Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Bush: Cooking the books on the economy
Dan Milbank of WaPo writes:
Readers, can you help Dana out?
Two years ago, the administration forecast that there would be 3.4 million more jobs in 2003 than there were in 2000. And it predicted a budget deficit for fiscal 2004 of $14 billion. The economy ended up losing 1.7 million jobs over that period, and the budget deficit for this year is on course to be $521 billion.
These are not isolated cases. Over three years, the administration has repeatedly and significantly overstated the government's fiscal health and the number of jobs the economy would create, but economists and politicians disagree about why.
Readers, can you help Dana out?