Posted on 02/07/2005 7:56:15 AM PST by SmithL
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush sent Congress a $2.57 trillion budget plan Monday that seeks deep spending cuts across a wide swath of government from reducing subsidies paid to the nation's farmers, cutting health care payments for poor people and veterans and trimming spending on the environment and education.
The budget - the most austere of Bush's presidency - would eliminate or vastly scale back 150 government programs. It will spark months of contentious debate in Congress, where lawmakers will fight to protect their favored programs.
The spending document projects that the deficit will hit a record $427 billion this year, the third straight year that the red ink in dollar terms has set a record. Bush projects that the deficit will fall to $390 billion in 2006 and gradually decline to $233 billion in 2009 and $207 billion in 2010.
Bush's 2006 spending plan, for the budget year that begins next Oct. 1, counts on a healthy economy to boost revenues by 6.1 percent to $2.18 trillion. Spending, meanwhile, would grow by 3.5 percent to $2.57 trillion.
However, outside defense, homeland security and the government's huge mandatory programs such as Social Security, Bush proposes cutting spending for the rest of government by 0.5 percent, the first such proposed cut since the Reagan administration battled with its own soaring deficits.
Of 23 major government agencies, 12 would see their budget authority reduced next year, including cuts of 9.6 percent at Agriculture and 5.6 percent at the Environmental Protection Agency.
In his budget message to Congress, Bush said, "In order to sustain our economic expansion, we must continue pro-growth policies and enforce even greater spending restraint across the federal government."
But Democrats complained that Bush was resorting to draconian cuts that would hurt the needy in order to protect his first term tax cuts that primarily benefited the wealthy.
"This budget is part of the Republican plan to cut Social Security benefits while handing out lavish tax breaks for multimillionaires," said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "Its cuts in veterans programs, health care and education reflect the wrong priorities and its huge deficits are fiscally irresponsible."
Bush's budget does not reflect the costs for his No. 1 domestic priority, overhauling Social Security by allowing younger workers to set up private investment accounts. It also does not include any new spending for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, The administration has said it will seek in coming weeks an additional $80 billion for the cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for this year.
Critics also contend that the five-year deficit projections also mask the costs of some Bush initiatives such as making his first-term tax cuts permanent, the bulk of which do not show up until after 2010. The budget puts the 10-year cost of making the president's tax cut proposals permanent at $1.29 trillion.
Bush's budget proposed increasing military spending by 4.8 percent to $419.3 billion in 2006. However, even with the increase a number of major weapons programs, including Bush's missile defense system and the B-2 stealth bomber, would see cuts from this year's levels.
Aside from defense and homeland security, favored Bush programs included a new $1.5 billion high school performance program, expanded Pell Grants for low-income college students and more support for community health clinics.
One of the most politically sensitive targets on Bush's hit list is the government support program for farmers, which he wants to trim by $5.7 billion over the next decade, which would represent cuts to farmers growing a wide range of cuts from cotton and rice to corn, soybeans and wheat.
Overall, the administration projected saving $8.2 billion in agriculture programs over the next decade including trimming food stamp payments to the poor by $1.1 billion.
Other programs set for cuts include the Army Corps of Engineers, whose dam and other waterway projects are extremely popular in Congress; the Energy Department; several health programs under the Health and Human Services Department and federal subsidies for the Amtrak passenger railroad.
About one-third of the programs being targeted for elimination are in the Education Department, including federal grant programs for local schools in such areas as vocational education, anti-drug efforts and Even Start, a $225 million literacy program.
In all, the president proposed savings of $137 billion over 10 years in mandatory programs with much of that occurring in reductions in Medicaid, the big federal-state program that provides health care for the poor, and in payments the Veterans Administration makes for health care. The administration proposed no savings for Medicare, the giant health care program for the elderly.
Many of the spending cuts in the budget are repeats of efforts the administration has proposed and Congress has rejected previously.
...agreed on every item in your list, Ivan!
I noticed "state and international assistance programs" will increase from 4.3% to 15.7%. Is that term a euphemism for taxpayer-funded welfare?
. The FairTax Act makes the full cost of government visible to all...and that would put the brakes on spending faster than anything.
Certainly better than the current system where half the electorate perceives someone else paying the freight.
"It's like me in the restaurant: What do I care about extravagance if you're footing the bill?"
--Walter Williams
A Taxreform bump for you all.
If you would like to be added to this ping list let me know.
John Linder in the House(HR25) & Saxby Chambliss Senate(S25), offer a comprehensive bill to kill all income and SS/Medicare payroll taxes outright, and provide a IRS free replacement in the form of a retail sales tax:
H.R.25
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.Refer for additional information:
Oh yeah, international assistance. I forgot these Constitutionally approved measures.
I never said this was an across the board cut in spending. Now did I?
Stop being so hard headed. Proposing this level of reductions for certain departments/agencies/programs in discreationary spending hasn't been done since Reagan. That's a fact.
There is mandatory spending requirements that exist under current law, which the President has NO control over. The President can propose redcutions in discretionary spending and thats what he's done.
Remember. GWBush is POTUS. He is not KOTUS.
How many of these are cuts that he previously increased in the prior 4 years?
PresBush has been reducing discretionary spending as a percentage of the overall budget since the last Clinton budget in 2001. The Bush 2006 budget, actually proposes some serious cuts in non-military discreationary spending.
Look under the cumulative change in the last column. The reduction now pales in comparison to what he actually has increased since 2001.
The mandatory spending in each agency is small in some cases except for Labor and Treasury compared to the total budget. I got this from yahoo.
Agency: Department of Education (news - web sites)
Spending: $56 billion
Percentage change from 2005: -1 percent
Mandatory outlays: $7.4 billion
Total Spending: $63.4 billion
Agency: Department of Defense (news - web sites)
Spending: $419.3 billion
Percentage change from 2005: +4.5 percent
Mandatory Outlays: $1.9 billion
Total Spending: $421.2 billion
Agency: Department of Labor
Spending: $11.5 billion
Percentage Change from 2005: -4.4 percent
Mandatory Outlays: $40.5 billion
Total Spending: $52 billion
Agency: Department of the Treasury
Spending: $11.6 billion
Percentage Change from 2005: +3.9 percent
Mandatory Outlays: $41.3 billion
Total Spending: $52.9 billion
Agency: Department of Transportation
Spending: $57.5 billion
Percentage change from 2005: -1 percent
Mandatory outlays: $1.2 billion
Total spending: $58.7 billion
Interior and State have no mandatory outlays, all discretionary.
Eliminate the hundreds of millions for arab and muslim terrorists.
International assistance in the defense of this country is Constitutional. Don't forget.
A discretionary spending increase of 2.1% is less than the rate of inflation plus the percentage increase in population.
That works to less on a dollar earned that you will pay for federal discretionary spending.
Me, too! And the National Endowment for the Arts (no more taxpayer-funded filth), and he needs to urge Congress to get rid of the ESA (Endangered Species Act) and get us the heck out of the useless UN.
That is how liberals operate. Everything is inter-state commerce.
now we're talkin'
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