Just Call Me the The Speculative Optimist

The Skeptical Optimist sees something awry about the recent 2007 fiscal budget deficit forecast that the White House released recently. He postulates that something bad will happen to derail the current virtuous trend very soon or that the White House is padding so as to surprise on the upside. I vote the latter. One thing that I, as a fairly close observer over the past few years, have noticed about this administration's political tactics is that they wait patiently (often to the chagrin of their cheerleaders who interpret the patience as indifference) while their political opponents stick their necks out farther and farther before they chop off their heads. Such is why I wouldn't have been surprised if Osama bin Laden had turned up dead at an opportune time (I still wouldn't). Nor will I be surprised when in the heat of the 2008 campaign, some things happen or start to get revealed that drastically alter the political calculus of the race to the detriment of this administration's opponents. As it relates to the deficit, I wouldn't be surprised if the deficit went away and the administration floated the idea of a surplus and allowed whoever gets the Republican nomination to ramp up the talk of additional tax cuts just as the 2008 campaign gets hot.