Mid-September 2001: President Bush on Economic Effect of 9/11: ‘Lucky Me, I Hit the Trifecta’

President Bush remarks to Mitch Daniels, the White House budget director, how the 9/11 attacks have enabled him to abandon his earlier promises to balance the US budget: “Lucky me, I hit the trifecta.” [Office of Management and Budget, 10/16/2001; New York Times, 1/17/2003; Star-Tribune (Minneapolis), 9/25/2003] In summer 2000, during his election campaign, Bush had assured voters his planned tax cut was affordable, and he pledged not to dip into the Social Security surplus. [New York Times, 8/30/2002] On August 24, 2001, he’d told a reporter, “I’ve said that the only reason we should use Social Security funds is in case of an economic recession or war.” [White House, 8/24/2001] On September 6, he’d stated three conditions that would permit a change of policy: “I have repeatedly said the only time to use Social Security money is in times of war, times of recession, or times of severe emergency.” [White House, 9/6/2001] Now, shortly after September 11, Bush alludes to these three conditions as he tells Daniels, “Lucky me, I hit the trifecta.” (A trifecta is a kind of bet that requires picking the top three finishers in a horse race.) As Daniels will comment in late November, “So [President Bush] and the economic team believe that running deficits in a time like this is acceptable.” [Office of Management and Budget, 11/28/2001] Bush will make similar comments during numerous public appearances in early 2002, telling roughly the same joke over and over. For instance: “You know, I was campaigning in Chicago and somebody asked me, is there ever any time where the budget might have to go into deficit? I said only if we were at war or had a national emergency or were in recession. Little did I realize we’d get the trifecta.” [White House, 2/27/2002; White House, 3/1/2002; White House, 3/27/2002; White House, 4/16/2002; White House, 5/10/2002; White House, 6/14/2002]