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LoungeMachine
02-27-2005, 07:26 PM
Broder: Reckless budget will leave taxpayers holding a heavy bag

By David Broder
Washington Post



WASHINGTON - Back-to-back briefings this week put a harsh spotlight on the deep hole left by the budget policies of George Bush's first term. Millions of Americans will be paying the price for the fiscal profligacy of this misnamed conservative govern- ment.
The bad news, delivered in the first report, is that the camouflaged domestic spending cuts contained in the Bush budget will - if accepted by Congress - do serious damage to education initiatives, low-income assistance and environmental programs over the next five years.
The worse news, documented in the second report, is that these cuts will not even begin to deal with the looming calamity of runaway entitlement spending on the retirement and health care costs of the baby-boom generation.
You won't find either of these warnings spelled out in the budget message of the president. An analysis by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted that for the first time since at least 1989, the White House Office of Management and Budget failed to give Congress or the news media information on the proposed spending on most domestic programs beyond the coming year.
These ''domestic discretionary'' programs - covering all the routine functions of government, except for defense, homeland security and international affairs, and the entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare - span the gamut from national parks to medical research.
They are financed by annual appropriations from Congress. Bush gave detailed directions on how he wants $18 billion saved on these programs next year, but then urged Congress to impose spending caps for the next five years that would reduce spending in these areas by $214 billion total - without spelling out any of the specific cuts. (Savings in all cases are measured against the fiscal 2005 spending on these programs, adjusted only for inflation.)
By studying the spending caps Bush proposed for the 57 broad functions included in the domestic discretionary budget, the center's experts calculated how much would have to come out of individual programs - assuming Congress accepts Bush's priorities.
The results are startling. Elementary and secondary education programs, including the president's No Child Left Behind initiative, would be cut by $11.5 billion over the next five years to stay within the caps, with the 2010 year alone seeing a 12 percent reduction from inflation-adjusted 2005 levels.
The WIC program, which subsidizes the diets of low-income pregnant women and nursing mothers - a major preventive measure against low-weight babies - would be cut by
$658 million, enough to reduce coverage in 2010 by 660,000 women. Head Start funds would be reduced $3.3 billion over five years, with 118,000 fewer youngsters enrolled in 2010.
Clean water and clean air funding would decline by $6.4 billion over five years, a 20 percent cut in 2010. Community development programs used by cities to build up impoverished neighborhoods would lose $9.2 billion in five years, a 36 percent cut in 2010.
Most of these cuts would come out of state and local budgets, adding to the burdens their taxpayers would have to take up if services are to be maintained.
As Bob Greenstein, the center's director, commented, cuts of this magnitude would be bitterly contested if Congress had to justify them to the people who care about each of these programs. But by asking instead for a vote this year on enforceable five-year caps on these broad categories of spending, the administration hopes to accomplish its goals without arousing the same degree of controversy.
The irony is that even if all this were done, the biggest budget problem would still remain. Medicare and Social Security benefits for the huge demographic wave of boomers, who start to turn 62 in just three years, make the current budget policies ''unsustainable'' for the long-term. That was the word used repeatedly at a briefing by David Walker, the head of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, Congress' watchdog agency, and others.
Reform of these major entitlement programs is the pressing need to avoid a budget train wreck in the next generation, but Bush has offered little leadership on that. His Social Security plan - for individual savings accounts - does nothing to address the shortfall in that system. And his ''contribution'' to solving the more pressing crisis in Medicare has been to add an unaffordable prescription drug benefit to the program.
It is a sorry record for a conservative administration, and we are just beginning to recognize its price.


---
Washington Post Writers Group

LoungeMachine
02-27-2005, 07:27 PM
11.5 billion cut from "No Child Left Behind"????

blueturk
02-27-2005, 10:53 PM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
11.5 billion cut from "No Child Left Behind"????

Don't worry. The "No Millionaire Left Behind" program will remain intact.

"Haven't we already given money to rich people? Why are we going to do it again?" —George W. Bush, to economic advisers discussing a second round of tax cuts, as quoted by Paul O'Neil, Washington, D.C., Nov. 26, 2002

Nickdfresh
02-27-2005, 11:31 PM
Originally posted by blueturk
Don't worry. The "No Millionaire Left Behind" program will remain intact.

"Haven't we already given money to rich people? Why are we going to do it again?" �George W. Bush, to economic advisers discussing a second round of tax cuts, as quoted by Paul O'Neil, Washington, D.C., Nov. 26, 2002

Millionaires?
http://www.anotherpointless.com/imx/billionaires_for_bush/logo.gif

Cathedral
02-28-2005, 12:54 AM
"White House hates Children, Elderly, Poor, and the Sick..."

Let's not forget the divorced....I wonder what their position is on the widowed?

I have less and less respect for politicians everyday, both parties.

I still support the war in Iraq, but for far different reasons than why we're there.

