AJC swipes at Bush again

They just keep beating this lame duck.

Bush’s tax cuts helped eliminate the surpluses of the Clinton years and drive the annual budget deficit to a record $413 billion in 2004. The deficit later plummeted to $162 billion in 2007 but soared to $455 billion in the fiscal year that ended in September.

It wasn't Bush tax cuts that did this. While tax revenues did dip in 2002 and 2003, due to the recession at that time, they quickly rebounded and are at an all-time high by 2007. Here's personal income taxes and total tax revenue (all sources, in millions of dollars) for a few years:

1995 590,244 1,351,932
1996 656,417 1,453,177
1997 737,466 1,579,423
1998 828,586 1,721,955
1999 879,480 1,827,645
2000 1,004,462 2,025,457
2001 994,339 1,991,426
2002 858,345 1,853,395
2003 793,699 1,782,532
2004 808,959 1,880,279
2005 977,222 2,153,859
2006 1,043,908 2,407,254
2007 1,163,472 2,568,239
2008* 1,219,661 2,521,175 (*estimated, source tax policy center)

The problem was not the Government's income, but rather its outlay:

FY 2000 1,813,718
FY 2001 2,026,886
FY 2002 2,280,841
FY 2003 2,518,447
FY 2004 2,518,626
FY 2005 2,604,577
FY 2006 2,873,261

Note: numbers may not be in same adjusted dollars, I could not find that notation in either source used.
Note: not sure if first set of numbers is FY or calendar.

Spending increased about 30% in the administration, which is the real problem, which annual government spending per household rising to $23,494 in 2007 (up from $20,451 in 2000), up 14.8% over the period.

Let's face it, the Government has run a deficit almost every year since 1965. The one noticeable (very noticeable) change comes under Clinton, but not until Newt's Congress takes over.