Bruce Bartlet, while discussing why spending, and not tax cuts are still needed, has taken a bat to the whining deficit hawks on the real cause of the Federal shortfall.  

According to the Congressional Budget Office’s January 2009 estimate for fiscal year 2009, outlays were projected to be $3,543 billion and revenues were projected to be $2,357 billion, leaving a deficit of $1,186 billion. Keep in mind that these estimates were made before Obama took office, based on existing law and policy, and did not take into account any actions that Obama might implement.

Therefore, unless one thinks that McCain would have somehow or other raised taxes and cut spending (with a Democratic Congress), rather than enacting a stimulus of his own, then a deficit of $1.2 trillion was baked in the cake the day Obama took office. Any suggestion that McCain would have brought in a lower deficit is simply fanciful.

Now let’s fast forward to the end of fiscal year 2009, which ended on September 30. According to CBO, it ended with spending at $3,515 billion and revenues of $2,106 billion for a deficit of $1,409 billion.

To recap, the deficit came in $223 billion higher than projected, but spending was $28 billion and revenues were $251 billion less than expected. Thus we can conclude that more than 100 percent of the increase in the deficit since January is accounted for by lower revenues. Not one penny is due to higher spending.

Of course, Bush's unfunded tax cuts couldn't have anything to with all of this. Nah.

Now what pisses me off about all this, is why the administration done such a poor job of explaining all of this to voters and the media. Republican memes get all the traction because administration and democratic advanced teams are rarely if ever in evidence when they're most needed–which is before the memes can take hold.

Knowing how dominant conservative economic voices are on CNBC, FOX, CSPAN and most op-eds, it seems axiomatic that one needs to ramp up  public relations spin when facts are as cut and dried as these–and clearly going to be used against you. When you know the elephant will drop a load of manure in the road, why not get in front of the beast instead of buried by the turds?

One of my few grudging respects for Republicans comes from watching their spin teams not sit on clear leads with the media. They never assume they've won, and keep bludgeoning the media and voters with as many hammers as they can get their grimy little hands on. Democrats–and certainly Democratic administrations–need to learn one simple lesson of the Internet age:

Marketing, advertising and public relations need just as much time and attention as the details of the polices and legislation they are expected to sell.

We can only hope they start to get this, before its too late. As I type this, the 5th anti-health care reform ad from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has aired in the hour since I woke up. We cannot maintain even the appearance of a real democracy, when all the media manipulation flows from only one direction.

It's big and it's complicated, and it's hardly single-payer, or perfect. But it is extensive, historic, and probably the best incremental approach we can hope for, given the sheer power that US business interests and their organizations have to obstruct and intimidate the political process.

You can find extensive details on the web, but most people care about the high points.  So let me list them for you here, so you can repeat them to friends and family, before Fox news trains upon them their inevitable fire hose of cynical and manipulative propaganda and lies.

According to the Washington Post, the measure includes:

  •   An individual mandate that would require people to buy health insurance.
  •   An employer mandate that would require companies to cover their employees, though small businesses would be exempted.
  •   Funding to create insurance exchanges to serve people who don't have employer coverage.
  •   A government insurance option to compete with private plans on the exchange.
  •   Subsidies to help households earning up to $88,000 in annual income for a family of four purchase coverage.
  •   A historic Medicaid expansion that would provide free health care to all Americans with incomes below 150 percent of the federal poverty level.
  •  Up to $400 billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts, including to a Medicare Advantage managed-care program that serves nearly 11 million seniors.
  •   A surcharge on taxpayers who earn more than $500,000 a year, or $1 million a year for families.
  • A crackdown on the insurance industry, including bans on lifetime limits, premium disparity based on health status and sex, and coverage denials based on preexisting conditions. The bill also would end a federal antitrust exemption that has for decades protected firms from federal investigations.