President's Proposed 2007 Budget Criticized By Members of Both Parties

[lawyerlee]

Bush Spending Plan Sparks Protest (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060207/ap_on_go_pr_wh/budget&printer=1;_ylt=AiGZcX.OzmP19pYPzuS3HTcGw_IE;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)
AP

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer

President Bush, constrained by wars, hurricanes and exploding budget deficits, has sent Congress a 2007 spending plan that is garnering howls of pain from farmers, teachers, doctors and a wide array of other groups with special interests.

Democrats, as expected, pronounced the Republican president's budget plan dead on arrival. But many Republicans were equally sharp in their reservations about the $2.77 trillion spending blueprint the administration unveiled on Monday.

Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., called Bush's proposed cuts in education and health "scandalous" while Sen. Olympia Snowe (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, said she was "disappointed and even surprised" at the extent of the administration's proposed cuts in Medicaid and Medicare.

Given the level of congressional frustration, administration witnesses, led by Treasury Secretary John Snow, were expected to face a tough sales job before various congressional committees on Tuesday.

Bush's spending blueprint for the 2007 budget year that begins Oct. 1 would provide large increases for the military and homeland security but would trim spending in the one-sixth of the budget that covers the rest of discretionary spending. Nine Cabinet agencies would see outright reductions with the biggest percentage cuts occurring in the departments of Transportation, Justice and Agriculture.

And in mandatory programs — so-called because the government must provide benefits to all who qualify — the president is seeking over the next five years savings of $36 billion in Medicare, $5 billion in farm subsidy programs, $4.9 billion in Medicaid support for poor children's health care and $16.7 billion in additional payments from companies to shore up the government's besieged pension benefit agency.

I think the budget has horrible flaws, so I am incredibly pleased and encouraged to see that members of both parties seem unhappy with it. I hope they will insist on some serious changes. :cool:

[lawyerlee]

News Analysis
Holding Fast to a Policy of Tax Cutting (http://nytimes.com/2006/02/07/politics/07assess.html?ei=5094&en=a1c8770e9ac7e7c6&hp=&ex=1139374800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print)
NY Times

By ROBIN TONER

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 — George W. Bush ran for office as a "compassionate conservative," arguing that Americans did not have to choose between huge tax cuts and a government that would do its part to address social needs like education and health care.

Now into his sixth year in the White House, Mr. Bush offered a budget on Monday that showed more clearly than ever the inexorable limits of that political promise.

[lawyerlee]

The Proposed Budget:

FY 2007 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/)
whitehouse.gov

[lawyerlee]

Initial Analysis of the President's 2007 Budget (http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3267/1/192?TopicID=5)
OMB Watch

The budget--totaling $2.77 trillion--would make permanent the president's first-term tax cuts, which primarily benefit the wealthy, and pay for those cuts in part by cutting some entitlement programs and drastically reducing domestic discretionary spending (outside of homeland security and defense). Despite the spending cuts, deficits will continue to rise each year after President Bush leaves office if this budget is enacted.

As with previous budgets, discretionary spending is slated for large cuts in the FY07 budget. Discretionary spending includes programs from job training and environmental protection to scientific research, human services, veterans and education programs. Accounting for only a small percentage of the overall budget, discretionary spending would bare a disproportionate share of the proposed cuts in FY07.
Particularly alarming are not any of the specific cuts in FY07, but the president's vague plans for the following years. The president proposes discretionary spending caps for each year until 2011. Defense spending would receive its own cap from 2006 to 2008. From 2009 to 2011, defense would be combined with non-defense spending under one cap. Highway funding and mass transit programs would each have their own category from 2006 through 2011, and would not compete with other programs.

Under this accounting, homeland security would be part of the non-defense discretionary cap and would compete with human services and other programs. The president has made some assumptions about how much non-defense spending would go to homeland security, but if Congress increases that amount, it will have to lower spending in other non-defense discretionary programs.

For someone who claims to put homeland security as his top priority, the President's budget certainly does not reflect this. :(

[batgirl]

He wants to slash education by 28% (even though he said in the SOTU how important it was to strengthen our science and math education???) and he wants to slash HUD by 30%!!!

