The Bush administration reported Thursday that the federal budget deficit fell to $162.8 billion in the just-completed budget year, the lowest amount in five years. The administration credited President George W. Bush's tax cuts for helping to generate record-breaking revenues but warned of an approaching “fiscal train wreck” unless Congress deals with unsustainable growth in federal pension and health-care programs. The deficit for the 2007 budget year that ended on September 30 was 34.4 percent lower than the $248.2 billion deficit recorded in 2006, reflecting faster growth in revenues than in government spending. Administration officials said the new figures showed that the government was on track to accomplish Bush's goal of eliminating the deficit by 2012. But Democrats said the improvement in the deficit this year did not hide the fact that Bush's economic policies changed the budget surpluses of the Clinton years into record deficits and an unprecedented increase in the national debt. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (Democrat from North Dakota) said that Bush would “go down in history as the most fiscally irresponsible president ever. That fact is that the nation's debt has exploded on his watch-rising by $3 trillion since 2001 to $9 trillion today.” During the Clinton administration, the federal budget ran a surplus for four consecutive years, something that had not been accomplished for seven decades. While there were projections that the budget would accumulate surpluses of $5.6 trillion over the next decade, the bursting of the stock-market bubble in 2000; the recession that followed in 2001; the September 11 terrorist attacks, which led to increased military spending to fight in Afghanistan; and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq pushed the country back into deficit spending.
