Btw, Back Talk is a self described liberal academic, not a conservative.

True_Liberal smugly predicts that liberals “will choose to ignore or manipulate the data”. But no liberals take the bait.

Then HP quotes a conservative blogger who promptly proceeds to ignore and manipulate the data of the Clinton years.

Pot, meet Kettle.

HP,
Far be it for me to pooh-pooh good news (there’s precious little of it these days). Actually, I’m quite pleased to hear the deficit is not as god-awful bad as it has been in previous years. So don’t get me wrong. But isn’t it fair to describe this as a textbook case of meeting lowered expectations? It sure seems that way to me.

Gas, by the way is down to $2/gallon! And the stock market is reaching pre-Bush levels! If peace should break out I guess things will be nearly as nice as they were during the Clinton years. Is that the standard now? If so, party on!

But what you need to know is the size of the deficit relative to the GDP, and that number is down to 1.9%….

We are now well below the the average budget deficit over the last 30 years, which is 2.6%. And look at that trend over the last 3 years. It’s better than anyone predicted as recently as 6 months ago. You can see that we had a surplus during the Clinton years, but everyone agrees that it was an illusion due in large part to the stock market bubble that finally burst shortly after Bush took office. The end of that speculative market, the attacks of 9/11, and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq all took their toll on the federal budget. Viewed in that light, it is simply amazing that the deficit is as small as it is now.

God bless them tax cuts! More here.

The deficit is now not the most awful deficit Bush has produced. In fact, by Bush’s standards, its pretty good.

Wow. Whoopee.

Feel free to wake me up when Bush and this Congress balance the budget (like Clinton and Gingrich did) and we’ll all celebrate. Ok?

So excuse me if I choose to ignore or manipulate the data.