CBO Report Further Proof of President's Mismanagement

CBO Report Further Proof of President's Mismanagement

Today, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the federal budget deficit for Fiscal Year 2004, which ends on September 30th, will be a record $422 billion. When the Social Security surplus is not used to artificially mask the real size of the deficit, the actual budget deficit for 2004 is $574 billion. This is deeply troubling. Sadly, President Bush and Congressional Republicans have no real plan to rein in the red ink. When President Bush took office 3½ years ago, he inherited a 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion and we were paying down the national debt. Today, that 10-year budget surplus has been turned into a projected deficit of $4.7 trillion. This is a record that no one should be proud of. One immediate solution would be to roll back Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans. It is unfair to ask the middle class to carry this burden.