Don't do that and tell me it's raining

The Administration would have you believe that the $400 billion deficit the U.S. will have this year is because of Hurricane Katrina clean-up.

Reports the Chicago Tribune (reg.req.):

Even with December's surplus, experts are predicting that the budget deficit for this year could well surge above $400 billion, reflecting increased government spending to help with reconstruction efforts in hurricane-ravaged states along the Gulf Coast.

Katrina clean-up accounts for, oh, $1 billion—0.25%—of the deficit. The other $399 billion comes from a deliberate sequence of ideologically-driven tax cuts that have (a) left the Federal government vastly under-funded, which (b) is what the Administration wanted in the first place.

The Tribune goes on directly:

President Bush has vowed to cut the deficit in half by 2009 and still preserve the tax cuts he pushed through Congress in his first term.

I don't need Anne's math degree to find fault with that goal.

Let's review the Administration's record:

1. The GOP cuts taxes severely.
2. The GOP cuts spending on Federal programs (FEMA? CDC?) and staffs them with incompetent flunkies.
3. The programs fail miserably.
4. The GOP claims that, because the programs are failing miserably, the programs and the taxes that fund them should be cut further.
5. Rinse and repeat.

This is the program outlined by Grover Norquist and his homeys almost 25 years ago.

Happy New Election Year, folks.