More On The Budget Numbers

Some context, from the traitors at the NYTimes (07.11.06), via TheCarpetbagger:

"As he did in his remarks on Saturday, Mr. Bush is sure to use today’s event to credit tax cuts for a projected 'surge' in tax revenue. The Treasury is expected to take in about $250 billion more in 2006 than in 2005, for a total take of $2.4 trillion. In fact, it is $100 billion less than the $2.5 trillion revenue estimate the administration touted when it set out in 2001 to sell its policy of never-ending tax cuts." Another Mission 'Accomplished'

"Even with this year’s bigger haul, real revenue growth during the Bush years will be abysmal, averaging about 0.3 percent per capita, versus an average of nearly 10 percent in all previous post-World War II business cycles." The revenue surge is ephemeral. "That might be excusable if the recent revenue improvements could reasonably be expected to continue. They cannot. Much of the increase in tax receipts is from corporate profits, high-income investors and super high-earning executives, sources that are just as unpredictable as the financial markets to which they’re inevitably linked." Ha!! Not content to let it go at that, the Times remarks that this "is proof, if anyone still needs it, that this administration is desperate for something to boast about."