[Vision2020] Bush Submits $3.1 Trillion Plan

[Tom Hansen]

With the most expensive budget in our nation's history, coupled with tax
cuts (Hello, Roger Falen), just how does our president intend upon paying
for this incredible budget increase?  (Hint: Scroll to the end, under the
topics "Medicare, Medicaid" and "Health")

>From today's (February 5, 2008) Spokesman Review -

"Bush's proposal would be the first budget to propose spending $3 trillion.
The budget hit $2 trillion for the first time in 2002 and $1 trillion for
the first time in 1987 during the Reagan administration."

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Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/

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Bush submits $3.1 trillion plan 
Budget would be largest ever

Kevin G. Hall 
McClatchy
February 5, 2008

http://tinyurl.com/2fjubu
President Bush holds a laptop showing the fiscal 2009 Federal Budget on
Monday during a Cabinet meeting. (Photo courtesy: Associated Press)

WASHINGTON - President Bush took office in 2001 with a budget surplus, but
his final budget proposal envisions federal deficits of more than $400
billion a year for the next two years. As big as those numbers are, experts
think that the administration is lowballing the deficits, and they put
little stock in Bush's vow to balance the budget by 2012.

"I think the promise that it will be balanced by 2012 is ridiculous," said
Chris Edwards, director of tax policy for the Cato Institute, a libertarian
policy research group.

The Bush administration submitted its $3.1 trillion budget for the next
fiscal year on Monday.

The proposal set the stage for a long election-year struggle, drawing sharp
criticism from the Democratic majority in Congress as well as a smattering
of Republicans concerned about the president's habit of leaving large chunks
of the spending out of his annual budget blueprint.

White House aides acknowledged that the new numbers didn't reflect the full
amount that would be needed to prosecute the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
over the next year. The president regularly has handled the two conflicts as
emergency spending and therefore outside normal budget channels.

 
The proposed budget would freeze most domestic spending and limit payments
to hospitals and other providers as part of an effort to slow the growth of
Medicare. It calls for making permanent Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which
have been criticized as skewed to the rich.

Bush's estimates of a $410 billion deficit this fiscal year and $407 billion
for fiscal 2009, budget experts said, rely on very low assumptions of war
costs, unrealistic estimates on tax collection and spending cuts that won't
sell politically, regardless of which party is in charge of Congress.

"No sensible analyst takes this (budget) estimate seriously," said Robert
Greenstein, executive director of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities.

Edwards pointed to $70 billion in emergency Iraq and Afghanistan war costs
budgeted for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, a figure he called "totally
phony" because it could easily end up closer to $200 billion, as it has in
recent years.

Although Bush offers a one-year patch to keep the creeping alternative
minimum tax from ensnaring millions of taxpayers, his budget would allow the
tax to hit 38 million Americans by 2012. That would be tantamount to a huge
tax increase.

Late last year, Congress approved a one-year patch for the AMT, a tax that
must be calculated in parallel to standard income taxes. This patch wasn't
paid for, however, and so it added to the federal deficit, which will grow
by roughly $150 billion once Congress passes an economic stimulus later this
month.

To balance the budget later, Bush envisions sharp spending cuts in popular
programs for the elderly and a spending freeze on everything the government
isn't required to pay for.

Few expect Congress to make deep cuts in such programs as energy assistance
to the poor, disease control and space exploration. And experts don't see
Congress agreeing to Bush's suggestion to trim Medicare spending by $556
billion over the next decade - just as baby boomers begin retiring after
2010.

Once war costs and revenue lost to AMT patches are factored in, annual
federal deficits are likely to exceed $500 billion, forcing the U.S.
government to issue more debt.

Gross federal debt accumulated through all U.S. history totaled $8.9
trillion at the end of fiscal 2007 last Sept. 30. That was up sharply from
$5.6 trillion at the end of fiscal 2000 and is still projected to rise to
more than $12.2 trillion by 2013.

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Budget Highlights 

Deficits: The plan will claim deficits in the $400 billion range this year
and next. For the 2009 budget year covered by the Bush plan, deficits are
likely to rise after additional war costs are added.

Defense: The Pentagon would get a $35 billion increase to $515 billion for
core programs, about 7 percent, with war costs additional. An additional $21
billion would go to the Energy Department for nuclear weapons programs. A
$70 billion "bridge fund" for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would give
the next president time to consider options, with tens of billions of
dollars more needed regardless of any strategy shift.


Domestic appropriations: These would be essentially frozen at current
levels. 

Homeland security: Budget for homeland security programs will increase by
almost 11 percent, with a 19 percent increase for border security and
immigration enforcement. 

Diplomats: In a victory for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Bush wants
to hire 1,100 new diplomats and begin an effort to double the size of the
State Department over the next decade.

Medicare, Medicaid: Almost $200 billion in cuts over the next five years,
about three times the savings proposed last year but rejected by Congress.
Much of the savings would come from freezing reimbursement rates for most
providers for three years and cutting payments to hospitals serving large
numbers of uninsured poor.

Health: Health and Human Services Department funding would be cut $2
billion, a 3 percent reduction. Funding for the National Institutes of
Health would be frozen. The Food and Drug Administration would receive a 6
percent boost to $2.4 billion. 


Education: Education programs would be frozen at $60 billion, with no
increase to keep pace with inflation. Bush is pushing to restore $600
million lawmakers cut from Reading First, which serves low-income children.
Title I grants, the main source of federal funding for poor students, would
rise about 3 percent. Special education would receive $11.3 billion, a $330
million increase.

Milestones: Bush's proposal would be the first budget to propose spending $3
trillion. The budget hit $2 trillion for the first time in 2002 and $1
trillion for the first time in 1987 during the Reagan administration.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"If not us, who?
If not now, when?"

- Unknown