Doesn't cutting the deficit in half in 5 years mean

[Renew Deal]

that we will have a $250 million annual deficit then?

[eaprez]

1. I think its

BILLION or TRILLION

[kalian]

2. Yup....but the word "half" appears to be magical....

and besides, we don't know what they'll be "cutting" out of the
deficit...

[spanone]

3. It means he's lying.

[nostamj]

4. it's meaningless and a LIE

his "budget" doesn't include the costs of Iraq or Afghanistan.

but "I WILL CUT THE DEFICIT IN HALF" sounds really good.

but it means NOTHING

[unblock]

5. amazingly easy to cut it in half after MUCH more than doubling it ....

anyone can lose 25 pounds after binging to put on 150 extra pounds.
problem is, you still put on 125 net, ....

[librechik]

6. only 18% of the budget is discretionary. How is he going

to cut the deficit using that figure? Even if he carved it ALL away, over 5 years, that would hardly touch the deficit.

It is a blatant lie.

[nostamj]

7. Russert even showed him the facts...

cut spending or raise taxes

but FACTS have never gotten in the way of *

[Toots]

8. But going from a 290 billion SURPLUS it is still over a half trillion

Down from what his predecessor left him. And I'm sure this estimate will be just as accurate as his last three have been.

[Festivito]

9. Or just over $300 Billion per year in five years.

512 billion dollar deficit this year, 100 B$ more after elections for Iraq war, totlaling 612 B$ this next year.

306 billion dollars would be half, assuming there are no more incursions. Gulp!

At 500 billion dollar deficit per year, 5 years means 2,500 billion dollars added to the 7,000 billion dollar debt.

We will take in 1,900 billion tax dollars, the president's budget is 2,400 billion for next year. (Difference 500 billion, should actually be 512 billion) There are over 6 billion people on the planet, 0.280 billion live in the United States.

$612 billion is $2185 per American person this year (some hoping for a $300 tax cut this year) working or not. $9,500 billion in five years means each American will owe $34,000 total per person working or not. (BTW: That is 0.000,034 billion dollars per person.)

Bill Gates was worth around 90 billion some time ago.

If Billions, Millions and Trillions get mixed up, always use Billions.

A single billion would make a person a millionaire one-thousand times over.