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.
Where are you getting this information? I am looking at Table S3 which is titled Growth in Discretionary Budget Authority by Major Agency. Where are you looking at?
And you are a charlatan. I bet Reagan is rolling over in his grave knowing that you are abusing his name. Remember what he said, govt is the problem not the solution. Send an SOS to the White House with that message.
You contradict yourself in sentence one and three based on your ignorance as stated in sentence two.
2001 was Clinton's discretionary budget. His non-DOD and non Homeland Defense type spending went up 16%. Bush as I noted earlier went up 5%. Yet you want Bush to return to Clinton type increases.
You are a moron. Average increase is 5% per year since 2001. That makes the cumulative increase huge since he got in office.
S2.
You are a low-level dunce. 5% a year is 5% a year. Using your logic one can say the cumulative cost of peanut butter has been huge since Bush took office.
Do you support using taxpayer money for AIDS in Africa?
You need to look at growth in budget. You are looking at absolute numbers, whereas you should look at relative growth numbers.
Cost of living increases and the increase in population makes that an illogical comparison. U-N-D-E-R-S-T-A-N-D!
"...cutting the aircraft carrier is a bad idea..."
Agreed....I'd cut the social spending to the bone. Ben Franklin said something like "...the best we can do for the poor is not to make them comfortable in their poverty...and work to drive them from it...." <==paraphrased
Price of peanut butter depends on its demand and is set in the market-place. The price of govt depends on what? You constantly keep showing your ignorance of basic economics. The cumulative increase (decrease) is a perfect way of showing what he has done overall, and not just one year. Shut your mouth and look at S3. If you can read, you can understand it.
If it politically stabilizes those parts of the world then I do. If it doesn't, then I don't. Clearly that is the attempt though which is my point. It ain't being used to make us feel better.
The EPA and NEA both.
Again, what do those things have anything to do with DISCRETIONARY spending? In fact, for an average person DISCRETIONARY spending goes down if inflation goes up and real income stays the same. Is English not your first language? Is this why you encourage giving money to third world enemies?
Hmmmmm... that obviously doesn't include the Interest Expense on the Outstanding National Debt.
That's on track for topping $400 Billion this year. I wonder where Dubya has it hidden.
I'm a Vet, but only 'linger'.. never learned to malinger. Actually the only benefits I have ever partaken of are about $200 for tuition for a summer course and the burial plot and headstone, where my wife awaits me in Jefferson Memorial Cemetary.
The 80 billion for Iraq isn't there either. When you factor in the supplementals, the budget would be huge. This is just to make pseudo-conservatives happy.
Nothing worth voting on as far as im concerned. I am socially conservative but i vote based on economics. Bush is a liberal as far as im concerned.
The price of peanut butter is set on supply and demand dumb*ss.
You constantly keep showing your ignorance of basic economics. The cumulative increase (decrease) is a perfect way of showing what he has done overall, and not just one year.
I never said that the cumulative increase wasn't a good way of showing what he has done overall. I said that the cumulative increase compared to the cumulative change in the cost of living and population growth is a good way to show how he has done overall. Don't put words in my mouth.
Shut your mouth and look at S3. If you can read, you can understand it.
I'm not going anywhere, so take your comment and stick it.
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