Federal deficit now lowest in 4 years

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal budget deficit, helped by a gusher of tax revenues, fell to $247.7 billion in 2006, the smallest amount of red ink in four years.

The deficit for the budget year that ended Sept. 30 was 22.3 percent lower than the $318.7 billion imbalance for 2005, handing President Bush an economic bragging point as Republicans go into the final four weeks of a battle for control of Congress.

Bush called the 2006 outcome a "dramatic reduction" in the deficit which allowed him to fulfill his 2004 campaign pledge of cutting the deficit in half earlier than his original 2009 target date.

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What terrible news for our Economic Gloom & Doom crowd! Dems of course will blame Mark Foley, Karl Rove, and the usual cabal of Zionist bankers for this one.

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Delivering tasty bite-sized Clues to liberals since 1965.

And what is the demo economic plan should they gain control of the House? Well, according to Charlie Rangle (who would chair the ways and means committee), it would be raise taxes. Charlie thinks the US can tax its way to prosperity! Charlie wants to do away with every Bush tax reduction. That money doesn't belong to the people who earned it, that money belongs to Charlie and demos! You don't know how to best spend and invest your own money, Charlie and the demos know best.

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"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
Winston Churchill

who was president 4 years ago?

nutty post

Greatest terrorist attack on US soil ever, fighting two wars, major tax cuts and still significant reductions in the deficit. This is very impressive. A strong economy can do great things. Now if Congress could just get their spending under control.

He's still selling us out to china.

Every day that passes, China owns more and more of our debt. Keep patting yourselves on the back for this humungous accomplishment.

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America is a melting pot, the people at the bottom get burned while all the scum floats to the top.
- - - Charlie King

Hurray, I didn't fail quite as miserably.

Those "economic numbers" are a lie, and y'all know it.

If you don't, then I don't have time to educate you.

Here's a clue: take a look at the "out-of-budget" expenses in Iraq for the past three years.

Heads-up? You bet. None of that is reflected in the "official" deficit. Neither is SS borrowing, or a thousand other things.

Bushie is a liar. Period full stop. The man needs to be tossed out of office, along with all his lying minions.

I really truly fear for the security of this nation, at this point.

And it has nothing to do with any terrorists.

It has more to do with the "man in charge".

It is a cheap trick for elections. The performance of this administration, and more specificaly this congress has been abysmal. They have spent and spent with no constraint in the interest of a few. THey ALL deserve to hang for their treachery, theft, lies, and false war.

True, but the tax revenue increase far outpaced the spending:

"Both spending and tax revenues climbed to all-time highs in 2006. The sharp narrowing of the deficit reflected the fact that revenues climbed by 11.7 percent, outpacing the 7.3 percent increase in spending.
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The reason for the improvement this year was a second consecutive big jump in revenues, propelled by strong economic strength. The 11.7 percent increase in revenues was the second biggest percentage gain in history."

If that were true, we wouldn't have a defecit. Combine your numbers with the increase in the money supply and no wonder there is a tax revenue increase. The increase is not just simply from shifting the laufer curve.

Also, I have not looked at it but if the war spending is off-budget then they are being very misleading.