Truthdig - Ear to the Ground - Wanna Play the Budget Expectations Game?

			November 24, 2009 Log in / Register
			Text Size

Obama Risks Losing His Judicial Prize

For 23 Years, Fully Aware but Mute and Paralyzed

Refuse Allegiance to Coal

That's One Big Bang for Mankind

Playbill

Delay Tactics Worked For Kennedy
By William Pfaff

Books Not Bombs
By Amy Goodman

Obama Risks Losing His Judicial Prize
By Stanley Kutler

To Your Health—and Mine
By Eugene Robinson

Banks Gamble With Almost-Free Money

Abbas: Obama Hasn’t Helped Mideast Peace Process

Obama Hints at ‘Comprehensive’ Afghanistan Plan

That’s One Big Bang for Mankind

For 23 Years, Fully Aware but Mute and Paralyzed

Lieberman Won’t Budge on Health Care

Home Sales Jump 10.1% in October

‘Left, Right & Center’: The Geithner-Summers Backlash; Is Palin Dangerous?

Throw the Money Changers Out of the Temple

Yuletide Weirdness With Your Host, Bob Dylan

Lambert’s ‘AMA’ Act Costs Him ‘GMA’ Gig

The Guantanamo Lawyers: Shipwrecked
By Baher Azmy

Freedom’s Fight: Part II
By Gary Phillips

Claire Wasserman on Europe’s Islamic Immigrants
By Claire Wasserman

Financial Meltdown 101

A Dig compiled by the editors of Truthdig

Vetting Sarah Palin

A Dig compiled by the editors of Truthdig

Full Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century

By Stan Goff
$11.89

Wanna Play the Budget Expectations Game?

Posted on Jul 11, 2006

It goes like this: Make artificially gloomy budget forecasts at the start of the year; then, at the end of the year, when the numbers outperform your disingenuousness, announce that the economy is on the upswing. The L.A. Times has the lowdown.

(It’s the same thing Bush did before his debates: lower people’s expectations, and then, when he can put ~~a few sentences~~ a few syllables together without tripping over himself, he’ll seem like Daniel Webster.)

Oh, and when we say “outperform,” keep in mind that we’re still talking about the fourth-largest budget deficit in history. And according to the Washington Post, “Even the White House acknowledges that in the long run, the nation’s fiscal outlook remains bleak.”

L.A. Times:

WASHINGTON When President Bush releases the traditional midsummer update on the budget today, he is expected to announce that federal revenue has soared above predicted levels and that the deficit is headed for a welcome decline from earlier estimates as much as 30%, or $125 billion, below the level projected just five months ago.

And the president will likely attribute the windfall to his tax cuts, which the administration says are stimulating economic activity and generating the torrent of tax revenue.

But the apparent good news will not strike some economists as surprising: This will be the third year in a row that the administration put forth relatively gloomy deficit forecasts early on, only to announce months later that things had turned out better than expected. To some skeptics, it’s beginning to look like an economic version of the old “expectations” game.

Even economists who hesitate to accuse the White House of playing games say the claims of good news on the budget are unfortunate because they make people unjustifiably sanguine about the government’s current fiscal health.

Link

More Below the Ad