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 ...
The elderly, even most middle class elderly, are the biggest welfare cases of anyone and dwarf anything even close going to inner city minorities.
If you look at Medicare and Medicaid and other programs where wealthy seniors are subsidized it is a crime.
$14.5B out of $2.7T is one half of one percent(.005)that will really shrink the size of government.
Okay, so if it gets added back into the budget, no biggie, right? I'm sure we wouldn't hear a peep from you. After all, $14.5 billion is nothing.
While I am not saying that government should be in the business of providing health 'insurance' for anyone, why would you feel like a welfare recipient? I'm sure you paid into the system for many years.
It might be an idiot plan to give all seniors, who have paid into the system all their working lives, free medicines but then what do we call the plan that provides free total medical care to 20+M (number quoted by Rep. Tancredo on 1/05/06) illegals. Oh, never mind, I think I know the answer to that question. It's called "Look the other way" or also known as "Pretend to be doing something" while they swarm across our borders to loot and pillage our infrastructure and basic services.
The amount some of these people paid in is eaten up the first year or two. After that, it is all on the idiot taxpayer.
Seniors who are sitting with 300K or more in mutual funds and assets should not be demanding that younger workers pay for their drugs.
Half right, half wrong. The Bush trillion dollar Medicare PDP, his doubling of the Education budget and signing off on three huge spending bills for transportation, farming and energy did nothing to deal with the recession. That is Keynesian economics as formulated by John M. Keynes, not the supply side economics and limited government made famous by Ronald Reagan.
In addition, Bush not using his veto pen to demand the GOP Congress reduce pork barrel spending has only exacerbated the federal budget problems. Last year there were over 15,000 earmarks totalling some $50 billion in excessive waste, fraud and abuse. Let our CongressCritters put their names onto bills and follow the legislative process.
PresBush was smart in one aspect. He took a page out of PresReagan's playbook and dealt with the recession using supply side tax cuts. Bush pushed through tax cuts that stimulated spending, savings and investment. That gave the economy a jolt and lessoned the effects of the short economic downturn.
National defense is a Constitutional mandate. OTOH, advocating a liberal fiscal policy that allows huge increases to government spending and bureaucracy aren't part of any "practical Republican" policy I know of. Again, that is Keynesian economics. For the last five years Bush and the GOP have shown they're liberal spenders of the taxpayers money.
>>>>>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.
Clinton reached a balanced budget not becasue of anything he advocated, but because of what the GOP controlled Congress forced him to do. The Contract With America held his feet to the fire on spending. Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey and Trent Lott kept Clinton in check. They tightened spending, reformed welfare and gave us tax reform. The same economic steps Reagan took in the 1980`s. It's called, fiscal conservatism.
>>>>So far Dubya's budgets have all been smaller in terms of GDP than the Reagan/Bush budgets.
I don't think government spending versus gross domestic product in real economic terms has that much relevent meaning. Its used primarily by people who want to give cover to the big government Democrats and Republicans who dwell inside the BeltWay. As a goal, conservatives would support shrinking the federal bureaucracy to 15% of GDP for starters and taking it down each year, eventually reaching a 10% figure. More then enough cash to run the US government per the Constitution.
A major reason for the high spending in the 1980`s, was Reagan's increases in defense. Reagan spent 24.8%-28.1% of his eight annual budget on national defense. Bush43 has spent 17.3%-19.9% on defense. By 2009 that is estimated to be at 16.9%. Reagan's big defense budgets paid off. We won the Cold War, dismantled the USSR and the communist states of the Eastern Bloc. Reagan's policies freed 500 million people from totalitarianism.
>>>>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.
Spoken like a good liberal Republican. As I already mentioned, Bush's trillion dollar Medicare PDP --- the biggest increase in government spending since Medicare itself was created in the 1960`s under LBJ --- his doubling of the Education budget and signing off on three huge spending bills for transportation, farming and energy have nothing to do with fiscal conservatism. And Bush`s promise to spend whatever it takes to rebuild the gulf coast after Katrina, was not the rhetoric of fiscal responsibile leader.
