The budget deficit refers to actual changes in the debt, not what we think the changes will be. Budget deficit projections refer to the what we think the changes will be.
But say what you will about "what they've done for the past four years", I for one am sure glad that we're not talking about something Gore & Kerry did for the past four years.
The Republicans in Congress would have forced Gore and Kerry to maintain fiscal discipline, just as (or even more effectively than) they forced Clinton to do so. When there's a Republican in the White House, they give him a free pass on all that.
That's why what the country really needs is for the socialists to be purged from the democrat party. they need the bill clinton/bill richardson types to be the left. with the zell millers and the joe liebermans on the right. that party would actually compete with the GOP on the battlefield of ideas. Right now we have two irreconcilable parties, which actually liberates both from accountability. They really have very little competition because so few ppl would be able to vote for either/or. They are too far apart. And yet the dims got 48% so maybe I am totally off base. I feel like there is no way to exert pressure on the GOP, with the dims so far out to lunch, and I find that very frustrating. It doesnt feel like a two party system. It feels like a one party system. It's like, you can choose DSL or Cable, but you can't choose the provider. the primary system is totally not working.
That is incorrect. The budget deficit refers to this years budget difference between revenues and expenditures.