Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Hold On Chimpy, Friday's Coming

I smell a Friday night press release coming:

The White House will project soon that this year's federal deficit will exceed $420 billion, congressional aides said, a record figure certain to ignite partisan warfare over President Bush (news - web sites)'s handling of the economy.

[snip]

White House budget office spokesman Chad Kolton said the report will be issued when it is ready, and offered no date. Friday will be a day after the Democratic National Convention ends — a release date that would prevent presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., and others at the gathering from citing its figures to criticize Bush.

 
Hmmmmm.  Record deficit revealed just over four months prior to an election.  How can you spin that, spokesman Kolton?

[T]he White House was ready to emphasize that the figure is well below the $521 billion it projected for this year last February, and tie it to improvements in the economy.

"It is hard to disregard the strong progress made on the economy and our fiscal situation," [White House budget office spokesman Chad] Kolton said Tuesday.


Clever boy, claim that the record deficit is less than what you said it might be five months ago.  Think that will work?

Democrats have said Bush purposely overestimated this year's budget gap so he could take credit for improvement when the real figures came in.

"The new estimate ... will set a new record of fiscal mismanagement and deficit spending," said Kerry economic adviser Gene Sperling.


 

Oh, well.  At least the price of oil is coming down like Bandar Bush promised, right?

Crude prices shot to a 21-year high Wednesday as markets reacted to a threat by Russian authorities to shut down most of the production from that country's largest oil company.

D'oh!!