Editorial: Fuzzy math’s zenith

Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004 | 8:53 a.m.

President Bush unveiled his budget this week and touted his plans to reduce the federal deficit to $237 billion within five years, a sharp drop from this year's record deficit of $521 billion. That sounds great, but a closer look at the president's proposal reveals something very different. For starters, the president doesn't factor into his budget the costs of maintaining troops in Afghanistan and Iraq beyond this year, even though U.S. troops won't be home anytime soon. Our presence in those two countries is costly: There are some estimates that keeping military forces in Iraq could cost as much as $50 billion after the current budget year. The president also is predicting that the first five years of his prescription drug benefit will cost $178 billion, but the drug benefit's cost balloons to $356 billion in the second five years. Bush also wants to mak e permanent more than $1.1 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years, but of that amount only $175 billion would take eff! ect over the next five years. The remainder, $947 billion, wouldn't kick in until 2009, which is convenient since Bush would be out of office in 2009 if he's re-elected this year.

It's clear that the president's efforts to shore up his conservative base is causing him to resort to this budget deception. But this is failing miserably as people from all ideological stripes see through the charade. One of the areas where the president is given decent marks by the public, even among some of those Americans who disagree with his policies, is for sincerity. His budget, however, shows that he is far more worried about being re-elected than leveling with the American people. All of this calls to mind one of Bush's claims during the 2000 presidential campaign. Bush accused Al Gore of using "fuzzy numbers" when Gore questioned Bush's budget and tax policies. It sounds to us like Gore knew what he was talking about, and that it is Bush who is quite the expert on fuzzy math.