Read it and Weep: Bush's Last Budget
Tossed out between the Superbowl and Super Tuesday, dead on arrival in a Democratic Congress, President Bush's last budget will sink without a ripple. But since John McCain and his rivals for the Republican nomination all pledge allegiance to Bush's policies, it is worth taking a short look at the implications.
A budget, after all, is a statement of values. Where your purse is so there is your heart, we are taught. The budget provides a snapshot of what the president considers to be national priorities. In his $3.1 trillion annual budget for FY 2009, with a deficit of $400 billion borrowed from the future, Bush tells us what is important.
This nation now spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. It is, the president tells us, not enough. This budget expands the Pentagon's budget to levels, in inflation adjusted dollars, not seen since World War II. And that's not counting the cost -- now nearing a trillion and counting -- of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This nation now suffers Gilded Age inequality. It is, the president tells us, not unequal enough. His budget would make his tax cuts permanent -- at the cost of $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years, with millionaires pocketing tax breaks of about $150,000 a year. As the Center for Policy and Budget Priorities reports, the combined annual total of the tax cuts enjoyed by this top 0.3% of American households (three-one thousandths) would exceed the entire amount the federal government invests in elementary and secondary education. And by eliminating any tax on the estates they leave to their heirs, the president would entrench the extremes of wealth in the next generation as well.
This nation's education system suffers a savage inequality. For much of America, we're failing to provide even the basics of a world-class education -- preschool, modern school facilities, small classes in early grades, afterschool programs, affordable college. This inequality, the president tells us, is not savage enough, so this budget cuts spending on education, removes 200,000 low income children from child care support, and does nothing to bring college within reach of working families.
This nation's health care system is broken. But it is, the president tells us, not broken enough. This budget would cut Medicaid, at the very time states are facing stark cutbacks to balance their budgets in a recession. It would reduce the number of children covered under the Children's Health program. It would freeze payments to doctors and hospitals under Medicare, and stunningly, cut support for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, even as a global economy puts us at greater risk of importing global pandemics.
This nation's basic infrastructure -- from bridges in Minneapolis to levees in New Orleans, from sewage and clean water treatments, to mass transit and fast broadband -- is decrepit and collapsing. But not, the president tells us, fast enough. This budget continues to cut domestic investment across the board, even reducing federal support for "first responders" -- police, fire and public health officials by 45% percent.
With the housing bust, over a million families are slated to lose their homes this year. Not, the president tells us, enough, so his budget slashes housing vouchers, eliminating rental support for an estimated 100,000 low income families.
Families across America are struggling with the soaring cost of gas and home heating. Not, the president tells us, enough, so his budget, in an act of seeming perverse cruelty, calls for cutting home heating support for low-income families by 22%, even without adjusting to the increase in gas prices.
At the same time these cuts are being made, the president projects deficits of over $400 billion a year for two years. But the problem isn't what he borrowed but what he spent it on. He will rack up some $4 trillion in debt by the time he leaves office, squandering it largely on tax cuts for the wealthy, and a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. He mortgaged the house, and wasted the dough on misbegotten adventure and conspicuous consumption.
None of this would matter, except that those vying to succeed him promise more of the same, only worse. Like Mr. Bush, John "I'm the Sherriff" McCain pledges to sustain the war, spend more on the military and make the tax cuts permanent. But he also vows to cut domestic spending more deeply to bring the budget into balance. That won't happen: it would require eliminating virtually everything the government does at home other than entitlements like Social Security and Medicare to cover the true level of Mr. Bush's annual deficits.
But his pledge shows where his heart is. He'll continue to police the world and pamper the privileged while starving investments vital to our future. McCain and Romney and Huckabee provide the rhetoric. Mr. Bush's budget provides the numbers. Ever wonder how great powers decline, how empires collapse, how advanced countries fall behind? Read the numbers and weep.
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It's like the antithesis of what we need our budget to be. Are we going to spend money on death or life? On killing or thriving? On helping ourselves at home or destroying people in other places? We don't need more death machines, we need the mechanizations in place for sustainable livelyhood and development. I say no to this budget. It's not good enough.
It's time for American Government v.2.0, updated, upgraded, for the people and by the people, truly. And that may mean making the president the least influential person in politics rather than the most influential. Why should any one person have that much power over what we as a nation do with OUR money? Or anything?
except you're missing the big point - i.e. the facts.
And that is since the Bush tax-rate cuts, tax receipts, or tax revenues to the federal government have skyrocketed.
http://www
Taxes have grown faster than the economy and the population growth !!
it should be shouted from the rooftops that Bush is not cutting taxes, but deferring taxes to the future when he is gone.
This administration, that wants smaller government (except for the military), wants to put us so deep in debt that that we will be compelled to cut all other programs.
Congress and the democratic candidates need to make these issues strikingly clear and send Bush and his cronies to their Saudi buddies where they can swim in their oil.
Those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
"Rule Britannia; Britannia rules the waves" so went the saying at the turn of the 20th Century.
