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Bush sends $2.9 trillion budget to Congress
Belleville News-Democrat ^ | February 5, 2007 | Staff

Posted on 02/05/2007 7:50:51 AM PST by MadIvan

WASHINGTON - President Bush submits a $2.9 trillion spending request today to Capitol Hill that seeks billions of dollars more to fight the Iraq war and tries to restrain the spiraling cost of the government's big health care programs.

Responding to the new political realities of a Democratic-controlled Congress, Bush will propose balancing the budget in five years. Democrats charged that Bush wants to make painful cuts across a wide swath of government programs to protect his tax cuts and to keep funneling money to the unpopular Iraq war.

"It just gives you sticker shock. Every time you turn around it's another $100 billion," Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said of Bush's war spending.

For the first time, Bush will spell out details of the spending requests for Iraq and Afghanistan in the budget books. Previously, he has lumped that spending into supplemental requests with less detail.

Bush said he would ask for an additional $100 billion for Iraq and the global war on terrorism this year, on top of $70 billion already sought. For 2008, that spending would drop to $145 billion and fall to $50 billion in 2009, although administration officials conceded that the 2008 and 2009 requests could go higher depending on the progress of the war effort.

White House budget director Rob Portman said Sunday that the spending includes the cost of increasing troop strength in Iraq by 21,500, an increase that opponents want Congress to go on record as opposing in upcoming nonbinding resolutions. The administration projects that the troop increase will cost $5.6 billion this year, a figure that critics say is too low.

"We believe the president's plan will be successful," Portman said on CNN. "We're giving Congress exactly what Congress asked for on a bipartisan basis, more transparency as to our costs and more information."

The federal deficit hit an all-time high under Bush of $413 billion in 2004. It has been declining since that time and the 2008 budget projects it will continue to decline and show a surplus in 2012, three years after Bush leaves office.

To accomplish those reductions, Bush would allow only modest growth in the government programs outside of defense and homeland security. He is proposing eliminations or sharp reductions in 141 government programs, for a savings over five years of $12 billion.

Bush also will seek to trim spending on farm subsidies by $18 billion over five years, mainly by reducing payments to wealthier farmers, an effort certain to spark resistance among farm state lawmakers. Bush's budget would achieve nearly $100 billion in savings over five years by trimming increases in Medicare and Medicaid.


TOPICS: Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: budget; bushbasherhideout; drunksailor; spending; trillions; yayanotherbushbash
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To: Puddleglum
I'd go further -

  1. Get rid of the Department of Education - privatise the entire system and grant vouchers to the poor.
  2. Privatise Social Security for anyone new, raise the retirement age, means test anyone who is in it now.
  3. Get rid of the Department of Energy.
  4. Get rid of the Department of Agriculture.
  5. Get rid of the Department of Transportation; make all roads toll roads.
  6. Get rid of Housing and Urban Development; oi, mayors, want new housing, relax the planning laws!
  7. Get rid of Medicaid; give health insurance vouchers instead.
  8. Means test Medicare; grant the same health insurance vouchers.
  9. Privatise Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
  10. Cut the entire foreign aid budget.
  11. The war on drugs to be ended - drug users to be denied health insurance vouchers.

The amount of screaming in Washington would take years to die down, but it would work. Furthermore, taxes could be slashed further.

Regards, Ivan

21 posted on 02/05/2007 8:06:05 AM PST by MadIvan (I aim to misbehave.)
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To: flashbunny

"No Dollar Left Behind" budget.



No dollar left in your pocket is more like it.


22 posted on 02/05/2007 8:06:09 AM PST by WKB (A wasted day is a day in which we have not laughed!)
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To: webstersII
The FY 2007 Budget was about $2.8 trillion. So it is about a 3.5% increase.

However, Clinton's final budget, FY 2001 was $1.8 trillion, meaning that for Bush's 7th budgetary year (his first was 2002), he has increased spending 62% above what he had when he came into office, or nearly 9% per year, if you do a clean average.

Conservative my ass. He's grown government larger and faster than LBJ!

23 posted on 02/05/2007 8:06:36 AM PST by xrp (Republicans Message: Vote for us, we suck less than Democrats.)
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To: MadIvan

good ideas all. It's going to take a second Reagan and a grass-roots revolution, but that's how Reagan did what he did (to the extent he did it).


24 posted on 02/05/2007 8:09:27 AM PST by Puddleglum
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To: WKB
No dollar left in your pocket is more like it.

It will get worse if a Democrat is elected. They'll be producing budgets much larger than this one to pay for universal health care.

