Village doubles deficit over last year

McClatchy:

Just weeks before the government's fiscal year ends Sept. 30 , the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday projected a near-record federal budget deficit of $407 billion , sharply higher than White House projections six weeks ago and more than double last year's figure.

The CBO's latest estimate for fiscal 2008 is $18 billion higher than the Bush administration's projection six weeks ago. The record is $413 billion in fiscal 2004. Fiscal 2007's deficit was $161 billion .

"The significant expansion in the deficit is the result of a substantial increase in spending and a halt in the growth of tax revenues," the CBO said.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said that one big reason the deficit went up was the stimulus that President Bush signed into law in February. The CBO said that another large part of the deficit's unexpected growth came from rising unemployment-benefit payments and higher spending to cover insured deposits in insolvent financial institutions.

Which, I suppose, is contra-cyclical spending and that's all good.

If there weren't, uh, other things going on. And I may be foily, but does anybody else see putting the taxpayers on the hook for Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac as a move in a generation-long scheme by the rich to steal the last big pile of money* available -- Social Security?

NOTE Or, as we call money these days, "I.O.U.s".