[expat_panama]

He was probably talking about the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP (1/2 trillion divided by 10 trillion).  It's arguably lower if you say the deficit is the actual change in the debt from year to year (and not what congress had budgeted).   Then you get numbers like:

But when you use 'real-time' 2004 numbers, it changes from day to day.  So if the economy goes as sour as Kerry says it is, that 3% can go up to 5% easy.

[RJCogburn]

Number games.

The truth is the huge deficit is simply a manifestation of GWB's major expansion of government....bigger, more powerful, more intrusive.

He is a huge disappointment.