The Dishonesty Thing

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/opinion/10krugman.html?th

 

September 10, 2004

OP-ED COLUMNIST

 

The Dishonesty Thing

By PAUL KRUGMAN

 

It's the dishonesty, stupid. The real issue in the

National Guard story isn't what George W. Bush did

three decades ago. It's the recent pattern of lies:

his assertions that he fulfilled his obligations when

he obviously didn't, the White House's repeated claims

that it had released all of the relevant documents

when it hadn't.

 

It's the same pattern of dishonesty, this time

involving personal matters that the public can easily

understand, that some of us have long seen on policy

issues, from global warming to the war in Iraq. On

budget matters, which is where I came in, serious

analysts now take administration dishonesty for

granted.

 

It wasn't always that way. Three years ago, those of

us who accused the administration of cooking the

budget books were ourselves accused, by moderates as

well as by Bush loyalists, of being " shrill. " These

days the coalition of the shrill has widened to

include almost every independent budget expert.

 

For example, back in February the Center on Budget and

Policy Priorities accused the Bush administration of,

in effect, playing three-card monte with budget

forecasts. It pointed out that the administration's

deficit forecast was far above those of independent

analysts, and suggested that this exaggeration was

deliberate.

 

" Overstating the 2004 deficit, " the center wrote,

" could allow the president to announce significant

'progress' on the deficit in late October - shortly

before Election Day - when the Treasury Department

announces the final figures. "

 

Was this a wild accusation from a liberal think tank?

No, it's conventional wisdom among experts. Two months

ago Stanley Collender, a respected nonpartisan

analyst, warned: " At some point over the next few

weeks, the Office of Management and Budget will

release the administration's midsession budget review

and try to convince everyone the federal deficit is

falling. Don't believe them. "

 

He went on to echo the center's analysis. The

administration's standard procedure, he said, is to

initially issue an unrealistically high deficit

forecast, which is " politically motivated or just

plain bad. " Then, when the actual number comes in

below the forecast, officials declare that the deficit

is falling, even though it's higher than the previous

year's deficit.

 

Goldman Sachs says the same. Last month one of its

analysts wrote that " the Office of Management and

Budget has perfected the art of underpromising and

overperforming in terms of its near-term budget

deficit forecasts. This creates the impression that

the deficit is narrowing when, in fact, it will be up

sharply. "

 

In other words, many reputable analysts think that the

Bush administration routinely fakes even its

short-term budget forecasts for the purposes of

political spin. And the fakery in its long-term

forecasts is much worse.

 

The administration claims to have a plan to cut the

deficit in half over the next five years. But even

Bruce Bartlett, a longtime tax-cut advocate, points

out that " projections showing deficits falling assume

that Bush's tax cuts expire on schedule. " But Mr. Bush

wants those tax cuts made permanent. That is, the

administration has a " plan " to reduce the deficit that

depends on Congress's not passing its own legislation.

 

Sounding definitely shrill, Mr. Bartlett says that

" anyone who thinks we can overcome our fiscal mess

without higher taxes is in denial. " Far from backing

down on his tax cuts, however, Mr. Bush is proposing

to push the budget much deeper into the red with

privatization programs that purport to offer something

for nothing.

 

As Newsweek's Allan Sloan writes, " The president

didn't exactly burden us with details about paying for

all this. It's great marketing: show your audience the

goodies but not the price tag. It's like going to the

supermarket, picking out your stuff and taking it home

without stopping at the checkout line to pay. The

bill? That will come later. "

 

Longtime readers will remember that that's exactly

what I said, shrilly, about Mr. Bush's proposals

during the 2000 campaign. Once again, he's running on

the claim that 2 - 1 = 4.

 

So what's the real plan? Some not usually shrill

people think that Mr. Bush will simply refuse to face

reality until it comes crashing in: Paul Volcker, the

former Federal Reserve chairman, says there's a 75

percent chance of a financial crisis in the next five

years.

 

Nobody knows what Mr. Bush would really do about taxes

and spending in a second term. What we do know is that

on this, as on many matters, he won't tell the truth.

 

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Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company