Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (410041)	5/29/2003 11:54:47 AM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

That is misleading at best. (Even if I did supply the link) Conspiracy theorists should remember that much of the evidence against Mr Hussein came not from the American and British governments or their spies, but from two unimpeachable sources. They were the United Nations weapons inspectors, and Mr Hussein himself. ... Newsweek reported that the weapons were destroyed secretly, in order to hide their existence from inspectors, in the hopes of someday resuming production after inspections had finished. The CIA and MI6 were told the same story, Newsweek reported. However, these facts were "hushed up by the U.N. inspectors" in order to "bluff Saddam into disclosing still more", according to Newsweek. In spite the bluffs, all indications are that the weapons were destroyed in 1995. There was nothing left to disclose.

To: Neocon who wrote (410041)	5/29/2003 12:07:21 PM
From: Bald Eagle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

US 'faces future of chronic deficits' By Peronet Despeignes in Washington Published: May 28 2003 21:57 \| Last Updated: May 29 2003 1:16 The Bush administration has shelved a report commissioned by the Treasury that shows the US currently faces a future of chronic federal budget deficits totalling at least $44,200bn in current US dollars. The study, the most comprehensive assessment of how the US government is at risk of being overwhelmed by the "baby boom" generation's future healthcare and retirement costs, was commis sioned by then-Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill. But the Bush administration chose to keep the findings out of the annual budget report for fiscal year 2004, published in February, as the White House campaigned for a tax-cut package that critics claim will expand future deficits. The study asserts that sharp tax increases, massive spending cuts or a painful mix of both are unavoidable if the US is to meet benefit promises to future generations. It estimates that closing the gap would require the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 66 per cent across-the-board income tax increase. The study was being circulated as an independent working paper among Washington think-tanks as President George W. Bush on Wednesday signed into law a 10-year, $350bn tax-cut package he welcomed as a victory for hard-working Americans and the economy. The analysis was spearheaded by Kent Smetters, then-Treasury deputy assistant secretary for economic policy, and Jagdessh Gokhale, then a consultant to the Treasury. Mr Gokhale, now an economist for the Cleveland Federal Reserve, said: "When we were conducting the study, my impression was that it was slated to appear [in the Budget]. At some point, the momentum builds and you think everything is a go, and then the decision came down that we weren't part of the prospective budget." Mr O'Neill, who was fired last December, refused to comment. The study's analysis of future deficits dwarfs previous estimates of the financial challenge facing Washington. It is roughly equivalent to 10 times the publicly held national debt, four years of US economic output or more than 94 per cent of all US household assets. Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, last week bemoaned what he called Washington's "deafening" silence about the future crunch. The estimates reflect the extent to which the annual deficit, the national debt and other widely reported, backward-looking data are becoming archaic and misleading as measures of the government's solvency. Mr Smetters, now a University of Pennsylvania finance professor, said tax cuts were only a fraction of the imbalance, and that the bigger problem "is the whole [budget] language we're using". Laurence Kotlikoff, an expert on long-term budget accounting, alleged in a recent Boston Globe editorial that the Bush administration suppressed the research to ease passage of the tax-cut plan. An administration official said the study was designed as a thought-piece for internal discussion - one among many left every year on the cutting-room floor - and noted the budget's extensive discussion of projected, 75-year Social Security and Medicare shortfalls. news.ft.com