“White House officials dismissed the [IMF] report [criticizing fiscal policy in the USA] as alarmist, saying President Bush had already vowed to reduce the budget deficit by half over the next five years.”

Aha. I see that the president is no longer promising, then, to eliminate the deficit (and return us back to the surpluses he promised he’d keep back in 2000) — merely to cut it in half after he’s out of office. Hmm. Strange how many of Bush’s goals fall in either 2005 or 2009, isn’t it?

[Found at TNR &c.]