Another deliberate lie in Bush's state of the union address: "In his 2001 address, Bush declared: 'We owe it to our children and grandchildren to act now, and I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years. At the end of those 10 years, we will have paid down all the debt that is available to retire.' In saying that only $2 trillion in debt was being retired, Bush was arguing that $1.2 trillion in debt could not be retired readily because the government securities were not scheduled to mature until after 10 years.
When O'Neill learned on the day of the address of the argument Bush was going to make, he checked with aides and learned that the true amount that could not be retired readily was no more than $500 billion -- $700 billion less than Bush was claiming.
Suskind writes: 'Treasury staffers called the White House. Excerpts of the State of the Union, which included the flawed calculus, had already been disclosed to the press. O'Neill was incensed. How could the White House political staff 'decide to do things like this and not even consult with people in the government who know what's true or not? Who the hell is in charge here?' he ranted. . . . That night, Bush stood before the nation . . . and said something that knowledgeable people in the U.S. government knew to be false.' "
- posted by geoff @ #