Playing the Numbers Game

Steve at Deinonychus antirrhopus breaks down the latest budget numbers. Guess what? This year's deficit really isn't the largest ever. Surprised?

Highest Budget Deficit: 1943 $486.2 billion.
Second highest Budget Deficit: 1945 $456.8 billion.
Third highest Budget Deficit: 1944 $448.2 billion.
Fourth highest Budget Deficit: 2004 $383.7 billion (estimated).

Note: All numbers are adjusted to year 2000 dollars.

My favorite part of this post is the end:

Now, this doesn't mean the current deficit isn't large. It doesn't mean that it doesn't signify some economic problems are still looming, or that we should simply ignore the deficit. What it means is that we have idiots reporting on economic matters. It took me maybe 30 to 45 minutes to find all this data and compose this posts and I'm not a journalist. These guys should be fired.

Hat-tip: Instapundit

UPDATE: Bill at HobbsOnline has more on this subject:

Here's some news from the presidential campaign that indicates that John Kerry has no clue what he is talking about. The story says Kerry pointed to the "record" $422-billion-dollar budget deficit predicted by the Congressional Budget Office as a new sign of Bush's inability to run the economy.

Memo to Sen. Kerry: The federal budget is not the economy. Repeat: "the budget" is not a synonym for "the economy."