>>>>No other President has fought a major conflict without raising taxes since before the Civil War.
That is a terrible analogy. The federal government was no where near the size back during the Civil War, that it is today. Today, federal income taxes take roughly 20% of the average workers paycheck. Isn't that enough for you? 10% should be more then enough.
You can't have it both ways. Either you're a fiscal conservative or you're not. From your rhetoric, you've been paying lip service to the idea of Bush and the GOP Congress behaving in a fiscally responsibile fashion. I don't see Bush reversing his five years of liberal spending and expanding the federal bureaucracy. Bush`s latest budget comes in at $2.7 trillion. I rest my case.
According to OMB:
Clinton's last budget spent 64.1% on Human Resources, aka. socialwelfare & entitlement programs. Bush spent 65.5% in 2002, 65.6% in 2003, 64.8% 2004, 64.0% 2005, estimate 65.3% in 2006, estimate 66.1% 2007, estimate 66.9% in 2008 and estimate 67.2% in 2009 and 2010. With Bush`s track record those estimates will likely be higher after all is said and done.
When Reagan took office HR spending under Jimmah Carter was 53.4% of the budget. Over the next 8 years under Reagan, that spending was significantly reduced. In 1982= 52.1%, 1983=52.7%, 1984= 50.7%, 1985= 49.9%, 1986= 48.6%, 1987= 50.0%, 1988= 50.1%, 1989= 49.7%.
As you can see, spending on welfare and entitlements went down significantly under Reagan from what they were in the Carter years. Under Bush43, those numbers have gone up and its easy to see why. The Medicare PDP, doubling the federal Education budget and signing off on huge spending boondoggles like the transportation bill, farm bill and engergy bill have made Bush43, in historical terms, the largest spender to ever sit in the Oval Office. Even bigger then Bill Clinton. The facts don't lie.
Small corrections:
In 2005, federal spending was 20.1% of GDP (per CBO). In 2001 when Bush took office, it was 18.5%. You are correct that spending is a smaller % of GDP than under Reagan or Bush I. Unfortunately, it all comes after a long period (1991-2001) of decreasing spending as a % of GDP.
Increased spending and/or cutting taxes and deficit spending are certainly ways to help ease a recession. However, when the economy rebounds, you need to return to a balance and not continue deficit spending. Which means cutting back on spending and/or increasing taxes. Now if you ticked up taxes to the mid 90s levels of 18.5% of GDP (a 5.6% raise) and restrained spending to increases at the rate of core inflation (~2% in 2005), we could be back to an ON-BUDGET balance by 2010 (assuming 3.8% GDP growth, about average during the 90s). Make that a 2.8% raise instead and you're looking at 2011 (ie, the 25% bracket becomes 25.7%, etc). Of course, tax increases stink, so make it 0% and you'd have to constrain spending until 2017.
IMHO, it is CRUCIAL to get to an on-budget balance before SS starts calling on its "trust fund". Otherwise you have to reissue debt from the trust fund to the general public, which can cause more of a "cash crunch" and interest rates will climb (and inflation?).
Time for a balanced budget amendment requiring pay-go rules with a default to inflation-adjusted increases...
Why should I ignore the percentage of GDP numbers yet embrace the ones you've presented? And what percentage of the Bush "HR" numbers are Homeland Security related?
Homeland security spending in 2005 was $31 billion, per CBO reports. That's 1.2% of all federal spending in 2005. Bush asked for $29 billion in 2006. A 5% raise in 2007 puts homeland security at $30.45 billion, or about 1.1% of overall spending.
Even if homeland security is included in those numbers, they're still VERY high, such as 65% in 2007.
I'm not asking you to ignore anything. Do what you want. The annual budget numbers are more revealing when you look at the yearly budgets for the appropriation process versus the amount of overall funding. However, if you look at spending on HR versus GDP, you'll see similar increases under Bush43 and decreases under Reagan.
