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).
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.
The amount of screaming in Washington would take years to die down, but it would work. Furthermore, taxes could be slashed further.
Regards, Ivan
"No Dollar Left Behind" budget.
No dollar left in your pocket is more like it.
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!
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).
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
It will get worse if a Democrat is elected.
Are you sure?
Regards, Ivan
Two words: "Universal healthcare".
Regards, Ivan
Regards, Ivan
lol
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.
What's the UK budget by comparison?
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!
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.
Regards, Ivan
Is he trying to get Hillary elected?
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