Wait a minute, I thought tax cuts added to the deficit? What is this? The New York Times (THE NEW YORK TIMES!) is reporting today (Saturday, where all good news that might help Bush gets relegated) that
An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief. On Tuesday, White House officials are expected to announce that the tax receipts will be about $250 billion above last year’s levels and that the deficit will be about $100 billion less than what they projected six months ago. The rising tide in tax payments has been building for months, but the increased scale is surprising even seasoned budget analysts and making it easier for both the administration and Congress to finesse the big run-up in spending over the past year. Tax revenues are climbing twice as fast as the administration predicted in February, so fast that the budget deficit could actually decline this year.
As the economy rolls along in robust fashion, the mainstream media does their darndest to see to it that people don’t notice. If Clinton were the president, it’s all we’d hear. If the "Bush economy" was in the crapper right now, that’s all we’d hear. It’s not, so we don’t. Another point to glean from this is that the fact that all this rise in tax revenue "surprised even seasoned budget analysts" only goes to show that the government has less input and control of the economy than they would lead us to believe.
