BUDGET SURPLUS FOR DUMMIES

Jesus, are you people ever stupid. Here's the deal:

The Surplus claim is achieved by ignoring or minimizing a bunch of "solve right now" challenges. For example, Bush is just ignoring with a "patch" the Alternate Minimum Tax fix, the single tax that is raping the middle class.

The alternative minimum tax (or AMT) is an extra tax some people have to pay on top of the regular income tax. ("You just think you owe $500, asshole. You really owe $15K."). The AMT provides an alternative set of rules for calculating your income tax, in case the government decides you are filthy rich instead of almost fucking poor because you can afford to pay your rent without putting it on a credit card. If you're already paying at least as much as the AMT because of the "regular" income tax, you don't have to pay AMT. But if your regular tax falls below this minimum, you have to make up the difference by paying alternative minimum tax. So with 41% or more of the people paying NO INCOME TAX AT ALL (42 million people), it comes as a shock to find your tax has gone from zero to $20,000 that you don't have.

The middle class is being raped by the current Bush tax cuts because the AMT puts more and more incomes into a higher tax bracket because wages went from $8 an hour to $9 an hour. Put another way, people who weren't rich in 1980 are now classified as wealthy and are getting whacked.

So Bush saves the GOP by saying to the taxpayer suddenly facing AMT this year to "fuhgedaboudit," you don't have to pay nothin.....this year.

So while the Bush one year fix costs the Treasury $50 bil, nothing is lost over the next four because Bush just ignores it. 4 years times $50 bil equals $200 billion deficit right there.

IF the AMT is fixed, something the Democrats are not interested in doing because they want to fund the Welfare State, it would mean a tax hike for everyone else.

Next, the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will drop like magic, from $142 billion next year to $50 billion the following year. Huh????

And Bush plans to borrow from Social Security to achieve his budget surplus -- and that money will have to be repaid out of future taxes, or beneficiaries will suffer.

To be fair (I hate being fair) Bush is telling it like it is with Medicare. It's broken. The Democrats do not want to fix it, that's another reason why they want a tax increase. In fiscal 2006, that's LAST YEAR, the total federal debt was $8.45 trillion.

In 2012, because the budget is balanced, it will reach $11.49 trillion. That is $3 trillion of added debt in just six years.....while running a budget surplus.

So now you know how we have a deficit increase of more than a trillion dollars while at the same time running a surplus. WTF did you learn math? In the public school system?