[Extipletape]

The deficit for the first five months of the budget year is down sharply from a year ago as the growth in government tax collections continues to outpace growth in spending. Demonstrating once again how the government takes in more money in tax revenue when tax rates were lowered, not raised. That's the good part of the report.

The Treasury Department reported that the deficit from October through February totaled $162.2 billion, down 25.5 percent from the same period last year. It all sounds great, doesn't it?

But...............

That improvement came even though the deficit in February hit $120 billion, up 0.6 percent from last February's deficit of $119.2 billion. It would seem that the politicians haven't quite gotten the message that out of control spending and running up deficits are one of the reasons Americans lost confidence in the GOP.

Federal Deficit Down Sharply This Period

[DrCeshing]

It's deceiving to try to say that the deficit being down 25% is a good thing when you consider that the deficits of the last 5 years are among the largest in American history. At about an average of $400 billion a year, if you cut it by 25% to $300 billion, it's still very, very pathetic.

I think that it's time for national sacrifice, although don't try telling that to Bush because he never asked for anything from his citizens after 9/11 except to go shopping. When the two wars were being planned and started, he should've held off on future tax cuts and corporate welfare and asked America to just hold off for a few years so that the wars could be paid for. Instead, Bill Clinton is getting tens of thousands of dollars back every year and companies like IBM are getting billions in retroactive and corporate tax cuts.