PRESIDENT BUSH MAY MEET VOW TO HALVE THE DEFICIT - THREE YEARS EARLY

Investor’s Business Daily reports: “Aided by surging tax receipts, President Bush may make good on his pledge to cut the deficit in half in 2006 — three years early.”

Tax revenues are running $176 billion, or 12.9%, over last year, the Treasury Department said Monday. The Congressional Budget Office said receipts have risen faster over the first eight months of fiscal ‘06 than in any other such period over the past 25 years — except for last year’s 15.5% jump.

The 2006 deficit through May was $227 billion, down from $273 billion at this time last year. Spending is up $130 billion, or 7.9%.

The CBO forecast in May that the 2006 deficit could fall as low as $300 billion. Michael Englund, chief economist of Action Economics, has long expected a deficit of about $270 billion this year. Now he thinks there’s a chance the “remarkable strength in receipts” will push the deficit even lower.

With the economy topping $13 trillion this year, a $270 billion deficit would equal less than 2.1% of GDP, easily beating the president’s 2.25% goal. Bush made his vow when the White House had a dour 2004 deficit forecast of 4.5% of GDP, or $521 billion. The actual ‘04 deficit came in at $412 billion, or 3.5% of GDP, before falling to $318 billion, or 2.6% of GDP, in 2005.

A CBO analysis last week noted that withheld individual income and payroll taxes are up 7.6% from a year ago, with the gains picking up in recent months.

“Those gains suggest solid growth in wages and salaries in the national economy,” CBO said.

While gains are broad, those at higher-income levels are enjoying bigger salary hikes. Because they pay higher rates, federal tax revenues soar when they do well.

Those making over $200,000 now pay 46.6% of total income taxes, presidential adviser Karl Rove recently said. That’s up from 40.5% — despite Bush’s tax cuts.

Nonwithheld income tax receipts are up about 20% vs. a year ago. That may reflect year-end bonuses and capital gains.

Corporate income taxes are up about 30% from last year’s pace.

We rest our case.

THE CRYING YOU HEAR IS HOWARD DEAN AND THE REST OF THE DEOMOCRATIC PARTY

That’s the sounds emanating from DNC chairman Howard Dean’s office and from the nutters at DailyKos and Democratic Underground after hearing that Karl Rove won’t be indicted in the Plame investigation. In the meantime, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman is demanding an apology from Dean and others for their “rush to judgement” about Rove. Fat chance that’ll happen.

“We believe that the special counsel’s decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove’s conduct,” Rove attorney Robert Luskin said in a statement. “In deference to the pending case, we will not make any further public statements about the subject matter of the investigation.” Fitzgerald’s decision ends speculation into the investigation that started in 2004 that Bush could lose his longtime political aide if criminal charges came down against him.

You’d think that it would but Mrs. Wilson’s attorney is already hinting about a civil suit. Talk about a politically-motivated vendetta. I can’t say that it’s surprising, though, considering how vindictive Mr. Wilson is. When dealing with people who willingly accuse the President of wrongdoing when they know the facts aren’t on their side, it’s hard to expect them to do the right thing.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats were quick to call for an investigation into the CIA leak and the connection to Rove, arguing that the controversy was just another reason for the president to clean house. “Good news for the White House, not so good news for America,” Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, said Tuesday in a cable television interview.

It’s time for these whiners to sit down and shut up. This is proof that they don’t believe in letting the facts speak for themselves, which isn’t suprising considering how willing John Murtha is in ignoring the Constitution’s guarantees of a fair trial and due process. In their mind, if a Republican, or someone in the military, is implicated in allegations of wrongdoing, then it’s presumed that this person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Shameful, huh?

“This is an enormous burden lifted off his shoulders. He always believed that he was totally innocent and that nothing would happen,” former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said of Rove. Gingrich added that Rove’s situation shows that something is wrong with the current legal system. “There’s something wrong when your entire life can be under this kind of threat for two full years, you spend lots and lots of money on lawyers, lots of time going to the grand jury and there’s nothing there,” Gingrich said.

There certainly is, Mr. Newt. There certainly is. And they’re known as Democrats. We can find a cure for all kinds of cancer but they haven’t found a cure for this specific type of cancer. We can all hope.