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On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, for a preview of what will happen the next time Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling. It was a remarkable exchange, in part because Mr. Cantor made a remarkable error.

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.....And all the while keeping our eye focused on trying to deal with the ultimate problem, which is this growing deficit.[/quote[

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Mr. Cantor appeared to be defending his party’s shenanigans by arguing that the “ultimate problem” is the “growing deficit.” The thing is, the deficit is not growing. It is shrinking.

The White House budget office announced in July that the federal budget deficit will fall to $759 billion this fiscal year. That’s equivalent to 4.7 percent of the gross domestic product, down from 10 percent four years ago. As Jonathan Weisman reported in The Times, “the annual midsession review from the White House Office of Management and Budget was largely in line with a recent forecast from the Congressional Budget Office. Both see a rapid decline in deficits expressed as a percentage of the economy, the fastest since the years following World War II.” ( http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/projections-show-u-s-bud
get-deficit-will-shrink/?gwh=9A19C522434DA97988F7B928A01DB835)

Did Mr. Cantor miss the memo? Did he mix up the debt and the deficit? Or did he figure his position would sound more reasonable if he strayed from the truth? http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/someone-tell-cantor-the
-deficit-is-shrinking/]

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