Which would you rather have, a president who lies about sex?
Or a president who lies about the budget?
 

We know Bill Clinton lied about his personal sex life: He said he didn't
have an affair with Monica Lewinsky when in fact he did, sort of. At the
time, that was considered the worst thing any president could do.
Americans were shocked. He was even impeached for it. And now we know
George Bush is lying about the budget. And that's pretty shocking, too.

The big Bush budget lie was unveiled this week by the Congressional Budget Office.
Let's stop there for a moment. There are two sources for budget information:
the White House and the CBO. In any administration, one is partisan, the other is nonpartisan.
One cooks the books, the other reports the facts. No matter who is president,
I'll trust the CBO over the White House. You should, too.

According to the CBO, the mighty U.S. surplus -- on which Bush's
across-the-board tax cut was based -- has melted quickly and dramatically:
from a projected $275 billion in May to $153 billion today. That's a loss of
$122 billion in expected revenue in just four months. Only one-third of that
reduction, says the CBO, is due to economic slowdown; two-thirds of it
disappeared in the Bush tax cut.

Making matters worse, almost every penny of that still-intact $153 billion
isn't really a government surplus at all. It's extra money collected by
Social Security taxes. It's that famous "lockbox" -- which every Republican
and Democrat has promised never to steal from again, under pain of death,
because it belongs to seniors and should not be tapped to pay for fixing
potholes or government salaries.

But this year, the White House and the Congress will be forced to raid the lockbox.
Just to pay for current government obligations -- no new spending -- will require
taking $9 billion from the Social Security surplus in the current fiscal year,
$18 billion in 2003 and another $3 billion in 2004.

Dancing to explain how he managed to lead the country from A-OK to IOU in
just four months, President Bush has come up with two answers, neither of them
convincing. First, he blames the Congress for big spending. This is  absolute nonsense.
The only new money in the budget this year is for education and defense, both of
which Bush asked for himself and neither of which has yet been approved.

Next, Bush does what all Republicans do whenever there's bad news. He blames
Bill Clinton, arguing that Clinton's policies caused the economy to decline,
but that it will bounce back as soon as the tax cut kicks in. Wrong again.
The eight Clinton years were a time of unprecedented economic growth, at the
end of which came a natural slowdown. But there's no sign the Bush tax cut
has restimulated the economy at all, so far. And, again, according to the
CBO, the worst is yet to come, because the Bush tax cut grows over time,
requiring even more money to be stolen from Social Security in the years ahead.

Which is just what George Bush promised never to do. As a candidate, he
insisted there was enough money to cut taxes, increase military spending and
pay for prescription drug benefits without dipping into the Social Security
surplus. As president, he vowed he would never, never touch the Social
Security surplus. He's lucky his nose didn't grow.

The truth is, Bush has nobody to blame but himself. On a macro level, he made the
same stupid mistake every one of us, on the micro level, has learned to avoid.
He spent money he didn't have. Worse yet, he gave away money the government
didn't have. He pushed a tax cut through Congress without knowing how much money
was in the bank. He squandered the surplus on an irresponsible tax cut. And now he
has no choice but to steal from Social Security or go back to the days of deficit spending.

Which would you rather have, a president who lies about sex
or a president who lies about the budget?

Frankly, I'd rather have a president who lies about nothing. But lying about the budget
is a lot more serious than lying about sex, because it hurts a lot more people.

Impeachment hearings, anyone?
 

Bill Press is co-host of CNN's Crossfire. His e-mail address is:
BillPress@aol.com