Capital Games by David Corn
The Nation February 8, 2005

If it's budget time, it must be disinformation time. That's how it goes in the Bush II era. George W. Bush released a budget today that he claims is responsible, honest, and designed to cut the $400 billion-plus deficit in half by 2009. Not so. By now, you probably have heard the obvious criticisms. The budget does not include the $80 billion Bush is asking for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (And that probably won't cover the full tab.) It doesn't account for the $1 trillion to $2 trillion that Bush needs to pay for the private investment accounts he wants to carve out of Social Security. It also doesn't recognize that several hundred billion dollars will disappear from the revenue stream when the government rejiggers the alternative minimum tax--which it must--to prevent this tax (written to apply to corporations that make creative use of loopholes) from hitting middle-class individual tax filers. ... Read the rest at: http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=2179 or http://tinyurl.com/4qlec


copyright Virginia Metze