Bush Sends Congress $2.90T Spending Plan

[Marnie]

President Bush sent a $2.90 trillion spending plan to a Democratic-controlled Congress on Monday, proposing a big increase in military spending, including billions more to fight the war in Iraq, while squeezing the rest of government to meet his goal of eliminating the deficit in five years.

Bush's spending plan would make his first-term tax cuts permanent, at a cost of $1.6 trillion over 10 years. He is seeking $78 billion in savings in the government's big health care programs - Medicare and Medicaid - over the next five years.

Release of the budget in four massive volumes kicks off months of debate in which Democrats, now in control of both the House and Senate for the first time in Bush's presidency, made clear that they have significantly different views on spending and taxes.

"The president's budget is filled with debt and deception, disconnected from reality and continues to move America in the wrong direction," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

The president insisted that he had made the right choices to keep the nation secure from terrorist threats and the economy growing.

"My formula for a balanced budget reflects the priorities of our country at this moment in its history: protecting the homeland and fighting terrorism, keeping the economy strong with low taxes and keeping spending under control while making federal programs more effective," Bush said.

Just as Iraq has come to dominate Bush's presidency, military spending was a major element in the president's new spending request. Bush was seeking a Pentagon budget of $624.6 billion for 2008, more than one-fifth of the total budget, up from $600.3 billion in 2007. For the first time, the Pentagon figures include what Bush wants to spend to fight the Iraq war, money that in past years was put in supplemental appropriations rather than the regular budget.

Bush projected a deficit in the current year of $244 billion, just slightly lower than last year's $248 billion imbalance. For 2008, the budget year that begins next Oct. 1, Bush sees another slight decline in the deficit to $239 billion with further steady improvement over the next three years until the budget records a surplus of $61 billion in 2012, three years after Bush has left office.

Democrats, however, challenged those projections, contending that Bush only achieves a surplus by leaving out the billions of dollars Congress is expected to spend to keep the alternative minimum tax from ensnaring millions of middle-class taxpayers. His budget includes an AMT fix only for 2008.

Bush projects government spending in 2008 of $2.90 trillion, a 4.9 percent increase from the $2.78 trillion in outlays the administration is projecting for this year. However, the administration notes that the 2007 total is only an estimate, given that Congress is still working to complete a massive omnibus spending bill to cover most agencies for the rest of this fiscal year.

To help achieve what would be the government's first surplus since 2001, Bush is proposing $95.9 billion in savings in mandatory spending, the part of the budget that includes the big benefit programs of Social Security and health care.

Medicare, which provides health insurance for 43 million older and disabled Americans, would see the bulk of those savings - reductions of $66 billion over five years. That would come about primarily by slowing the growth of payments to health care providers.

Additional savings would be achieved by charging higher income Medicare beneficiaries bigger monthly premiums.

While Bush said something had to be done to get control of spiraling health care costs, Congress refused to go along last year with Bush's effort for smaller reductions in Medicare.

Bush would seek to eliminate or sharply reduce 141 government programs for a five-year savings of $12 billion. But many of those reductions he has proposed in past budgets - only to see them rejected by Congress.

Bush once listed overhauling Social Security as the No. 1 domestic priority of his second term. But his effort two years ago to accomplish this goal by diverting some Social Security taxes into private investment accounts went nowhere in Congress. He included the private accounts again in this year's budget. But to minimize the impact, he only showed the program taking effect in 2012, when the private accounts would cost $29.3 billion.

The president's budget also includes an initiative to expand health care coverage to the uninsured through a complex proposal that would give every family a $15,000 tax deduction for purchasing health coverage but would make current employee-supplied health coverage taxable for certain taxpayers.

Bush is also proposing to increase the maximum Pell grant, which goes to low-income students, from the current $4,050 to $4,600. Democrats are pushing for even larger increases.

Bush's energy proposals would expand use of ethanol and other renewable fuels with a goal of cutting gasoline use by 20 percent over the next decade.

