Wars are costly, and the US has conventionally spent more than its actual revenues in time of war. Say what you will about George W. Bush’s management of the War in Iraq. His domestic tax policies (i.e. tax cuts) combined with the Rumsfeldian parsimony in troop deployments have successfully kept the US economy healthy and avoided customary war-time inflation.

As the New York Sun notes, the deficit is shrinking faster than those glaciers the moonbats are so concerned about.

2004: $413 billion
2005: $318 billion
2006: $248 billion
2007: $158 billion

Close readers of this column may recall the top three numbers in the list above from our editorial of July 12, “Incredible Shrinking Deficit.” It commented on the mid-session review released by President Bush’s Office of Management and Budget, which projected the fourth number, the 2007 federal budget deficit, at $205 billion. Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released its own updated estimate for 2007, $158 billion, a deficit even smaller than the White House’s July figure. The CBO yesterday also released its latest estimate of the 2007 deficit as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product, allowing us to update another list of deficit numbers:

2004: 3.6%
2005: 2.6%
2006: 1.9%
2007: 1.2%