Today there is nothing "Great" about Great Britain except the name. The streets of London's suburbs stink and are dirty. The place is crowded more like a Third World than the First World.
The same seems to be the case with the "United States of America". Are we United? There is a deep schism in the American Society - Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Asians, Christians, Liberals, Baptists, Roman Catholics - we are more sliced and diced than the ingredients of the local Panda Express Fried Rice!
Wake up America - Learn from History - or you will be condemned to join the "United" Kingdom across the pond!
This is Crazy...al
Ok libs, since you disagree with this laundry list of cuts, what do you propose we cut?
We have to cut something. Dems talk about raising taxes, but even with higher taxes they can't begin to account for all the new spending they have promised. So under a Democrat President, the deficits would only get WORSE, not better.
We face a fundamental problem. 60% of our budget now goes to entitlements. In 15 years 70% of our budget will go to entitlements. This crowds out ALL other spending, including all the stuff on this laundry list of cuts. At the same time, Democrats REFUSE to cut or reform Social Security or Medicare.
So, we are presented with two options. One, we raise taxes every year to keep up with all the new spending. Or two, we grow the economy every single year at a rate higher than spending growth.
The fact is that libs are going to cry no matter what you cut or how you cut it. Arnold didn't want to discriminate, so he proposed an across the board cut to all California spending. Libs flipped out. Here Bush goes program by program to find the cuts that will be LEAST harmful. Libs still flip out.
The truth is that libs will never be happy. They aren't happy with 3 trillion (with a T) in federal spending. For that amount of money we should be living in a utopian fantasyland. Instead all we hear is that we need more, More, MORE!
So, go ahead the throw out some suggestions for how to balance the budget, and implement all the campaign promises, without cutting spending..
Here's a couple of websites with interesting information:
http://bri
http://www
In the meantime his pundits and the deputy secretary of the treasure talk down the influence of foreign powers in the economy and more so in politics. It is a strange way of excusing reckless behavior. The question never touches the sore point of how much the government has to pay on servicing the outstanding debt. Take $9 Trillion at 6%. That is $540 Billion on interest and 16% of the total budget. That is not counting the IOUs of the social security fund. The stimulus packet does not help people because the money will either end up paying of debt to partially foreign owned banks or purchase Chinese products. Maybe it is not doom and gloom yet, but when the times comes and our foreign owners see that the benefit of picking up our tab is worse than pulling their investment plans out of the US. The house of cards collapses.
The debt is so large now we can't budge it.
He has a heart?
GOP: The poor have too much money and the rich don't have enough.
Socialize costs, privatize profits.
Good article - in the age of the Dem horse race the media hast to remember some simple facts
Bush-emomics has been a disaster on America and the GOP candidates are argueing to be the one who will most slavishly follow W's $giveaway for millionaires
Put simply. The USofA is fucked.
There will be a collapse within our lifetime, and it will probably start with the economy. I believe the USA is nearing its end, again, within our lifetime.
Bush has been the prototypical reverse Robin Hood. Steal from the poor and give the money to his rich friends. The budget is just the latest example of this administration's fiscal insanity.
Where is the money going to come from to repay debt without tax revenue? Weren't all of us asked to sacrifice for the war- seems Bush has everyone suffering except the very rich. How much longer can the war go on by paying for it via more debt? Can't imagaine how this budget doesn't have tons of overly optimistic assumptions to understate the already staggering projected deficits reported for the next ten years.
Just another attempt to destroy the middle class and trash the agenda laid out by FDR.
Why is it that everybody wants to cut their own taxes and raise everybody else's taxes? Of course, that's not a great generalization, but it often comes awfully close to the truth. For example, I want the estate tax removed, because I figure what people's parents made and left to the kids should belong to the kids. But... but... Those REALLY rich guys (not MY parents) should have to pay estate taxes. Also, those are great moneymakers; it's trouble if we lose that money. So, I guess if I want government services, the estate tax has to stay. Maybe they can cut some other taxes of MINE, but increase someone else's taxes to compensate.
Similarly, making tax cuts for the wealthy permanent seems awful. But... but... at what point do we say someone is wealthy? To me, anyone who makes more than I do is wealthy. The devil's in the details.
As far as health care goes - Dubya wants to cut Medicare and Medicaid, as well as kids' health care. Maybe he's really FOR universal, single-payer health care, and he knows that these cuts will anger a lot of people, making more of them come out and vote - for a Democrat.
As for more funding for the wars and the military - someone once said "war is hell." I wonder - at what point did we start spelling the hot place "g-o-o-d" or "p-r-o-f-i
Great column, but I disagree on one thing - I fear that the budget will PASS without a ripple. Thanks for summarizing the thing for me - I tried to read it, but my browser crashed every time I tried to read any section of it. (Probably a good thing, since I couldn't start screaming about the budget right then and there...)
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Posted February 5, 2008 | 10:04 AM (EST)