Shouldn't you compare deficits to deficits?

Assuming all that you have said (cut and pasted?) is true Sazaw, You are still comparing an 18 B budget deficit to a 1.3 trillion short fall. That is not including the trillion dollars in health care liabilities incurred for gulf war injuries and the money lost to the the economy from artificially high oil prices from Cheney's misguided energy policy and from the war.

Not only that but one of Bush's Congress' first actions was to invoke a 300 "tax refund" which immediately turned that surplus or small deficit, whichever it was into a significant deficit.