AP

[chapmac]

thank the good lord there is a system in place now to keep him from sliding this disaster under the door

sorry but his days of king of the country are over

[kat8585]

Wonder what the Democrats' alternative would be, besides stopping the war. They don't seem to have the guts to defund it. They haven't said what they would do, about this or anything, except to disagree with Bush on everything. Of course the first thing they would do is stop the tax cuts from becoming permanent, and would probably raise taxes. John Edwards has already said he would. And we don't have to wonder of Hillary will. That's a given.

Getting rid of the massive pork would help a lot. But like that's going to happen.

[forrestkc]

Wonder what the Democrats' alternative would be, besides stopping the war. They don't seem to have the guts to defund it. They haven't said what they would do, about this or anything, except to disagree with Bush on everything. Of course the first thing they would do is stop the tax cuts from becoming permanent, and would probably raise taxes. John Edwards has already said he would. And we don't have to wonder of Hillary will. That's a given.

Getting rid of the massive pork would help a lot. But like that's going to happen.

Not starting a needless and elective war in Iraq would have been a big start. As it is, Bush wants to pay for his social experiment in Iraq with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. So basically, retires and the poor get to foot the bill.

[chapmac]

Wonder what the Democrats\' alternative would be, besides stopping the war. They don\'t seem to have the guts to defund it. They haven\'t said what they would do, about this or anything, except to disagree with Bush on everything. Of course the first thing they would do is stop the tax cuts from becoming permanent, and would probably raise taxes. John Edwards has already said he would. And we don\'t have to wonder of Hillary will. That\'s a given.

Getting rid of the massive pork would help a lot. But like that\'s going to happen.

Not starting a needless and elective war in Iraq would have been a big start. As it is, Bush wants to pay for his social experiment in Iraq with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. So basically, retires and the poor get to foot the bill.

i have faith that there are enough rational americans to tell him to put that budget some place without sunshine

[forrestkc]

i have faith that there are enough rational americans to tell him to put that budget some place without sunshine

He has zero chance of getting it enacted. It certainly is a clear window into his moral priorities though. What kind of a person believes that it is a just and moral thing to place the costs of an elective war primarily on seniors and the poor? Where is the shared sacrifice in that?

[chapmac]

i have faith that there are enough rational americans to tell him to put that budget some place without sunshine

He has zero chance of getting it enacted. It certainly is a clear window into his moral priorities though. What kind of a person believes that it is a just and moral thing to place the costs of an elective war primarily on seniors and the poor? Where is the shared sacrifice in that?

he wears a strategically placed american flag pin on one lapel and now his regards for the low to middle income citizens

on the other

[RGR]

Wonder what the Democrats\' alternative would be, besides stopping the war. They don\'t seem to have the guts to defund it. They haven\'t said what they would do, about this or anything, except to disagree with Bush on everything. Of course the first thing they would do is stop the tax cuts from becoming permanent, and would probably raise taxes. John Edwards has already said he would. And we don\'t have to wonder of Hillary will. That\'s a given.

Getting rid of the massive pork would help a lot. But like that\'s going to happen.

Not starting a needless and elective war in Iraq would have been a big start. As it is, Bush wants to pay for his social experiment in Iraq with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. So basically, retires and the poor get to foot the bill.

i have faith that there are enough rational americans to tell him to put that budget some place without sunshine

And you would propose what? A return to the days of tax and spend liberals like Jimmy Carter?

[forrestkc]

And you would propose what? A return to the days of tax and spend liberals like Jimmy Carter?

I think he is saying that it is indecent and immoral to pay for elective wars on the backs of the poor and elderly. Do you think that the poor and elderly should be the only ones who bear the financial burdens of the war in Iraq?

[chapmac]

And you would propose what? A return to the days of tax and spend liberals like Jimmy Carter?

I think he is saying that it is indecent and immoral to pay for elective wars on the backs of the poor and elderly. Do you think that the poor and elderly should be the only ones who bear the financial burdens of the war in Iraq?

thank you forest

i find the thought of the a permanent tax cut to be the axis of evil when at the expense of the elderly and impovershed