“
Democrats and other critics said the president had no right to brag about a deficit that remains so large in the fifth year of an economic expansion. They pointed out that the deficit this year will be the fourth-largest ever, and that Bush inherited a surplus when he took office in 2001.
“Only Washington Republicans would think a 0 billion deficit is good news,” Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in a written statement.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group, said the new figures are “nothing to break open the champagne over.”
“We have experienced a neck-wrenching swing from large surpluses to large deficits since the start of the decade,” MacGuineas said.
”
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Found this while reading IOZ posts from 2006. Looking to the recent past confirms one of Monsieur IOZ’s more recent points about the current campaign of union-busting: management punishing labor for the mistakes of management. 0 billion in the whole during a strong economy. I mean, who taught these people how to count?
(I guess I shouldn’t play dumb. ‘These people’ count votes and campaign contributions, and poorly managing the government’s finances does not impact these dependent variables in what would be called a linear fashion.)
