Lucid Links (020910, Morning)

How to make almost $100 billion disappear: Run the economy as the Obama administration and Congress have for about six months, stir, and — presto! — $99 billion in expected receipts vanishes, as if by magic (years presented are fiscal years ending on September 30)–

In August 2009, the Congressional Budget Office projected fiscal 2010 receipts of $2.264 trillion. As seen above, Obama’s just-released budget for fiscal 2011 has knocked that number down to $2.165 trillion. $99 billion is gone, thanks the continuation of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy. Only a fool or an Obama administration official (but I repeat myself) could possibly blame that decline on Bush 43.

Here’s another interesting fact: Assuming no inflation, it appears that the administration expects GDP to grow by 2.7% during fiscal 2010 ($14.624 trillion divided by $14.237 trillion). If the preliminary 4Q08 growth reading of an annualized +5.7% holds (though I don’t believe it will), that means that it expects growth for the first nine months of this calendar year (i.e., the remaining nine months of the fiscal year) to come in at an annualized +1.7%. That’s more than a little unimpressive, and definitely not stimulating. Recall that the +5.7% figure was known before the budget was released.

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Following up on the above, with all due respect to Peter Orszag (i.e., very little), that GDP assumption and the collections results of the first four months of fiscal 2010 make the full-year collections prediction of $2.165 trillion seem pretty unachievable (sources: Daily Treasury Statements of January 29, 2010 and January 30, 2009, and Monthly Treasury Statement of December 2009):

Since fiscal 2010 already trails fiscal 2009 by almost $86 billion, receipts during the final eight months of fiscal 2010 are going to have to exceed fiscal 2009 by $146 billion ($86 billion plus the budget’s assumed $60 billion increase in FY10 v. FY09)  for the administration’s receipts prediction to come true.

Specifically, Uncle Sam will have to collect $1.477 trillion by the end of the year ($2.165 minus $.688), compared to the $1.332 trillion ($2.105 minus $.773) it collected during the final eight months of fiscal 2009. What has been a decrease of 11% during the first four months is supposed to turn into an increase of almost 11% ($1.477 divided by $1.332) during the remaining eight months — all while annualized economic growth is less than 2% during the balance of the fiscal year.

They’re kidding, right?

Update: A related NewsBusters post is here.

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Fox News’s Red Eye show, which airs at 3AM Eastern Time, is doing well. Another network isn’t doing so well, given that Red Eye “topp(ed) CNN prime time last week.”

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RIP, John Murtha.

It seems from this Politico item that there may be legitimate reasons to question the quality of his medical care during his final weeks.

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At Life News – “Obama’s New Budget Contains Massive Funding of Abortion, Planned Parenthood.”

Read the whole thing. It confirms what anyone who has studied this man’s record has known all along: This is most aggressively antilife president ever elected.

Before the 2008 election, I wrote that no one supporting Obama’s presidency while knowing his record and his intentions in this area, and especially no politician endorsing him, could legitimately claim to be prolife. That included, and still includes, Steve Driehaus of Ohio’s First Congressional District.