http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/16/BU103288.DTLAbout 77 million Baby Boomers will start retiring five years from now. That should scare the hell out of you.
Why? Because our footloose friends at the White House admitted Tuesday that the federal budget deficit will soar this year to a record $455 billion and then climb even higher in 2004.
Those are conservative estimates, mind you. They don't reflect future costs related to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, or the full impact of the Bush administration's tax cuts becoming permanent, as is expected to be the case.
Nevertheless, the White House said it will pare back the deficit to $226 billion by 2008, although an administration spokesman didn't elaborate for reporters on how this would happen.
"That looks to me like wishful thinking," commented Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization in Arlington, Va. , advocating fiscal responsibility. "The administration's reduction path for the deficit doesn't seem realistic."
BTW, they have a poll on how to fix. Leading answer at time I posted at 69% was to bring back Bill Clinton. Take that AWOL!