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After Bush Leaves Office, His Budget's Costs Balloon
By Jonathan Weisman and Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writers
For President Bush, the budget sent to Congress last week outlines a painful path to meeting his promise to bring down the federal budget deficit by the time he leaves office in 2009. But for the senators and governors already jockeying to succeed him, the numbers released in recent days add up to a budgetary landmine that could blow up just as the next president moves into the Oval Office.
Congress and the White House have become adept at passing legislation with hidden long-term price tags, but those huge costs began coming into view in Bush's latest spending plan. Even if Bush succeeds in slashing the deficit in half in four years, as he has pledged, his major policy prescriptions would leave his successor with massive financial commitments that begin rising dramatically the year he relinquishes the White House, according to an analysis of new budget figures.
Bush's extensive tax cuts, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit and, if it passes, his plan to redesign Social Security all balloon in cost several years from now. His plan to partially privatize Social Security, for instance, would cost a total of $79.5 billion in the last two budgets that Bush will propose as president and an additional $675 billion in the five years that follow. New Medicare figures likewise show the cost almost twice as high as originally estimated, largely because it mushrooms long after the Bush presidency.
"It's almost like you've got a budget, and you've got a shadow budget coming in behind that's a whole lot more expensive," said Philip G. Joyce, professor of public policy at George Washington University.
By the time the next president comes along, some analysts said, not only will there be little if any flexibility for any new initiatives, but the entire four-year term could be spent figuring out how to accommodate the long-range cost of Bush's policies.
"That president would have to face a very fundamental decision as to whether he would want to do what was right and be a one-term president or continue to play the same game and push it onto his successor," said Leon E. Panetta, who served as budget director and later White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton (news - web sites). "That's really the choice that's going to face the next president."
The knowledge of what's ahead is hardly lost on some of those eyeing Bush's job. Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) (R-Ariz.) has been among those raising concerns about the long-term costs of current financial policies.
"Hopefully some very difficult decisions will be addressed between now and the time we have a new White House resident so that occupant isn't faced with some very expensive chickens coming home to roost," said John Weaver, a McCain adviser. "There are some things that we can do, but unfortunately in the political world kicking down the road is often seen as leadership."
...
One tax proposal alone underscores the problem. A Bush plan to establish broad new tax-free savings accounts would actually raise $17 billion in the first five years, as savers cash out other tax-free accounts, pay taxes on their withdrawals and roll the money into the new accounts. But in the second five years, the proposal would cost $15 billion, according to Treasury figures. And the cost would rise sharply from there, as the accounts began shielding virtually all American savers from capital-gains, dividend and interest taxation.
"That's a time bomb," said James Horney, a budget analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Congress has long gamed the budget system to make its legislation look less expensive in the short run, Joyce said. But the scale of the drug benefit, the tax cuts, the new tax proposals and the Social Security plan are unprecedented.
Their coming convergence would be a "budgetary perfect storm," Joyce said. "You can't hide from it forever."
Alright, so gw&friends have three different shell games going on here at once:
1. gw doesn't include the most important items in his budget at all. Iraq, Social Security, all part of "supplemental funding" instead of the federal budget for the express purpose of misleading the more gullible among us. The money's still coming from the same place (our wallets)
2. I posted an article here awhile back about low-balling the deficit. gw qoutes it lower than it is so it looks like he cut it in half when he already had a head start.
3. Now this bullshit. He leaves huges chunks of the cost for future administrations (most likely dems after the destruction to come). So he has no problem leaving problems for the future, yet Social Security, the "looming crisis" in 40 years needs to be dealth with immediately.
The motherfucker is a scam artist. It's like you repubs just got beat at three card monty. And you thought you knew where the ace was.
For President Bush, the budget sent to Congress last week outlines a painful path to meeting his promise to bring down the federal budget deficit by the time he leaves office in 2009. But for the senators and governors already jockeying to succeed him, the numbers released in recent days add up to a budgetary landmine that could blow up just as the next president moves into the Oval Office.
Congress and the White House have become adept at passing legislation with hidden long-term price tags, but those huge costs began coming into view in Bush's latest spending plan. Even if Bush succeeds in slashing the deficit in half in four years, as he has pledged, his major policy prescriptions would leave his successor with massive financial commitments that begin rising dramatically the year he relinquishes the White House, according to an analysis of new budget figures.
Bush's extensive tax cuts, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit and, if it passes, his plan to redesign Social Security all balloon in cost several years from now. His plan to partially privatize Social Security, for instance, would cost a total of $79.5 billion in the last two budgets that Bush will propose as president and an additional $675 billion in the five years that follow. New Medicare figures likewise show the cost almost twice as high as originally estimated, largely because it mushrooms long after the Bush presidency.
"It's almost like you've got a budget, and you've got a shadow budget coming in behind that's a whole lot more expensive," said Philip G. Joyce, professor of public policy at George Washington University.
By the time the next president comes along, some analysts said, not only will there be little if any flexibility for any new initiatives, but the entire four-year term could be spent figuring out how to accommodate the long-range cost of Bush's policies.
"That president would have to face a very fundamental decision as to whether he would want to do what was right and be a one-term president or continue to play the same game and push it onto his successor," said Leon E. Panetta, who served as budget director and later White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton (news - web sites). "That's really the choice that's going to face the next president."
The knowledge of what's ahead is hardly lost on some of those eyeing Bush's job. Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) (R-Ariz.) has been among those raising concerns about the long-term costs of current financial policies.
"Hopefully some very difficult decisions will be addressed between now and the time we have a new White House resident so that occupant isn't faced with some very expensive chickens coming home to roost," said John Weaver, a McCain adviser. "There are some things that we can do, but unfortunately in the political world kicking down the road is often seen as leadership."
...
One tax proposal alone underscores the problem. A Bush plan to establish broad new tax-free savings accounts would actually raise $17 billion in the first five years, as savers cash out other tax-free accounts, pay taxes on their withdrawals and roll the money into the new accounts. But in the second five years, the proposal would cost $15 billion, according to Treasury figures. And the cost would rise sharply from there, as the accounts began shielding virtually all American savers from capital-gains, dividend and interest taxation.
"That's a time bomb," said James Horney, a budget analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Congress has long gamed the budget system to make its legislation look less expensive in the short run, Joyce said. But the scale of the drug benefit, the tax cuts, the new tax proposals and the Social Security plan are unprecedented.
Their coming convergence would be a "budgetary perfect storm," Joyce said. "You can't hide from it forever."
Alright, so gw&friends have three different shell games going on here at once:
1. gw doesn't include the most important items in his budget at all. Iraq, Social Security, all part of "supplemental funding" instead of the federal budget for the express purpose of misleading the more gullible among us. The money's still coming from the same place (our wallets)
2. I posted an article here awhile back about low-balling the deficit. gw qoutes it lower than it is so it looks like he cut it in half when he already had a head start.
3. Now this bullshit. He leaves huges chunks of the cost for future administrations (most likely dems after the destruction to come). So he has no problem leaving problems for the future, yet Social Security, the "looming crisis" in 40 years needs to be dealth with immediately.
The motherfucker is a scam artist. It's like you repubs just got beat at three card monty. And you thought you knew where the ace was.
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