{"id":913,"date":"2003-02-05T03:45:49","date_gmt":"2003-02-05T19:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/02\/05\/bush-sets-new-record\/"},"modified":"2019-12-04T14:11:48","modified_gmt":"2019-12-04T22:11:48","slug":"bush-sets-new-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/02\/05\/bush-sets-new-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush sets new record"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:15353,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/story.news.yahoo.com\\\/news?tmpl=story2&amp;u=\\\/030204\\\/161\\\/370et.html&amp;e=1&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20050401233715\\\/http:\\\/\\\/story.news.yahoo.com:80\\\/news?tmpl=story2&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-13 17:26:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-07 06:26:22&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-16 16:36:20&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-23 09:26:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-30 17:26:14&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:true,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-30 17:26:14&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:15354,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.megnut.com\\\/political\\\/002548.asp&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20040221130832\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.megnut.com:80\\\/political\\\/002548.asp&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-13 17:26:07&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-07 06:26:22&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-16 16:36:20&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-23 09:26:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-30 17:26:15&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:true,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-30 17:26:15&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/graphics\/2003\/02\/graphics\/bush_deficit_graphic.jpg\" title=\"304 billion dollar deficit\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"304 billion dollar deficit\" src=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/graphics\/2003\/02\/graphics\/bush_deficit_graphic-thumb.gif\" width=\"150\" height=\"128\" align=\"right\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Well, Bush has gone and set a new record by plunging the U.S. into a $304,000,000,000 deficit, which is only likely to get worse and worse (I&#8217;ve seen some estimates eventually putting us at the <em>trillion<\/em> level) should we start turning Iraq into a molten slagheap. Doubly impressive when only a few years ago, at the end of Clinton&#8217;s time in office, the US actually had a $236 billion <em>surplus<\/em> &mdash; according to this infographic, the first time the US budget had been in the black at all since the Johnson\/Nixon switchover. Previous recordsetting defecits had been set by King George the First ($290.4 billion) and his predecessor, Ronald Reagan ($221.2 billion).<\/p>\n<p>I guess there&#8217;s always that drive to show up your folks by doing them one better, eh? Seems to me that Bush (and the country) would have been better off if he&#8217;d tried to show Clinton up by increasing the surplus, but hey, I&#8217;m no politician.<\/p>\n<p>And yes, I know that the Sep. 11<sup>th<\/sup> attacks have contributed heavily to our current deficit. However, I also know that the surplus was <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2001\/08\/dubyuhs_at_it_a.html\" title=\"Dubyuh's at it again\">virtually wiped out<\/a> <em>prior<\/em> to Sep. 11<sup>th<\/sup> with Bush&#8217;s tax rebate checks.<\/p>\n<p>Grrr. Can we just get to the next round of elections please? My single vote might not be enough to get Bush out of office on its own, but I&#8217;m sure itching to do my part to try.<\/p>\n<p>(Infographic from <a href=\"http:\/\/story.news.yahoo.com\/news?tmpl=story2&amp;u=\/030204\/161\/370et.html&amp;e=1\" title=\"Yahoo! News - Politics\">Yahoo!<\/a>, via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.megnut.com\/political\/002548.asp\" title=\"Not to be outdone by Daddy\">Megnut<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, Bush has gone and set a new record by plunging the U.S. into a $304,000,000,000 deficit, which is only likely to get worse and worse (I&#8217;ve seen some estimates eventually putting us at the <em>trillion<\/em> level) should we start turning Iraq into a molten slagheap. Can we just get to the next round of elections please? My single vote might not be enough to get Bush out of office on its own, but I&#8217;m sure itching to do my part to try.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}