Posted on 11/21/2006 4:01:14 PM PST by MikeA
Democrats will return to power in Congress with a lengthy list of expensive priorities and a pledge to pay for them. Some budget experts say the dual goals don't add up.
Democratic leaders have endorsed an ambitious agenda that includes fortifying the military, improving homeland security, helping veterans, making college more affordable, establishing energy independence and boosting private savings rates. Annual tab: at least $79 billion, according to the National Taxpayers Union, a group opposed to higher taxes.
They also want to protect 20 million upper middle-income taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax. It was originally designed to ensure the rich didn't avoid paying taxes, but it threatens to raise taxes on the less affluent unless it's indexed for inflation. Cost: $50 billion a year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
And they want to eliminate the coverage gap in Medicare's prescription-drug program, which forces those with big drug bills to pay at least $3,600 out of pocket. Price tag: about $30 billion a year and rising, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
At the same time, Democratic leaders say, they will reinstate budget rules that expired in 2002. They want statutory caps on most domestic and defense spending. They also want new tax cuts or benefit increases offset by other tax increases or spending cuts to keep the deficit from growing.
"They can't basically have all of those priorities ... without deciding who's going to pay the bill, and that means either cuts in spending or increases in revenue," says Leon Panetta, White House chief of staff and budget director under President Clinton. "There's going to be a huge temptation here to borrow the Republicans' example of borrow and spend."
"It's going to be difficult," says Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who is in line to lead the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee next year. "We're going to have to see how much fat is out there."
The growing list of pent-up Democratic demands reflects 12 years largely spent out of power in Congress. In the days after the election, Democrats who will chair key committees spoke openly of goals as ambitious as expanding health insurance to all children and providing free college educations to math and science majors.
The immediate list is less expensive. In crafting their "Six for '06" campaign agenda, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid left off fixing the alternative minimum tax and closing the Medicare drug coverage gap because of their costs.
Still, items such as implementing the homeland security recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and cutting interest rates for student loans could cost billions more once specific proposals are made. Democrats have pledged to pass those in the first 100 hours of the new Congress.
Some of the party's leading proponents of reducing the $248 billion federal deficit say the initial package is realistic. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., in line to be the Senate Budget Committee chairman, calls it "pretty modest." Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., says it's "reasonable."
Paying for those priorities may prove untenable, they say, forcing Democrats to choose between forgoing new initiatives or waiving the budget rules. "You impose a discipline that may restrict your ability to enact one or more of them," Conrad says.
The Democrats have a much smaller list of ways to pay for their initiatives. They would have the government negotiate lower prices with drug companies for the Medicare prescription program, which the Congressional Budget Office has said will not save money. They would repeal subsidies for big oil companies worth about $7 billion a year. And they would try to close the elusive "tax gap" - an estimated $400 billion in taxes owed but uncollected each year. The IRS says $50 billion to $100 billion eventually could be recouped.
More from USA Today Small Mistakes, Typos in Laws Cause Big ProblemsCrowds, Cost Unlikely to Deter Holiday DriversFood Banks Struggle to Meet Holiday DemandMotorists Face New Costs for HighwaysTeacher's Space Goal Delayed 21 YearsRepublicans scoff at the disparity between the Democrats' wish list and wallet. "It's going to be difficult to do some of the things Democrats have suggested," says Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., who's in line to be the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee.
"It is extraordinarily expensive. You're talking tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars," says Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., current chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
Critics of the pay-as-you-go budget rule note that it doesn't reduce the automatic growth of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, since it applies only to new initiatives. It could, however, endanger President Bush 's tax cuts, which are due to expire in 2010. Extending them for five years would cost more than $1.2 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office says. The rule was in effect but waived in 2001, when most of the tax cuts were enacted but not paid for.
"Every dollar of federal spending, no matter how wasteful, will be defended to the death by whoever receives it," says Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Gimmicks usually win out."
Republicans have a real opportunity here to get back the spending control agenda since Democrats are apparently going to be too stupid to steal it away from the GOP. This is a real missed opportunity for the Dems. Let's see if the GOP has the smarts to pick up the ball and run with it. They actually have a chance here to reclaim the mantle of being the party of limited govt.
With Pelosi's screw up in backing Murtha, with Rangle blowing off his big mouth on the draft (after having started an unseemly whisper and fear campaign in 2004 that Bush if re-elected would institute the draft) and now proposing big spending before they're even out of the gate, one has to say that the Democratic congress is shaping up to be an enormous political failure and rife with utter contradictions.
perhaps their plan includes more printing presses..
Of course...Democrats always want to add a hundred social programs...all at the expense of the average American taxpayer who won't even benefit from them. Of course, that's also after they slash our military...not that national security is important these days.
"Death Before Taxes...Not If You're A Liberal!
http://www.cafepress.com/titillatingtees.43612021
By the way, this is hardly a new idea. The GOP proposed this over and over only to have it blocked by Scary Reid in the Senate. Why doesn't the media point out the Dems. were blocking things like this when they were in the minority, not because they were against them, but because they didn't want the GOP to get the credit for them? If the GOP pulled something as blatantly political as holding an important policy initiative hostage to political considerations, the media would scream bloody murder. The Dems. do it and what do we hear? Crickets.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk that invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
I'll see you all this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains
"And they would try to close the elusive "tax gap" - an estimated $400 billion in taxes owed but uncollected each year."
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The IRS is contracting out to private companies the responsibilty of collecting uncollected taxes and the Democrats want to stop this by bringing it in-house.
The Dims are still stuck in the mindset that "Big Gov't knows best and does best".
This is how they are trying to close this "elusive gap".
Bush get out the veto pen.
And hopefully he'll use it.
"We're going to have to see how much fat is out there."
Charlie, Charlie, there is a ton of fat out there but......will the Dems get rid of it. My answer would be.....no.
...they want more for homeland security while they're gutting that agency's powers to police?
I still don't understand why people don't know that *tax rate decreases* yield higher revenues. It happened with the JFK tax cuts; with the RR tax cuts; and with the GWB tax cuts. How much more proof do people need?
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