It's worse than you think:

Everybody is up in arms over the latest news, Budget Deficit May Surpass $450 Billion, but in the 15^th pargraph (the penultimate one), we read:

... Senate Budget Committee Democratic aides said yesterday that the $450 billion deficit understates the problems, because it is offset by more than $150 billion in Social Security taxes that are being spent on other programs. If those taxes were not included, the deficit would jump from about 4.2 percent of the gross domestic product to 5.6 percent, a level rivaling the Reagan-era deficits.

The graphic that went with the story should be modified from this:

To something like this:

posted by Quiddity at 7/15/2003 09:11:00 AM