Yet another assault on the truth.

ANY FAMILY that borrowed $1 of every $5 it spent would soon be hauled into bankruptcy court. Yet President Bush’s campaign aides were touting the news yesterday that this year’s federal budget deficit is estimated at only $422 billion — a new record by only $47 billion.

The Bush camp grasped at the only straw it could find in the new estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office: The deficit forecast for this year is $55 billion less than the CBO’s forecast in March.

But the Bush campaign ignored the fact that the $422 billion would be an all-time high and that the record being broken is its own — the $375 billion in red ink that it ran up last year. Even more serious is the CBO’s new long-term projection: that the deficits over the next 10 years will total nearly $2.3 trillion — almost $300 billion more than the office had previously estimated.

Under Bush, the White House no longer makes 10-year estimates, but it has no trouble promoting policies that jeopardize the nation’s long-term economic well-being. Many Bush-sponsored tax cuts will have their greatest impact on government spending in future years. And if he succeeds in making them permanent, the burden on the next generation will be crushing.

“Crushing.” bush’s gift to our children and our children’s children: staggering debt and guaranteed misery. But he talked through a bullhorn at Ground Zero, and he always says what he means. Hail to the chief.