Deficit miserable. Yay!

Republicans want to throw a party because the federal budget deficit for this year may be only $331 billion. Sorry, but it's not time to send home the party-poopers.

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office lowered its estimate for the 2004-2005 deficit by $81 billion. The White House celebrated, but for the country it's more like a temporary improvement from the fiscally horrible to the fiscally miserable. The Concord Coalition, which apparently is home to some of the last Republicans in Washington who believe in fiscal conservatism, calculated that under prevailing tax and spending conditions, deficits would total $5.7 trillion over the next 10 years. "Current fiscal policy," the group's director said, "remains unsustainable."

Contrary to what the Bush administration and GOP leaders in Congress claimed, the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 don't explain the lower number. In fact, the expiration last year of a business tax cut may have produced as much as $50 billion in unanticipated revenue this year. And as the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out, any new federal revenue for 2004-05 would compare well to recent history because revenues fell so much in 2001, 2002 and 2003. The organization points out that federal revenue represents the smallest share of the economy since 1959.

Anti-government ideologues, of course, would like that share to hit zero. And everyone would like a tax cut. But Washington's policies over the past five years have left the nation weaker, not stronger, dependent on the kindness of central bankers in Asia. Meanwhile, President Bush just signed a budget-busting transportation bill. Washington parties on.