That was then...

"...we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, other presidents, other generations."
G. W. Bush
State of the Union address, Jan. 2003

This is now...

Wall Street Seeks Clearer Deficit Signal (washingtonpost.com): "The Congressional Budget Office will release new budget forecasts Tuesday that will put next year's red ink near $500 billion. [Allen] Sinai's [president of Decision Economics Inc., and a strong supporter of Bush's tax cuts] own forecast put the figure even higher, as high as $535 billion. Absent any serious change in policy, private sector economists say deficits will remain in that range through the decade, then escalate sharply with the retirement of the baby-boom generation.

'I see absolutely nothing that's going to bring the deficit back to balance in the foreseeable future,' said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's.

Bush's response Friday was that Wall Street and others should put such concerns on hold until after the economic recovery begins to produce jobs.

'Those who are worried about the deficit must first worry, I hope would worry first, about people being able to find work, like in Washington state,' Bush said to reporters near Seattle. 'I am more concerned about somebody finding a job than I am about numbers on paper.'

That said, he did add, 'we've got a plan to reduce the deficit in half in five years,' alluding to administration budget projections that the deficit will shrink by half without any policy changes."

I'm not sure which I find more galling, the implication (and it's not the first time) by this Yale-educated alleged former businessman that "numbers on paper" don't have a whole lot to do with whether people can find job, or the visit from our old friend, Rosy Scenario.