This week, CBO released its initially cheery-sounding report that the federal deficit for 2006 would shrink to $260 billion, from $318 billion last year, the lowest level since 2001. Of course, the gloomier long-term fact is that extending President Bush’s tax cuts beyond 2010 and accounting for war and other hidden costs would add $1.75 trillion in debt over the next 10 years and widen annual deficits by about $250 billion from 2011 through 2016.

Today, President Bush will sign another regressive tax cut into law. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I'm talking about the pension reform bill, which happens to not only fix some problems with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, but also makes permanent a handful of the temporary tax cuts passed in 2001. The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the nonpartisan Brookings Institute and Urban Insitute, estimates that the tax cuts will save people in the top income quintile about $368 a year, while people in the bottom quintile get $8.

What Matt says. I can't believe they're going to trying to kill Social Security again. There is, however, a new wrinkle this time around - President Bush wants to put Medicare and Medicaid on the chopping block as well. Didn't the Anti-Safety Net coalition learn its lesson last time - that Americans overwhelming do not support Social Security privatization? From today's WaPo:

Earlier, Matt asked: [A]ny readers out there want to calculate how much lower the deficit would have been if the 2003 capital gains and dividends tax cuts hadn't been in effect? Well, I'm not sure about the capital gains and dividends cuts, but the Center on Budget and Policy Priotities informs us that: