The TRUTH about W's Budget
 

Congressional Budget Office (nonpartisan) analyzes Bush Budget

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Democrats are attacking President Bush (news - web sites )'s budget for worsening the already bleak deficit picture, even as a new congressional analysis of his fiscal plans shows no end in sight for huge amounts of red ink.

A report Friday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said under Bush's budget, federal deficits over the next 10 years would get no lower than a projected $229 billion in 2010. It excluded the potential costs of Bush's plan to revamp Social Security (news - web sites), any costs for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after this year, and other possible expenses.

The CBO also raised new questions about the president's ability to meet his goal of halving federal deficits by 2009.

The report projected a deficit that year of $246 billion. That would meet Bush's target of halving the $521 billion shortfall he projected for last year ? a figure that ended up being $109 billion too high. But it would not be close to cutting last year's actual, record $412 billion deficit in half.

Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said the report's "deficits paint a dismal picture, which the president's budget only makes worse."

The new figures were released days before the House and Senate Budget committees plan to write their own spending plans for the coming year.

The panels' chairmen, Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, and Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., have been hunting for GOP support for packages following Bush's proposals to restrain spending and halve deficits.

Friday's figures helped highlight the longer-term budget problems that lie ahead as the 78-million-strong baby boom generation starts retiring later this decade and drawing on already costly programs like Social Security and Medicare.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress that federal deficits had become "unsustainable" and urged lawmakers to act quickly to stanch the red ink.

"In the near-term we're doing exactly what we should be doing ? bringing the deficit down steadily," said Noam Neusner, spokesman for the White House's Office of Management and Budget. "As we do that, we will also turn our attention to the long-term deficit challenge."

The CBO report said Bush's budget would yield deficits totaling $2.58 trillion during the 10-year period ending in 2015. That is $1.6 trillion higher than they would be if none of the president's fiscal plans become law, it said, the chief factor being his intention to make already enacted tax cuts permanent.

The congressional report said cumulative deficits over the next decade will be $125 billion worse than it estimated only in January. That is largely because it has added $70 billion to its projected 10-year costs of Medicare spending, about 1 percent more, including $54 billion more for the costs of prescription drug coverage.

Bush's budget projected figures only for the next five years. He projected deficits through 2010 totaling nearly $1.34 trillion ? $57 billion less than the CBO estimated.

It also projected that Bush's fiscal plans would yield deficits of $394 billion this year and $332 billion in 2006.

That was lower than the $427 billion and $390 billion shortfalls the White House has projected for those years.

The CBO noted, however, that keeping next year's military operations at current levels would probably add about $40 billion to the 2006 deficit, pushing it to perhaps $375 billion.

Here is a link to a creative way for you to submit your budget priorities to congress. It is by Ben's (of Ben and Jerry's) organization, True Majority, and it is an animated exercise where you stack oreos, representing 20 billion dollars each, into the categories that you feel are a priority. Right now half of our tax dollars go to the Pentagon. Check it out:

http://www.truemajorityaction.org/si...JdP8H&b=315494

Most draconian budget in recent memory
cuts social programs by $238 billion over next five years

If this budget passes:

The program that feeds pregnant women, babies and young children in need will be cut by $658 million over the next four years. That's assistance for 660,000 women and children.

Families who need low income housing assistance won’t get it. By 2010, 370,000 fewer families would receive rental vouchers than this year.

Elementary schools (No Child Left Behind) will receive $12 billion less than was promised. Special education programs would lose nearly $7.6 billion in the next four years.

TrueMajority has joined with Children's Defense Fund, the National Council of the Churches of Christ and the entire Coalition on Human Needs to block these cuts.

Our country’s budget is a moral document. It shows what we care about and what we value enough to spend our money on. This budget is by no means compassionate. And with the huge deficit engendered by runaway Pentagon spending, it’s not conservative, either.

Right now the congressional budget committees are debating the budget. This is the time to let them know your priorities.

Just pick up your phone and call the number. It takes two minutes to call your senator’s office.

You don’t have to be a policy expert to lodge your opinion; congressional receptionists are trained to quickly and politely record your views. Just call 202/224-3132 and tell the operator what state you live in, and you’ll be connected to one of your senators.

To make your call easy, here are some things to say:
I live in _________, and I’m calling to ask my senator to strengthen programs that help people survive during tough times. Our government should provide Head Start and health care for poor kids. We should provide housing assistance for those who need it. Please, let the Senate Budget Committee know that these kinds of basic programs should not be cut.

Thank you for lodging my request.

Or if you can’t call, click "reply" and "send," and we’ll deliver a free message (text below) from you to your representative and senators. If this email was forwarded to you, or you'd like to edit the message, just click this link:

http://truemajority.kintera.org/budgetcallday

Thank you for looking after America’s children.

Working to make your voice heard in Washington,

Darcy Scott Martin

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Here’s more:

The many groups that make up the Coalition on Human Needs have analyzed President Bush’s proposed budget and determined that programs children rely on would be cut in unprecedented ways. See http://www.chn.org/pdf/budgetcuts22705.pdf.

Our friends at the Children’s Defense Fund assembled a fact sheet with talking points on the proposed budget’s effects on children at http://www.childrensdefense.org/acti...kingpoints.pdf.

This newspaper column by Molly Ivins captures the situation in concrete terms: http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/H022105B.shtml

Have you read about what's going on in Springfield, Suze? Talk about a mess. Their finances are so bad that they're now kicking people off of Section 8 left and right and leaving these people out on the street. It's disgusting.

No I haven't, :distress: that is insane.