Posted on 02/05/2006 8:29:44 PM PST by ncountylee
WASHINGTON - President Bush plans to propose a $2.7 trillion budget Monday that would shrink most parts of the government unrelated to national security while slowing spending on Medicare by $36 billion during the next five years, according to White House documents.
The budget that Bush is to recommend to Congress will call for eliminating or reducing 141 programs, for a savings of $14.5 billion, across a broad swath of federal agencies, according to administration and congressional officials who have had access to budget documents. Wide-ranging as they are, those cuts pale in comparison with the White House's attempt to carve money from Medicare, the first tangible result from a vow the president made in his State of the Union address last week to constrain the massive entitlement programs for the elderly and poor.
Spending for the departments of Commerce, Education, Energy and Interior would be flat or decrease.
In contrast, the president plans to recommend for the Department of Homeland Security an increase of at least 5 percent from this year's funding, $30.8 billion. The White House is also trying again to increase passengers' security fees for air travel from $2.50 per flight to $5, a proposal that Congress swiftly rejected last year.
Similarly, the budget will suggest a hike of nearly 5 percent in the Pentagon's funding for next year, defense officials said.
The $439.3 billion includes $84.2 billion for weapons systems, an 8 percent increase in weapons spending.
The effort to curb Medicare spending by $36 billion by 2011 and by $105 billion a decade from now is a sharp turnabout for the administration. Last year, Bush said the health-insurance program that covers 41 million elderly and disabled people should be spared any cuts.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Well, FR is a conservative forum. Bush, not being conservative, has no place on FR! ;-D
Well said! (despite our differences on the drug threads)
We don't have to accept the President's budget. There is no reason why the Congress can't write a budget that will be in balance, except they would then be replaced in the next elections by voters who demand their programs be expanded.
I'm sure the President's budget is a well reasoned approach to getting us to a balanced budget over a time frame the administration thinks is politically viable. It's possible the budget can be improved by the Congress and the recent Alito confirmation gives me hope that Republicans are marching in unison and the rats are fractured. Republicans may have enough loyalty to skim a few DINOs and pass some stuff.
Republicans are bolstered by the fact that rats have been complaining about ballooning deficits, but they are unable to act on those complaints by proposing deeper cuts.
'Bout damn time. Although, after all the increases we've seen, I wouldn't exactly call these "cuts".
Blah blah blah...
His free drugs for Seniors will cost more than 10,000 programs.
Bingo - President Bush is definitely a spending liberal. Does he know he has a veto pen? I think not. Bummer.
The GOP had tremendous success in the 1990`s, holding Clinton in check on spending. But they can't hold this GOP President's liberal spending habits in check, or their own pork barrel spending. Pathetic.
1/2 of 1 percent is not a baby step. That's not even a baby rolling over. Believe what you like, but this is pandering to the faithful to appear like he's actually been doing something...
Bingo! My perception, (and I hope someone can provide data) is the PER CENTAGE of each of the Federal expenses by department over the last 50 years. And a graphical presentation would be extraordinary. I've seen these in the past but did not save the data nor the graphic.
Eliminate the Department of Education. I like that idea. At the very least they should reduce from a cabinet level department.
El Wrongo. It should be a 90% cut for non defence spending.
I hate socialism where a half of my income is confiscated by government entities.
Joe Six-Pack is clueless in reading their pay stubs, and bills from hundreds of entities charging taxes and fees embedded into the statement.
Liberals do not understand the concept of creeping socialism. Ergo, they want more taxes.
I'd be in favor of cutting free hotel rides for Katrina *victims*. And for cutting welfare. And excessive pay hikes and retirement benefits for polititions. And the public school system. And.....
How about doing something really daring - like just freezing it exactly in place for a year? I bet the Earth wouldn't stop spinning if we tried it.
Then, when we find we all survived that, freeze it again. And again, and again, until the bastard strangles. Big Stupid Government needs its money supply cut off.
The spending increases were necessary to deal with a recession and the WOT. As a practical Republican I think those are concessions you make to stay in power and solve the problems that can be solved.
You maybe right. What we really should do during a recession and a time of war is reduce spending. That's a good argument. Me, I'm willing to take out a loan if my car breaks down, my kids want to go to college, or I need to buy a gun really quick because my neighbors have threatened to kill me.
Clinton got a balanced budget from the Congress at the expense of our military, but his spending in 95 was 20.7% of GDP. Reagan's in 85 was 22.8% of GDP. Dubya's was 19.9% in 05. So far Dubya's budgets have all been smaller in terms of GDP than the Reagan/Bush budgets. The budgets Dubya signed are not much higher than the 18.4% and 18.6% GPD spending of the lowest budgets clinton signed.
In light of the facts, and the context of reality, characterizing Dubya's modest increases from the late 90's budgets as "liberal" sounds like slavish conservative misrepresentation.
No other President has fought a major conflict without raising taxes since before the Civil War. But like you, I'm very happy the President is pushing to cut some fat out of government, and I hope to hear more.
I agree that excessive Federal spending is counter productive. We have to convince the voters, and that is hard because America has always looked to government to fix problems and we have thrived with a deficit for most of our history.
I think as we get closer to election time we will see a stark contrast between the cuts Republicans want to make, and the increases rats demand. Cynical conservatives and their rat counterparts will interprete this as Republicans submitting to the demands of the base but actually they will be responding to changing public opinion and a satisfied electorate that finally willing to tighten the belt.
We may also see a conflict in Iran soon, and you may be reminded of another big difference between rats and Republicans. If Iran is solved by the end of Dubya term, or near the begining of his successor we will again be able to balance the budget by gutting the military, and people will talk about the terrorism dividend like Reagan's peace dividend.
A pittance but a step in the right direction. Glad to see he is rediscovering his fiscal conservative roots.
I have been thinking about that for a while now. I would like to see a candidate campaign on the promise that he will freeze current spending levels for his entire term. If Successive Presidents do that same not only will we have a balanced budget, we will have a government that might be controllable.
Cool. Let's get it started. Maybe the REPUBLICAN CONGRESS which controls the purse strings, can double or triple that cut in spending. :)
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