Deficits are larger than they appear
Why our deficits today will be much bigger than deficits reported at the end of the Bush Administration? Because it will now include spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare reimbursements to physicians and the cost of disaster responses. Aren’t you surprised that these were not included in the first place? They were after all costs to the nation, right?
Accounting tricks and gimmicks were used by the Bush Administration, almost in the spirit of corrupt business practices like Enron or more recently Satyam, to give an illusion of lower deficits in order to prevent criticism of high spending. So when we pull our hair out in anguish regarding our huge deficits, just remember that they aren’t shown to be as huge as they actually are. Hopefully, this reality check although difficult to swallow should put things in perspective and give an idea of the deep hole we’ve dug ourselves into. Now we at least we can start climbing out.