But he insists that we are "right on track" to cut the deficit in half by 2009! Man, he truly does live in la la land...

[allyray231]

makes me sooo sick

[chefker]

But he insists that we are "right on track" to cut the deficit in half by 2009!

We might be 'right on track' if we pulled out of Iraq YESTERDAY. He cannot continue spending billions on the 'war on terror' and expect the deficit to right itself!

As a federal employee, I'm scared. Scared for the security of my own job, for sure, and also scared as to what cuts my agency will be forced to deal with--and the taxpayers we service will be the ones to suffer.

[mgrace]

Fabulous. More tax cuts for the wealthy and more program cuts for those that need it. If this is compassionate, I'd hate to see cut-throat.

[lawyerlee]

Budget busters (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-budget8feb08,0,2961803.story?coll=la-home-oped)
Los Angeles Times
EDITORIAL

February 8, 2006

A NATION AT WAR MUST MAKE difficult choices and endure sacrifice. The soldiers who risk life and limb in Iraq carry the most obvious burden. But those in government must also do their part, by selecting wisely where to direct taxpayer money.

At a time of belt-tightening throughout the federal government, including Medicare and several programs aimed at helping the poor, there is one corner of Washington where hard choices remain unknown: the Pentagon. The shocker in the $2.77-trillion budget proposed Monday by President Bush is that not one big-ticket Pentagon weapons program fell under the same knife that seems to be cutting the rest of us.

The proposed Defense Department budget represents a 5% increase to $439 billion (on paper, at least — the amount does not include the projected cost of at least $70 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor billions of dollars in defense-related spending hidden in other departments). That $439 billion is not going to significantly affect an American mission that has cost the lives of more than 2,200 U.S. soldiers. No, the significant new spending is needed, the Pentagon says, for weapons systems that have no bearing on the current war.

Military analysts point to several boondoggle projects that deserve the ax. One is the Navy's DD(X) destroyer, produced by Northrop Grumman Corp. for $3 billion each, designed to provide long-range firepower support to ground troops — at least someday. Another is Lockheed Martin's F/A-22 Raptor, a supersonic stealth fighter designed to penetrate Soviet-style radar systems, at a cost of $2.2 billion each.

The Pentagon's recently completed Quadrennial Defense Review fended off repeated criticism from outside analysts that the DD(X) is far more expensive, and possibly less useful, than planes dropping precision-guided bombs. As the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, "the Pentagon decided that the U.S. shipbuilding industry … needed the program."

There is just no excuse for continuing to throw money at military programs that have nothing to do with our missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, while we ruthlessly cut funding to Medicare, education, health care, programming for veterans, and so on. :mad: :(

[ellybelle]

And what about the "homeland security" boondoggles? How is the money being used -- is it just being handed out willy-nilly again?

And making the tax-cuts permanent -- while the AMT is going to hit a MAJORITY of the middle class next year. It's going to hit most of the upper-middle class in 2006.

The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center says the AMT will hit 3.6 million out of the nation's 131 million taxpayers filing for tax year 2005 (filed in early 2006), and could affect 31 million by 2010 if nothing is done.

To give you a sense of just who might get caught, this year only 1.8 percent of married couples with two kids and an adjusted gross income between $75,000 and $100,000 will be subject to AMT. Next year, that number jumps to 73.4 percent.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/09/pf/taxes/amt_101/index.htm

[JamBray]

We might be 'right on track' if we pulled out of Iraq YESTERDAY. He cannot continue spending billions on the 'war on terror' and expect the deficit to right itself!

That is my thought every time that part of the SOTU is talked about...how the hell are we supposed to reduce the deficit in three years when we're so in the hole now and keep getting deeper due to our "War on Terror"?
He wants to slash education by 28% (even though he said in the SOTU how important it was to strengthen our science and math education???)

No kidding! I wonder what parts of education he wants to cut (perhaps english, since that wasn't mentioned at all in his speech?)?