Feb. 19, 2006 - 23:38 MST

BUT LIARS FIGURE

Smoke and mirrors on the Potomac make things hazy and crazy of course, sometimes more so that others. After all it's only money - - - - yours and mine. An article in The Denver Post this morning in the Perspective Section by David broder of The Washington Post tries to bring a bit of clarity to things and if accurate does bode ill for my great grandchildren among others. Bolds and italics mine. In full then, here it is:

THE DISAPPEARING TRILLION

"Back when the late John Mitchell was attorney general in the Nixon administration, he advised reporters, "Watch what we do, not what we say." That advice certainly applies to the Bush administration as well.

"The latest bit of evidence to come to my attention is what you might think of as the Case of the Disappearing TRiollion."

"The tipp-off arrived last week in an e-mmail from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. It is a Washington research organization with a distiinctly liberal point of view but a deserved reputation for accuracy in its figures."

IN this case, the information the center cites was confirmed to me -- though with a very different interpretation -- by officials of the White House Office of Management and Budget. It involves the treatment in the budget of the Bush tax cuts passed by Congress in 2001 and 2003."

"Those rate reductionss, when enacted, had expiration dates of 2010, designed to keep their long-term costs within the limits set by the budget resolutions of which they were a part. The president is urging Congress to make those tax cuts permanent, but his proposal is controversial and has not yet passed."

" This year, however, the budget the president submitted on Feb. 6 simply assumes that the tax cut has been made permanent -- and thus includes them in the "baseline" for all future years."

"The effect, according to the center's analysis, is that "legislation to make these tax cuts permanent will be scored as hoving no cost whatsoever." In fact, this analysis says, "The administration's proposal, by changing the rules after the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were enacted but before they are extended, would ensure that the cost of continuing the tax cuts in the years after the current sunset dates would never be counted."

"The costs in those years were not counted when the tax cuts were first enacted . . . . Now, the administration is proposing that the tax cuts for those years also be ignored when the tax cuts are extended. To fail ever to count the cost of the tax cuts in the years after the sunset dates . . . . . would represent one of the largest and most flagrant budget gimmicks in recent memory."

"How large ? The Congressional Budget Office scores the cost of making these tax cuts permanent as $1.6 trillion over the next decade.

"The administrations estimate is somewhat less -- $1.35 trillion."

"But, the foks at OMB told me, it's wrong to to claim they are hiding that cost. They told me to get out my copy of the budget, and told me right where to look. And sure enough, on column 8, Line 11 of Table S-7 on page 324 of the green-bordered book, I found the very figure they had cited,: $1.35 trillion."

"The heading on the chart of Effects of Proposals on REceipts reads: "Make Permanent Certain Tax Cuts ENacted in 2001 and 2003 (assumed in the baseline)." Those four last words conceal more than $1 trillion worth of lost revenue."

"But that is not all, my OMB friends argued. If you turn to the separate 396-page volume called Analytical Perspectives, as any conscientious citizen should do, on Page 215 and Page 360, you will also find acknowledgment of the changes in the bookkeeping."

"The key passage says, without elaboration, that "the 2001 ACt and 2003 Act provisions were not intended to be temporary,and not extending them in the baseline raises inappropriate procedural roadblocks to extending them at current rates." That sentence must be parsed. The basis for saying those two tax cuts were "not intended to be temporary" is that when Bush recommended them to Congress, he said they should be permanent. But copngress put time limits on them -- which Bush now finds it inconvenient to acknowledge."

"And those "inappropriate roadblocks to extending them" ? Translation: IF you tell Congress the cost of making those tax cuts permanent, lawmakers might have second thoughts about doing it."

"In fact, it turns out that Bush tried to get Congress to go along with this bookkeeping switch back in 2004, actually submitting legislation to authorize the change. The House refused to accept it."

"He put it back in his budget last year, with the same result. But this year he's back again, with more urgency, as he presses the case to make these tax cuts permanent."

"Now that you know exactly how easy it is to find this all explained in the budget, I'm sure you are as reassured as I am about the candor of this administration."

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If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, is it a duck ? A lame duck ?

Not being a CPA, legislative expert or taxman, all I can do is look at what Mr.David Broder wrote and toss it in the basked of BS from BUSH and accept Mr. Broder's words as being pretty well true.

After all he has pushed the tax cuts through for the corporations, the ones that derive their profits from the income derived from work shipped overseas, the ones who fight tooth and nail the unionization, the ones who are cutting medical benefits and pensions -- all because they are losing money. And he wants his administration to have complete power to listen to every breath we take, every word we utter, and I suppose if he could find a way - - - every thought we think.

There is a saying I've heard in recent years which, I think, fits in this case as demonstrative of Mr. Bush's actions, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS." In my opinion he is not brilliant, but I feel he is an expert in BSing his way through his term.

Sometimes after putting things under the microscope this person comes to the conclusion and accepts the words of my grandpa who confused me when he once said, "Figures don't lie, BUT LIARS FIGURE . . . . . . . . . . . .