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.
Get smart. Vote Libertarian.
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I think I will from now on. Bye Bye Republican party.
This story almost made me cry:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-020705assess_lat,0,4635030.story?coll=la-home-headlines
"Bush's $2.6-trillion budget for 2006, if approved by Congress, would be more than one-third bigger than the budget he inherited four years ago. It is a monument to how much Republicans' guiding fiscal philosophy has changed over the 10 years since the GOP "Contract With America" called for a balanced budget and abolition of entire Cabinet agencies."
"nearly 25% of GDP. And that doesn't include state or local taxes. "
I figured just recently that the state budgets account for another $1.1 trillion and the county and local government are another $1 trillion. That is about 40% of the GPD.
When Bush took office, his following year budget for 2002 was $2.011 trillion. Today, he demands $2.57 trillion. How is that fiscal responsibility, much less responible at all?
That is a $500 billion increase, or $100 billion each year. That is responsible???
You are teaching me supply and demand. I am impressed.
I think English is not your first language. You keep talking about cost of living, etc. when that has NOTHING TO DO WITH DISCRETIONARY SPENDING. If you have learning disabilities or English isn't your first language, then I am sorry. You have basic problems with economics and the English language.
Govt spending has gone up 25% in five years. National real income is growing at 1-2%. I wonder when this country will say enough is enough.
The cost of labor, and the cost of materials has gone up over four years. The cost of supplying the same level of service would go up accordingly.
Is English not your first language?
Is reason a foreign language for you.
Is this why you encourage giving money to third world enemies?
What part of post #126 didn't you understand.
Even as President Bush proposes deep cuts in healthcare, farm subsidies and other domestic programs, his new budget makes one thing clear about the legacy of his first term in the White House: The era of big government is back.
Bush's $2.6-trillion budget for 2006, if approved by Congress, would be more than one-third bigger than the budget he inherited four years ago.
"I wonder when this country will say enough is enough."
The country won't, but the people will. We are being overrun by illegals, taxed past death, and told to shut up and bend over for more.
And how much more will we be spending on pills for the elderly? For that matter, while Social Security reform is a good thing, lets not pretend that doesn't mean more spending. As any money taken out of the pot to invest in the stock market means more deficit spending, since this is a pay as you go reality.
Okay. I don't think it's a good idea at all.
Are we still going to spend a fortune on the none-amnesty amnesty "guest" workers and their future anchor babies?
Well it's fiscal conservatism compared to the other guys.
According to that plan, in 4 years we'll have an extra $1.2 trillion on our combined debt. That's not a debt reduction that's a slow down in debt growth. So our debt will about equal our GDP.
Would you be able to find a job elsewhere?
No wonder Buchanan/Tancredo can argue that illegal immigrants don't pay their share of taxes.
Thank God for the upper ten percent who pay 80% of the taxes.
Hey, it's only about $10,000 dollars per capita. But it will definitely cost more before these nitwits can create Utopia as they see it. The problem with politicians is that most of them are not scientists/mathematicans/engineers. In other words, when they see "2.57 trillion," they just see the "2.57." They ignore the fact that there are a dozen zeroes behind it. "Oh, well," they reason, "there are a lot of people in the United States. We can just all pitch in...blah, blah, blah."
These people - from the President on down - are absolutely clueless when it comes to fiscal responsibility.
So, according to your philosophy, money buys love from third world corrupt govt. You have been anything but reasonable. Still couldn't explain why DISCRETIONARY spending should depend on inflation. What you said makes those spendings indiscretionary. If they are discretionary then they can be cut if income goes down. If we cant cut them then they are no longer discretionary, are they?
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