Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

The Bush campaign, however, would have had no problem finding families of four
making between $350,000 and $700,000 who got a bigger tax cut under Bush's plan than under
Gore's. In that income range, they all did.
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There's a new sheriff in town, and he's dedicated to fiscal discipline.
-Ari Fleischer, of President George W. Bush,
October 18, 2002
The rationale for Bush's tax cuts was that, with a $4.6 trillion projected surplus, "I think it's
fair, I think it's right that one quarter of the surplus go back to the people who pay the bills."
(Not to quibble, but his tax cut was more than a third of the surplus. He was $450 billion off,
enough to pay for all nonmilitary discretionary spending for a year.)
So, when we were expecting huge surpluses, Bush argued that it was our money, and
if the government was taking more than it needed, we deserved to get some of it back. Specifically,
we needed a $1.6 trillion tax cut, heavily tilted toward the wealthy.
But once evidence began to emerge that the economy was sputtering and the surplus
was shrinking, this rationale no longer applied. There were new economic problems that
needed new solutions. How could the economy be jump-started? Bush met with his top economic
advisors and came back with an innovative answer: a $1.6 trillion tax cut, heavily
tilted toward the wealthy.
It soon became apparent that we were headed back to deficit country. How would
America's new fiscal discipline sheriff explain to the nation that he'd have to break his campaign
promise never to go into deficit? The answer came on September 11, when terrorists
struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, creating a national emergency and necessitating
a war.
Not only did the tragedy provide a justification for deficit spending, it gave Bush a reliable
laugh line for his speeches. Here's the joke. This is from a June 7, 2002, speech in
Iowa. But he's told it on at least thirteen different occasions.
I remember campaigning in Chicago and one of the reporters said, "Would you
ever deficit spend?" I said, "Only – only—in times of war, in times of economic insecurity
as a result of a recession, or in times of national emergency." Never did I
dream we'd have a trifecta.