In Clinton's last budget, HR spending vs GDP was at 11.9%. Under Bush it went to 12.7 in 2002, followe by 13.1,12.9,13.0,13.0,12.9,12.9 and 12.8 in 2009.
In Carter's last budget, HR spending vs GDP was at 11.9%. Under Reagan it went to 12.0%, 12.4, 11.3, 11.4, 10.9, 10.8, 10.6 and 10.5% in 1989.
As I said, when you look at the size of the federal government versus gross domestic product, what you get is an overall figure that for all intents and purposes clearly shows we have been in a perpetual state of big federal bureaucracy since WWII ended. Just because the GDP gets bigger every year, doesn't mean the government should follow suit. This has been a case of liberal policies that stretch back to the 1960`s and even to the 1930`s. Reagan reduced the welfare entitlement state mentality in the `80s. Gingrich also reduced the welfare entitlement state mentality in the `90s. Both Bush41 and Bush43 have done their part to reverse that trend.
I strongly agree regarding energy and education. Privatize both and get out of the way.
Here's the analysis by the Tax Foundation. Comparing the Kennedy, Reagan and Bush Tax Cuts
If the President had cut spending early on, the way he cut taxes (8.1%), fiscal conservatives would be jumping for joy. Most would have accepted an across the board freeze. While tax cuts are part of a sound fiscal policy, if you don't cut spending some future Democratic president could use that as an impetus to raise taxes. In fact, this is exactly what occured during Bill Clinton's first term. Reagan held down social welfare and entitlement spending and handed things off to GHWBush. After his first year in office Bush41 spending was fiscally irresponsible. Not only did social welfare and entitlement spending go up, so did taxes. Probably more then half of the Bush43 tax cuts were needed to offset the Clinton tax increases of the 1990`s.
Sorry, but the guy who pushed the largest entitlement increase via prescription drugs does not get to say that without getting his pee-pee smacked.
Let me guess, all domestic programs so our tax dollars will not be spent on us.
Any programs that are simply taking from us and given to foreign nationals being cut or, is the hard earned money of americans still be taken and given to corrupt foreign governments.
Well, you gave me those numbers as opposed to the GDP numbers for a reason. :) I'm just asking why you think those HR numbers are more meaningful than the "total picture" GDP numbers.
Can you tell me the amount of "HR" spending in Bush's budget that is attributable to protecting the homeland as opposed to wealth re-distribution?
However, if you look at spending on HR versus GDP, you'll see similar increases under Bush43 and decreases under Reagan...
In Clinton's last budget, HR spending vs GDP was at 11.9%. Under Bush it went to 12.7 in 2002, followe by 13.1,12.9,13.0,13.0,12.9,12.9 and 12.8 in 2009.
Seems like under Bush it has been holding steady in a time of economic growth. Not as stellar as Reagan, no, but then again it is hardly a mark, imo, of a flaming liberal.
As I said, when you look at the size of the federal government versus gross domestic product, what you get is an overall figure that for all intents and purposes clearly shows we have been in a perpetual state of big federal bureaucracy since WWII ended. Just because the GDP gets bigger every year, doesn't mean the government should follow suit.
But isn't it the case in relation to the GDP, Bush's government isn't getting bigger?
To our fiscally challenged liberal and centrist Republican friends, I ask, just whose fault is it that federal spending isn't being reduced? Not Reagan's fault. Not Gingrich's fault eitrher. The fault lies with Bush43 and the majority GOP controlled Congress. The House holds the purse strings. Reagan worked wonders without the GOP controlled House in his corner. Speaker O'Neill and ML Howard Baker worked with Reagan. Bush43 has shown a consistantly liberal approach to spending and bureaucracy.
>>>>>If we just gave back 1/3 of the Bush cuts ...
Frankly, I don't advocate giving back any of the Bush43 tax cuts. Let's have more tax cutting. Lets have real tax reform. A flat percentage income tax would be great. Even a NRST would be better then the tax system we have in place today.
The economy is solid and overall, growth remains substantial. This is a good time to reduce the tax burden on Americans even further. And lets not wait anylonger. This is a good time to reduce federal spending too.
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