White House to Lower 2009 Deficit Estimate to $1.58 Trillion

Hooray!!! Oh wait a minute....
Bloomberg:

The White House’s biannual budget review set for release next week will show the projected shortfall lessened primarily because the administration scrapped contingency plans to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in additional aid to the financial industry, said the official.

The reduced deficit is also attributable to fewer bank failures than the administration anticipated, which meant spending by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will be $78 billion less than forecast, said the official, who requested anonymity because the figures haven’t been publicly released.

So once again lets celebrate because things are "less bad" than they thought! Lets forget that the 76 bank failures this year is the 2nd higest number in history aside from the S&L crisis. Oh and let us not forget that these budgets, like all government figures, get revised in later quarters to much worse numbers.