Regards, Ivan

25 posted on 02/05/2007 8:09:50 AM PST by MadIvan (I aim to misbehave.)
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To: MadIvan

It will get worse if a Democrat is elected.



Are you sure?


26 posted on 02/05/2007 8:11:29 AM PST by WKB (A wasted day is a day in which we have not laughed!)
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To: Puddleglum
I don't agree with the Libertarians on foreign policy or illegal immigration, but I think their economic and government agenda is spot on. This growth simply cannot go on.

Regards, Ivan

27 posted on 02/05/2007 8:12:19 AM PST by MadIvan (I aim to misbehave.)
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To: WKB
Are you sure?

Two words: "Universal healthcare".

Regards, Ivan

28 posted on 02/05/2007 8:13:10 AM PST by MadIvan (I aim to misbehave.)
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To: MadIvan
True but that doesn't stop me from being sick
of pretend-conservatives.
29 posted on 02/05/2007 8:15:47 AM PST by WKB (A wasted day is a day in which we have not laughed!)
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To: WKB
I don't disagree. We're talking about the difference between bad and worse.

Regards, Ivan

30 posted on 02/05/2007 8:18:05 AM PST by MadIvan (I aim to misbehave.)
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To: WKB
Today's government policy on the fed and state levels is "no lobbyist left behind." I sincerely believe that the deck is hugely stacked against the middle class and that it is going to take a special persona to spark their collective will. A scandal won't do it - government inoculates itself against scandals by having so many of them.

When the baby boomers hit retirement and find the cupboard bare, despite their massive payments into it over decades, that may be enough to tilt the board extremely - but whether the tilt is toward more personal autonomy or more state "benevolence" will be iffy.
31 posted on 02/05/2007 8:19:07 AM PST by Puddleglum
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To: Puddleglum
and that it is going to take a special persona to spark their collective will.



And as of today that person has yet to materialize.
32 posted on 02/05/2007 8:21:38 AM PST by WKB (A wasted day is a day in which we have not laughed!)
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To: flashbunny

lol


33 posted on 02/05/2007 8:27:23 AM PST by bluebeak
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To: EQAndyBuzz

The conservative revolution of 1994 led by House Republicans is DEAD. All that is left is "Hey, we're not as bad as that other party".

If spending patterns from 94-98 remained the same, there wouldn't be any deficit to cut in half, and we could have additional tax cut rates.

Further this issue is more than a matter of deficits. The conservative revolution was supposed to be about devolving power and control away from the federal government. There is no sign of that anymore.

Conservatism does not mean having Republicans rather than Democrats running a bloated federal bureaucracy that seeks to continually exert control over every aspect of our lives. No Child Left Behind is a perfect example of that-"we're going to run education but we'll do it right because we're Republicans". Wrong. education is the purview of local control, and the trend should be toward reducing the Fed's control. That's true conservatism - not just voting against Al Gore.


34 posted on 02/05/2007 8:42:18 AM PST by almcbean
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To: MadIvan

What's the UK budget by comparison?


35 posted on 02/05/2007 8:49:05 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: MadIvan
I agree...but I think even if you took every right testicle in every branch of government, and combined them into a freakish Frankensteinian mass, there would still not be enough balls to get it done.

There aren't many in government who look at that and see what a conservative should see (about 70% waste, fraud, pork, ignorance, ponzi schemes, outright theft, lunacy, and naivety - a disgrace).

36 posted on 02/05/2007 8:50:08 AM PST by M203M4
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To: M203M4
There aren't many in government who look at that and see what a conservative should see (about 70% waste, fraud, pork, ignorance, ponzi schemes, outright theft, lunacy, and naivety - a disgrace).

So the solution...for a dem...is bigger government...LUNACY!

37 posted on 02/05/2007 8:55:48 AM PST by highlander_UW (I don't know what my future holds, but I know Who holds my future)
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To: trumandogz
He spends money like a French Socialist.

I think Jorge is trying to be number one. He's trying to leave office with the all-time low approval rating, removing Jimmy peanut from first place.

38 posted on 02/05/2007 9:16:46 AM PST by org.whodat (Never let the facts get in the way of a good assumption.)
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To: Non-Sequitur
Our budget for this year is £552 billion.

Regards, Ivan

39 posted on 02/05/2007 9:18:15 AM PST by MadIvan (I aim to misbehave.)
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To: MadIvan

Is he trying to get Hillary elected?


40 posted on 02/05/2007 9:33:49 AM PST by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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