These kinds of reports are

These kinds of reports are annoying: $1.82T Shortfall Predicted in Bush Budget, not for political reasons, but for methodological ones. While I understand the need to make projections, to pretend as if they are written in stone is problematic. We really don't know what the next ten years will bring budget-wise, and therefore the usefulness of such projections for policy-making as anything more than a general guideline is highly questionable . If one were to go back and find similar projections in the early 1990s, one would find that the projections were for deficits as far as the eye could see. No one predicted the boom of the 90s, and no one knows what will happen in the next 10 years, so posturing based on these projections is either willful ignorance, or disingenuousness.

On a political front, I think that the main solution to deficits is economic growth, and that restructuring elements of the tax code, like the double-taxation on dividends, will spur growth, and hence result in more money in the treasury.

Posted by Steven Taylor at March 8, 2025 09:00 AM | TrackBack