Bankrupting us to prosperity

It's surprising that Treasury would say this publicly, considering that John Snow knows how George Bush feels about truth tellers.

Key White House tax proposals would cost the U.S. government tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue, the Treasury Department said on Monday, although the administration says they will help boost revenues in the long run.

Making permanent expiring tax breaks for dividends and capital gains, which expire at the end of 2008, would cost the government $7.74 billion in 2008 and $37.02 billion in 2009, Treasury said in its "Blue Book" description of revenue proposals in President Bush's fiscal 2007 budget.

Making dividend and capital gains tax breaks permanent is a central Bush administration goal in 2006, but critics say the administration will be hard-pressed to both keep the tax breaks and achieve its other priority, cutting the federal budget deficit starting in fiscal 2007.

The White House projects the deficit will widen in the current fiscal year.

Extending lower marginal tax rates for individuals, which are set to expire at the end of 2010, would push foregone tax revenues to $119.39 billion in 2011, Treasury said.

The (Alternative Mimimum Tax) fix would forego $13.66 billion in revenues in the current fiscal year and $20.5 billion in income to the government in fiscal 2007, Treasury said.

The president's proposals to expand health savings accounts, which allow people set aside pretax earnings to pay for medical expenses, would total $5.48 billion in lost revenue in 2007 and $10.24 billion in lost revenue in 2008, Treasury said.

But the Bush administration would have you believe that magically, from 2007 to 2009, government revenues will climb, cutting the deficit -- which was created entirely by this administration -- in half.

Let's face a couple of facts here. The economy is going to be in worse shape in January 2009 than it is now, because the administration doesn't intend to address it. The Bush administration's real goal is to redistribute the nation's wealth up the economic ladder. The results of the last seven years look like a nonstop money grab by the wealthiest Americans because they have been a nonstop money grab by the wealthiest Americans.

The Bush administration's economic policies have led to the deficit we have now. Let's not forget that the policies of the Clinton administration led to budget surpluses of $69.2 billion for fiscal year 1998, $122.7 billion for FY 1999 and at least $230 billion in FY 2000.

Such results are inconceivable under the current regime, which proposes cutting taxes for the wealthy and attacking the budget deficit by cutting vital programs that assist the poor. Despite Bush's tortured explanations that this approach will lead to prosperity, all it really does is widen the gulf between the rich and poor in this country. We've lived with this approach for seven years now, and look where we are. But Bush would have us believe that we're right on schedule, that the economy will take an unprecedented 180-degree turn in 2007, and we will hit his claimed goal of halving the deficit he created.

Oh, I'm sorry. That 9/11 created. Like the Iraq war, the failure in the face of hurricane Katrina, the failure to capture Osama bin Laden, the nuclear capability of North Korea and soon Iran, and the train wreck that the administration calls a prescription drug benefit, the deficit and the economy are not George Bush's fault.

More accurately, they're not his problem. In January 2009, Bush will return to his 1583-acre (nearly 2.5 square mile) "ranch" a very wealthy village idiot and spend the rest of his days telling fictions in an attempt to polish his legacy to anyone who will listen.