Bush Plan Would Halve Deficit in 5 Years
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's next budget will propose spending restraints (Ed. Note: HAHAHAHA!) and other steps as part of a plan to slash federal deficits in half in the next five years, a White House budget official says.

White House budget officials have said they expect this year's deficit to be around $500 billion - shattering last year's record shortfall of $374 billion. That means the goal would be around $250 billion in red ink by 2009, they said.

In an interview Friday, Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the White House budget office, said Bush would halve the deficit "by pursuing very aggressively his pro-growth economic policies, and by leading the Congress toward overall policies of fiscal restraint. (Ed. Note: HAHAHAHA!) And if the Congress adheres to those two programs, we'll be successful in halving the deficit from its '04 peak within that time period."

Kaplan provided few specifics about how the deficit would be cut in half.

The president will once again propose that tax cuts first enacted in 2001 be made permanent, instead of expiring as this decade ends, Kaplan said. That could cost $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years, boosting the deficit, according to congressional budget analysts.

Yes! Brilliant! Stop the money from coming in! Genius...