Posted on 09/17/2005 8:16:10 AM PDT by Graybeard58
Future generations.
The bill to the government for Katrina -- $62 billion so far with untold billions to come -- will be added directly to the $7.9 trillion national debt. President Bush said Friday, "We're going to have to make sure we cut unnecessary spending" and that his administration will "work with Congress" to find cuts elsewhere in the budget, but such offsets are likely to be mostly symbolic.
With tax cuts, terrorist attacks and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four and a half years, the national debt already is $1.2 trillion higher than when President Bush took office.
Every federal dollar going to hurricane victims is another dollar of debt that today's decision makers are passing on to their children and grandchildren.
There are the requisite calls for sacrifice: Just cut wasteful spending elsewhere in the government's $2.5 trillion budget. But even some of Congress' staunchest conservatives say offsetting spending cuts won't happen.
"My answer to those that want to offset the spending is sure, bring me the offsets, I'll be glad to do it," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "But nobody has been able to come up with any yet."
In February, President Bush proposed killing or paring back 154 government programs to save $15.3 billion. Most of the proposals got crumpled up and tossed in the trash. The House Appropriations Committee managed to kill off programs totaling $4.3 billion, but all of the money was redirected to other programs.
That experience underscores how difficult it would be to finance Katrina reconstruction with savings from the budget that Congress passes each year in the form of appropriations bills.
"Every dollar we spend on this means a dollar that's going to take a little bit longer to balance the budget," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., admitted after Bush's call Thursday night for a massive government-led recovery effort.
In addition to the government's share, Katrina may cost the insurance industry up to $60 billion in claims.
Congress hasn't even tried to take on the growth of benefit programs like Medicare for eight years, though a modest effort to rein in such costs is slated to advance next month.
Nonetheless, the White House says the costs of Katrina reconstruction are a one-time expense that will be largely absorbed over the next few years. Delaying an upcoming round of tax cuts to help pay for Katrina is off the table.
"A strong economy is what will provide the resources for the rebuilding," National Economic Adviser Al Hubbard told reporters. "The last thing in the world we need to do is raise taxes and retard economic growth."
Republicans in Congress have announced they intend to pass new tax cuts aimed at stimulating the economy to help it withstand the jolt of Katrina. That's in addition to a $5 billion tax cut passed Thursday by the House and Senate that, among other provisions, would let Katrina victims take penalty-free withdrawals from their retirement accounts.
In the wake of Katrina, the Senate has shelved for the time-being a bill to permanently eliminate inheritance taxes paid by the heirs of multimillionaires.
Some lawmakers say Congress should rescind "pork barrel" projects like the $223 million "bridge to nowhere" connecting Alaska's Gravina Island -- population 50 -- to the mainland, or even consider delaying the rollout of the $400 billion-plus Medicare prescription drug benefit passed two years ago.
"With a disaster this size, no program is sacrosanct, no cost-cutting is off the table," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. "Republicans weren't put in office to be satisfied with the size of our government."
While some deficit hawks like Tancredo are energized, it's doubtful they'll meet with success. There's little political stomach for the types of cuts they're advocating. Neither their leaders nor the White House is backing them up.
"I'm not sure the will is here to sacrifice," admitted Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
Bob Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan budget watchdog group, said one of Katrina's byproducts is that Congress now seems less likely to follow through with a planned $35 billion cut over the next five years from federal benefit programs like Medicaid.
"There's no talk of trade-offs and cutting back on some of the low-priority spending, giving up some of the tax cuts that have been planned, even thinking about raising revenues," said Bixby. "So we're just adding everything onto the deficit."
I can heave a sigh of relief now, I thought that we were actually going to have to pay for it.
"I thought that we were actually going to have to pay for it."
Sadly some people will believe exactly that.
Hyperinflation!
Lenin once said that the quickest way to communism was to debauch the currency. Therefore, presumably, that will be the choice of an upcoming Democrat Administration.
Regards, Ivan
LOL.....;)
Best line I heard yet.
Thanks I needed a good laugh.
Buy Gold......;)
So Mr. 'no veto' President why is there 'unnecessary spending' in the budget now? Is it because the GOP now controls all levels of government and the next generatipn can't vote? What this administration has demonstrated is that gridlock is the most conservative form of government in Washington.
No, no...on this thread
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1486282/posts?page=123
they're saying it's all part of some masterplan to destroy the Dems and that more spending and more debt is a good thing.
But I still don't get it. I am very, very slow.
The way the GOP has decided to destroy the Dems is to become one. It is the GOP they destroyed.
"Some lawmakers say Congress should rescind "pork barrel" projects like the $223 million "bridge to nowhere" connecting Alaska's Gravina Island -- population 50 -- to the mainland"
President Bush should have used his veto power for this project alone. I desperately hope that Americans everywhere are starting to take notice of how fearless politicians of late have gotten about wasting taxpayer money. And how about Louisiana? Are the Feds going to extract some concessions from the locals before throwing our money at them? (You, know, the unreasonable concessions, like 'don't use taxpayer money to build 20 feet below sea level').
How many illegal aliens are we going to hire for some of these jobs created? Or perhaps maybe it is a good thing, to hire illegals (putting my helmet on) so we don't have to go through red tape involved when gov't contractors hire, like count the number of people with blue eyes vs green eyes, make construction sites wheel chair accessable, # of homosexual carpenters, blah blah blah. We can get all done for less cost to us, unless someone out there sees, "Hey, at this point we have money left over, we can't turn it back in, lets get stuff from cousin Billy Bob, Clem you need a new air flushable toilet."
Do you guys and gals think that the President should be given a line item veto. If he had a line item veto Bush could get rid of the "bridge to nowhere" and various other pork projects but keep good projects
By the way the Alaskan bridge reminds me of a episode on the Simpsons where Springfield built a escalator to nowhere. When people go to the top they just fell down several stories.
No, because changing one line in a bill can change its entire nature, thwarting the very function of the legislature.
Now putting Congress' feet to the fire - for example, by giving money directly to fiscally responsible candidates and not to the GOP directly, supporting primary opponents of big spenders, and similar actions - that's what might change this abominable situation.
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