handing President Bush an economic bragging point as Republicans go into the final four weeks of a battle for control of Congress.
Bush called the 2006 outcome a "dramatic reduction" in the deficit which allowed him to fulfill his 2004 campaign pledge of cutting the deficit in half earlier than his original 2009 target date.
"These numbers show that we have now achieved our goal of cutting the federal deficit in half and we've done it three years ahead of schedule," Bush told reporters at a Rose Garden news conference. "The budget numbers are proof that pro-growth economic policies work."
The pledge to cut the deficit in half was based on the administration's forecast that the 2004 deficit would hit $521 billion, a figure that proved to be too pessimistic by more than $100 billion. However, the administration has continued to use the forecast number as its benchmark for deficit reduction.
Now without really following the national debt, cause who really gives a shit... I'll be dead before it would ever get paid down IMO, I was a little suprised to see that even with shit like $3 billion per month for Iraq operations the debt is still siginificatnly going down. 22% is no small number either.
This isn't "RA RA Republican!!!" as we're all likely to see here soon, but I'm more commenting on thank fucking god there's not some eff'ing retard like Al Gore behind the wheel who would likely have trippled that number rather than make it go down.
I think it's also worth mentioning that some of the action to get the national debt down were started way back in the Clinton Administration... one of the reasons he enjoyed some additional conservative support for his election.
With all the other crappy news, I guess this isn't all that bad.
The deficit for the budget year that ended Sept. 30 was 22.3 percent lower than the $318.7 billion imbalance for 2005, handing President Bush an economic bragging point as Republicans go into the final four weeks of a battle for control of Congress.
Bush called the 2006 outcome a "dramatic reduction" in the deficit which allowed him to fulfill his 2004 campaign pledge of cutting the deficit in half earlier than his original 2009 target date.
"These numbers show that we have now achieved our goal of cutting the federal deficit in half and we've done it three years ahead of schedule," Bush told reporters at a Rose Garden news conference. "The budget numbers are proof that pro-growth economic policies work."
The pledge to cut the deficit in half was based on the administration's forecast that the 2004 deficit would hit $521 billion, a figure that proved to be too pessimistic by more than $100 billion. However, the administration has continued to use the forecast number as its benchmark for deficit reduction.
Now without really following the national debt, cause who really gives a shit... I'll be dead before it would ever get paid down IMO, I was a little suprised to see that even with shit like $3 billion per month for Iraq operations the debt is still siginificatnly going down. 22% is no small number either.
This isn't "RA RA Republican!!!" as we're all likely to see here soon, but I'm more commenting on thank fucking god there's not some eff'ing retard like Al Gore behind the wheel who would likely have trippled that number rather than make it go down.
I think it's also worth mentioning that some of the action to get the national debt down were started way back in the Clinton Administration... one of the reasons he enjoyed some additional conservative support for his election.
With all the other crappy news, I guess this isn't all that bad.