Newspaper vs. Birdcage Liner

For useful and accurate information, buy and read the news pages of the Wall Street Journal: a newspaper:

David Wessel: Washington Wire: Do Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves? Not if you read the fine print in the new White House midsession review of budget trends. "While difficult to estimate precisely," Treasury long-run analyses of the effects of President Bush's tax cuts "may ultimately" raise total national output of goods and services by 0.7%. So is that enough to pay for the tax cuts, even after allowing them to work their economic magic over the next 10 years? The Center for Budget Policies and Priorities.... "A 0.7 percent increase in the economic output that the Congressional Budget Office has projected for 2016 would represent an additional $146 billion [in gross domestic product].... If new revenues equaled as much as 20% of the additional output, the increase in revenues resulting from making the tax cuts permanent (assuming Treasury's best-case assumptions) would be $29 billion."

That's a lot of money. But how does it compare to the size of the president' tax cuts? The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, using conventional analyses, says making the president's tax cuts permanent would reduce federal revenues in 2016 by $314 billion. That is more than 10 times what the Treasury analysis suggests tax cuts would generate by prompting more hours of work, more savings and investment and more efficient use of resources.

For birdcage liner, buy the New York Times:

Jeremy Peters: Bush Cheers High Tax Revenues - New York Times: Surprisingly high tax revenues will help the federal government reduce its budget deficit faster than planned, President Bush said toda.... [T]he government is likely to finish its fiscal year on Sept. 30 with a deficit of $296 billion, about $127 billion less than initially forecast. The projected deficit decline helps Mr. Bush make a case that the tax cuts his administration pushed through Congress in 2001 and 2003 should be made permanent.... Bush said the latest budget figures were evidence that his administration's program of tax cuts was behind the country's prosperity. "Together, these tax cuts left nearly $1.1 trillion in the hands of American workers and families and small business owners," he said. "They used this money to help fuel an economic resurgence." But Democrats and independent budget analysts say that government revenues are now only barely above their level of six years ago, before the economy went into a brief recession. They say that this year's tax receipts appear to be a surge only because the last five years were so weak...

Or buy the Washington Post:

William Branigin and Paul Blustein: Budget Deficit Estimate Drops to $296B: Bush hailed a report today from the Office of Management and Budget showing that this year's budget deficit "will actually come in at about $296 billion," compared to what he said was the White House's "original projection" of $423 billion. The midyear revision is attributable in large part to a recent surge in tax revenue."That's what happens when you implement pro-growth economic policies," Bush said, pointing to tax cuts that he said have left nearly $1.1 trillion in the hands of workers and business owners. "We're way ahead of cutting the federal deficit in half by 2009. As a matter of fact... we're now a full year ahead of schedule. Our policies are working."Bush cautioned, however, that "we cannot depend on just a growing economy... to keep cutting the deficit." He called on Congress to help cut "wasteful spending" and to tackle what he said was "unsustainable growth in spending for entitlement programs," such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.Congressional Democrats blasted Bush's speech, saying that the deficit remains too large and charging that the administration put out a gloomy early forecast in order to claim better-than-expected results later on.Other administration critics contend that the favorable news about the money rolling into the Treasury stems largely from shifts in the economy -- including fatter corporate profits, executive bonuses and stock market gains -- that reflect growing inequality...