Bequeathing the Very Best

clipped from www.nytimes.com The White House predicted on Monday that the Bush administration would bequeath a record deficit of $482 billion to the next president — a sobering turnabout in the nation’s fiscal condition from 2001 when President Bush took office and inherited three consecutive years of budget surpluses. By most accounts, the worst seems yet to come. The deficit announced by Jim Nussle, the White House budget director, does not reflect the full cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential $50 billion cost of another economic stimulus package or the prospect of steeper losses in tax revenue or further declines in the housing market. The deficit projected for 2009 would be the largest in absolute terms. The White House and many economists prefer to measure the deficit as a share of the economy. The White House said the 2009 deficit would be 3.3 percent of the economy. That is the largest share since 2004, but well below the percentages recorded in the mid-1980s and early 1990s.

Yeah, but I bet W's crew doesn't steal the O's off of the keyboards in the White House!

And who said the Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility? I realize that we've had Wars, Terror, and Natural disasters up the wazoo the past 7+ years. But Bush has also introduced a lot of domestic spending, like prescription plan for seniors, that seem at odds with the GOP rhetoric.