Cathedral
02-28-2005, 12:59 AM
By the way, As big as our economy is, it could all crumble in less than one day.
Actually, it could happen in the time it takes to go to bed and wake up the next morning.

Here's an idea, how about all the citizens in this country band together and demand an honest, for the people, government?

One guess would be that it would pit us all against our own military before it was all said and done, right?

blueturk
02-28-2005, 01:34 AM
Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Millionaires?
http://www.anotherpointless.com/imx/billionaires_for_bush/logo.gif

Well, I didn't want to overlook those less fortunate than the billionaires.

BigBadBrian
02-28-2005, 08:16 AM
You guys crack me up. You're too stupid to realize that "Billionaires for Bush" was a 527 group campaigning NOT to get him elected. They also WERE NOT wealthy. ;)

:D :D

blueturk
02-28-2005, 10:05 AM
Originally posted by BigBadBrian
You guys crack me up. You're too stupid to realize that "Billionaires for Bush" was a 527 group campaigning NOT to get him elected. They also WERE NOT wealthy. ;)

:D :D

You and Nick can argue about that one. I said that the "No Millionaire Left Behind" program was still intact. I started to post "billionaire" instead of "millionaire", but I felt that it would be unfair to all the millionaires that Dubya has helped out.

"My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire." —George W. Bush, radio address, Feb. 24, 2001

BigBadBrian
02-28-2005, 10:15 AM
Originally posted by blueturk
You and Nick can argue about that one. I said that the "No Millionaire Left Behind" program was still intact. I started to post "billionaire" instead of "millionaire", but I felt that it would be unfair to all the millionaires that Dubya has helped out.

"My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire." —George W. Bush, radio address, Feb. 24, 2001

I'm just busting your chops, blueturk. You're all right in my book. :)

blueturk
02-28-2005, 10:55 AM
Originally posted by BigBadBrian
I'm just busting your chops, blueturk. You're all right in my book. :)

No problem. A little chop-busting never hurt anybody!

Pontius Pilate
02-28-2005, 12:41 PM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
White House hates Children, Elderly, Poor, and the Sick...


As do I.

Anyone here also enjoy pouring poison into our drinking water supply and throwing old geezers down stair cases?

Nickdfresh
02-28-2005, 12:47 PM
Originally posted by BigBadBrian
You guys crack me up. You're too stupid to realize that "Billionaires for Bush" was a 527 group campaigning NOT to get him elected. They also WERE NOT wealthy. ;)

:D :D

You mean THE REALLY WEREN"T BILLIONAIRES?!!?:confused: NO SHIT!!:eek:

LoungeMachine
02-28-2005, 12:50 PM
Originally posted by Nickdfresh
You mean THE REALLY WEREN"T BILLIONAIRES?!!?:confused: NO SHIT!!:eek:

:D

duh

What other startling revelation will Brie expose next??

JCOOK
02-28-2005, 03:48 PM
George Bush actually came to my grandmothers' hospital room and pulled the plug....heartless bastard Dick Cheney came to my nephews' school snatched his hot lunch from him and ate it.SOMEONE HAS TO STOP THE MADNESS!

LoungeMachine
02-28-2005, 03:52 PM
Originally posted by JCOOK
George Bush actually came to my grandmothers' hospital room and pulled the plug....heartless bastard Dick Cheney came to my nephews' school snatched his hot lunch from him and ate it.SOMEONE HAS TO STOP THE MADNESS!

Somewhere a Village is missing it's Idiot......

JCOOK
02-28-2005, 04:26 PM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
Somewhere a Village is missing it's Idiot......

Yea his name is Lounge Machine:D

LoungeMachine
02-28-2005, 04:33 PM
Originally posted by JCOOK
Yea his name is Lounge Machine:D

stellar comeback:rolleyes:

JCOOK
02-28-2005, 04:40 PM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
stellar comeback:rolleyes:

Cmon LM I'm just finishing my first beer.:D

academic punk
02-28-2005, 04:53 PM
Originally posted by JCOOK
Cmon LM I'm just finishing my first beer.:D


This, actually, is a good comeback.

let's all have a drink. On me. To the poor and to the homeless! I'd give them some money but I spent it on this round!

JCOOK
02-28-2005, 05:44 PM
Deveolping Condi Rice just kicked an old mans wheelchair over and yanked out his oxygen tube....poor bastard

JCOOK
02-28-2005, 09:10 PM
Developing: Don Rumsfeld ran into Bethesda naval hospital and beat a wounded GI from Iraq with a prostetic leg.....SCHOCKING!

Nickdfresh
02-28-2005, 09:38 PM
Originally posted by JCOOK
Developing: Don Rumsfeld ran into Bethesda naval hospital and beat a wounded GI from Iraq with a prostetic leg.....SCHOCKING!

Actually I believe that one fool. Remember, "you go to war with the Army you have, not the one you would like to have."

JCOOK
02-28-2005, 10:46 PM
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!