Okay, the geeks out there are going to love this one. In Thursday's press breifing, Tony the Snow-job sides with the Budget Office, which has a contrarian perspective to the President's rose colored glasses look at the deficit. Have a look:
Q The budget deficit: CBO estimate out today says, Yes, it's coming down to $260 billion this year, but then will jump to $286 billion next year. And then over the next decade, the total deficit will be $1.76 trillion, even if the tax cuts aren't made permanent. Aren't things going in the wrong direction with the President?
Zoiks, those numbers are grim. But is the President slightly worried? Nope:
MR. SNOW: No, I'll tell you --
Q As he talks to his economic advisors, is he looking at spending cuts or tax increases to close the gap?
MR. SNOW: The answer is the President is working on keeping the economy growing, and the other thing is, go back and take a look at CBO estimates from last year or the year before. Go back to the Clinton years. It's an inexact science, and I'm not going to get into that whole methodology.
The President is confident that we remain on a path to cut the deficit in half by his stated deadline, if not before, and the way you do that is by promoting government growth. The deficit declined in the '90s because we had a booming economy, and as the economy continues to boom, you're going to find revenues coming in and enabling us to close the deficit. The President still believes that.
Well, now we know that simply because the President uses some facy rhetoric and belives something, it won't necessarily become true now will it? Here's where Tony commits rhetorical suicide again:
Q So is the CBO wrong in projecting that the deficit will increase next year?
MR. SNOW: Who knows? The problem with it, it's like asking if the weatherman is right about next Tuesday. Economic prediction is always inexact. You use this as benchmarks for guiding policy. As you know we do our own estimates, and I'll stick with the OMB estimates. And I will let our number crunching guys, our econometricians go through the methodologies with you. I'm just not competent to do so.
I think he meant CBO, or is the OMB different? Perhaps, Even so so, is it the President or the CBO that is correct? Tony correctly sides with the geeks and thusly proves the President has his head up his ass in thinking that his policy is going to be good for America.
2 comments:
His head is always up his ass...and he always thinks some policy or another is good for America. I guess it's futile to tell him "he" isn't good for America.
On the one hand ...
The problem for the White House is that that all the branches of government are in Republican hands.
White House: Office of Management and Budget
Congressional Budget Office
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