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Deficit 2003: More than a half trillion. From the LA Times:

...the obvious question is whether cutting taxes makes sense just two years after Bush's [first] $1.35-trillion tax cut took effect in 2001. Three big arguments loom against further tax cuts.

First, Washington is already facing mammoth deficits. Private congressional estimates project that, excluding the money raised for Social Security, the federal government could run a deficit of as much as $530 billion this year, by far the largest ever. Under Bush's plan, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects huge deficits every year through the next decade.

Second, those deficits are undermining Washington's last opportunity to improve its fiscal position before the baby boom's retirement explodes the cost of Social Security and Medicare.

[...]

Third, cutting taxes during a war -- not only the conflict in Iraq but also the broader struggle against terrorism -- is unprecedented in American history. It amounts to asking the next generation to fund the national defense through a higher national debt.

Funding Cheney's war will indeed "leave no child behind."

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