ABC: Without ‘creative White House accounting,’ Bush’s deficit is...

[bobd0]

...ACTUALLY $600 BILLION!

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/29/abc-without-creative-white-house-accounting-bushs-deficit-is-actually-600-billion/

Yesterday, the White House “increased its estimate for next year’s deficit to nearly $490 billion, a record figure that will saddle the next president with deepening budget problems in his first year in office.” But, on ABC News’s Good Morning America today, Claire Shipman reported that the deficit is actually much higher because “creative White House accounting” didn’t include the war, the unemployment costs, Medicare fees, or the housing bill in its calculations. If those numbers are included, it brings “the grand total to about $600 billion.” Watch it:

To illustrate how big the deficit is, Shipman explained: “If every American were to pitch in 2,000 dollars, we could pay off this year’s deficit. Or if we handed over each of us 500 gallons gasoline. Or, in terms we can all really understand, if every American gave up 666 lattes for a year.”

Watch it:

http://share.ovi.com/flash/player.aspx?media=bhglitter.10003&channelname=bhglitter.public

[trof]

1. The numbers numb.

Uhhhhgggghhhh

[spanone]

2. if they are projecting 490 billion, i'd double it.

[bobd0]

8. That sounds about right.

That's the formula I use for anything that has to do with the Bush administration. Determine the absolute worst the situation can be and double it.

[Lorien]

3. We all drink lattes? WTF?

Never had one in my life. But repugs don't care about the deficit; they think it'll just be their grandkid's problem.

[bobd0]

4. I've never had a latte either

[UpInArms]

12. no lattes here - so how can we each give up 666 of something we don't do

can't afford to do, wouldn't want to do even if they were available to me and think is a basically stupid idea for coffee (like mine strong with half and half, thank you)

[dysfunctional press]

5. never had a latte, never will...what is it, anyway..? i know it has something to do with coffee...

and possibly milk.

i don't 'do' either one.

[JHB]

13. Espresso and steamed milk

Tried it. Too light. And the reporter (or whoever wrote & approved that line) is an idiot.

From wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latte
Outside Italy, a latte is typically prepared with approximately one third espresso and two-thirds steamed milk, with a layer of foamed milk approximately 5 mm (¼ inch) thick on the top. The drink is similar to a cappuccino, the difference being that a cappuccino has half the amount of milk. Lattes also typically have a far lower amount of foam than a cappuccino. A variant on the latte is the flat white, which is a serving fill of about one-third espresso, with steamed milk then added, while holding no froth at the top.

[dysfunctional press]

15. that's one of the worst possible combos i can imagine...

i don't drink coffee...EVER.
white milk has always made me gag- ever since i was a child.
i don't like ANY hot beverages, coffee, tea, or hot chocolate...tomato soup is on the bubble.

[valerief]

6. I offer to give up the war. Debt settled. nt

[LostInAnomie]

7. Remember how Bush's "fiscal responsibility" was supposed to half the deficit by 2008?

I think they made this claim during the '04 campaign. They would cherry pick what they would include as debt, and completely forget the costs of both wars, and show that we were well on our way. Now he's going to leave office with a $600B deficit (if they don't start another war).

It's amazing what "fiscal responsibility" can do.

[bobd0]

9. Bush promised to bring honor and integrity back to the White House too

Just look how that turned out.

LMFAO

[hfojvt]

10. I seem to remember something like that

Jan. 4, 2004

"The Congressional Budget Office and the White House budget office have projected a deficit of more than $450 billion this year.

But Joshua B. Bolten, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, has said the president's policies will cut the deficit in half within five years, through a combination of economic growth and fiscal restraint."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E6DD1431F937A35752C0A9629C8B63



"The FY 2004 deficit is expected to be about 2.7% of GDP, manageable and modest by historical standards. It declines to 1.4% of GDP by 2008."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030203-6.html

Instead it has grown to 3.5% of GDP

[tnlefty]

11. Welcome to DU, bobd0! Off to the greatest...

My kids are so royally fucked. Lattes? I don't drink those. Those tax breaks for the wealthiest among us are apparently off the table, too. The number 666 may have some meaning to some folks, though.

[central scrutinizer]

14. How's that President with an MBA working out for you?

God help us if we elect somebody with a Ph.D. in business administration

[struggle4progress]

16. Publicans have been trying to bankrupt the Federal government since Reagan

That is the essence of the Grover Norquist philosophy

The aim of the philosophy is a glorious new "gilded age" with no meaningful federal restriction on corporate power: polluters pollute freely, workers are rented until old or injured and then left to die in poverty, private armies control the population for the corporate elite, laws that are "spider webs for the rich and mighty" but "steel chains for the poor and weak" ...

Anyone who cannot imagine America becoming like that does not know much of this country's history and the history of the ever-continuing struggle for real democracy here