Jay Inslee: “just to follow up on the comment and the discussion of the deficit, it is not only Democrats who are concerned with the…”

“just to follow up on the comment and the discussion of the deficit, it is not only Democrats who are concerned with the deficit; it is Republicans as well. Last night I was in a town hall meeting attended by about 150 people in Snohomish County, Washington, and I had a fellow stand up who said he was a Republican and was extremely concerned that this government, which he understood was controlled by the Republican Party lock, stock and barrel, was running up these enormous deficit. His basic question was, What is going on? He was flabbergasted to see that happening. What I had to tell him was the news was actually worse than he had heard. He had heard the number that the Republican government had run up a $500 billion deficit, and it bothered him. It bothered him even more when I told him the deficit was actually higher than that because the administration and the Congress to some degree have played with some funny numbers that make Enron blush how accounting is done. One example, I had to tell him the President's budget, which has been forwarded to the Congress proposing expenditures for next year, omitted any sums for fighting the Iraq war, any sums for fighting the Afghanistan war.”