Fuzzy Math

When George Bush submitted his budget to Congress this week he suggested that adoption would help led to eliminating the deficit by 2012. What he didn't tell people was his budget was built on fuzzy math.

Instead he sent out Republican National Chairman Mike Duncan to say "The President should be applauded for submitting a budget that works to eliminate the deficit."

In reality, after three straight years of the national debt increasing by more than $550 billion, the administration is again on target for a similar increase, with the debt already up $200 billion in four months.

Over the past year the administration has prided itself on how it had cut the deficit in half. However the administration accomplished this by comparing the estimated deficit to eventual deficit. In 2004, at one point the White House projected a deficit of $521 billion, yet the actual deficit was $412 billion. This year's deficit is expected to be around $250 billion, half of the $512 but not half of $412.

Also, to an extremely large estimate the Bush administration has been helped by taking excess Social Security payments to pay over their drunken sailor spending habit. (The International Herald Tribune pointed out that In 2006 the federal government received $185 billion more in Social Security taxes than it paid out in benefits.)

If one looks at the nearly $600 billion increases in the national debt one gets a better picture of the mismanagement. Unfortunately the excess social security receipts won't last forever and will end around the time the budget is supposedly balanced, requiring a future administration to clean up anothe Bush administration mistake.