another reason i love slate so much

When President Bush took office, the budget was $281 billion in the black, with a cumulative surplus of $5.6 trillion projected to pile up by 2011. Since then, the sluggish economy, three rounds of tax cuts, and the post-9/11 spike in defense spending have darkened the picture considerably, contributing to a decline that one analyst deemed "Miltonian" in degree. According to the Congressional Budget Office, by August of 2001, the projected total 2011 surplus had dropped to $3.4 trillion, and by January of 2002, to $1.6 trillion, before sliding further still to the current estimate of a $2.3 trillion deficit. For those keeping score at home, that $8 trillion swing in the projections is about equal to the total revenue the federal government collected between 1789 and 1983.