Bush's Middle Class Tax Hike A closer look at the administration's 2006 budget shows an economic agenda promoting the wrong choices and wrong priorities. Rolling back massive tax cuts for millionaires is off the table, but the Bush administration has no qualms about raising taxes on average Americans. The budget President Bush submitted to Congress yesterday imposes $5.3 billion in new, regressive taxes. (They are conveniently listed in table 18-3 on page 305 of the Analytic Perspectives supplement to the budget.) The administration's budget contains new taxes that will increase the price of a six pack of beer, an airline ticket and prescription drugs for veterans. Meanwhile, the budget cuts funding for education, public health and environmental protection and includes $1.4 trillion in new tax cuts for the wealthy. Welcome to Bushonomics. THE SHELL GAME: No matter which way you slice it, the administration's budget is egregiously fiscally irresponsible – by its own estimates, it will result in a $390 billion deficit in 2006. Worse, that figure is only arrived at through trickery. The budget includes over a billion dollars in revenue from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), even though Congress hasn't authorized such drilling and has rejected President Bush's proposal to open ANWR to oil exploration for the last four years. Budget Director Josh Bolten defended the move, claiming, "the budget is the right place to present the entirety of the president's policies, so all of his proposals are reflected in there." Really? The Bush budget excludes all funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the administration's $2 trillion Social Security package. KICKING THE NEEDIEST WHILE THEY'RE DOWN: During the Bush administration, more and more Americans are struggling. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities sums it up: "The number of poor went up for the third straight year in 2003, the share of total income that goes to the bottom two-fifths of households has fallen to one of its lowest levels since the end of World War II, and the number of people lacking health insurance rose to 45 million in 2003, the highest level on record." Yet the Bush administration is cutting programs that help people get back on their feet. For example, the administration's budget proposes "a five-year freeze on child care funding that...will result in cutting the number of low-income children receiving child care assistance by 300,000 in 2009." The Bush budget also cuts $45 billion from Medicaid, the program that provides basic health coverage to the poor. THE MEDICARE MESS: The industry-backed prescription drug bill President Bush jammed through Congress is a bad law that keeps getting worse. While the bill was pending before Congress, the administration promised the bill would cost $400 billion over 10 years and threatened to fire the Medicare actuary who knew that figure was too low. Later, the administration revised its estimated price tag to $534 billion over 10 years, largely due to excessive payments to private insurers and HMOs. Now, in the most recent budget, the Bush administration estimates the bill will cost $395 billion over five years. In the meantime, drug companies have already jacked up their prices enough to offset any discount to seniors. FUNDING FOR ABSTINENCE-ONLY PROGRAMS INCREASED: Apparently, President Bush isn't concerned that abstinence-only programs are misleading the nation's children about sex. A study last year found that some of the most popular programs pushed lies, such as claiming that mutual masturbation can cause pregnancy and condoms fail to prevent the transmission of HIV 31 percent of the time. President Bush's budget increases funding for abstinence-only education by $39 million, to a total of $209 million. FUNDING FOR CLEAN WATER SLASHED: Good news for Evian, bad news for everyone else. President Bush proposes reducing federal funds states use to improve water quality by $369 million. The federal contribution to the program is now just $730 million, down from $1.98 billion four years ago. http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480
I heard yesterday on my way home that agriculture is going to take one of the bigger hits with the budget cuts. Unbelievable considering these guys more or less kept him in office for the next four years. Supposedly they are gonna fight back tooth and nail. I think that is funny because the president can really do whatever he wants this time 'round as a lame duck. There could be a landslide for the Demo(n)crats in four years.
It is hard for me to believe that you can just continue to bash sources without making any intelligent rebuttal whatsoever regarding the facts laid out, but you continue to surprise me. Stick your head back in the sand and let the adults talk.
I like that they are cutting wasteful farm subsidies, but the environmental funding reductions are a poor decision.
Pentagon, Critics at Odds Over War Fund Accounting By Andrea Shalal-Esa WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's reliance on supplemental funding requests to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan masks the true size of the U.S. defense budget and inhibits congressional oversight, analysts said this week. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld readily admits he sent Congress an incomplete budget in seeking $419.3 billion for fiscal year 2006, a 4.8 percent increase. The Pentagon says it will seek another increase for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan later in the year, and analysts say the amount could reach $60 billion. "The only way you can look at this budget is to look at the supplementals with it," Rumsfeld told reporters on Monday. Defense analysts argue that packing the costs of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into a series of supplemental budget requests hides the full scope of defense spending -- and thus saves the Pentagon from making deeper cuts in weapons programs to help pay its soldiers. "They don't want to do it in a unified budget; then we'd know where all the money was going,"said Chris Hellman at the Center for Arms Control and Proliferation. The supplemental spending requests do not include the same level of detail as in the defense budget, thus hampering lawmakers in their effort to oversee military costs, he said. The administration plans to send lawmakers next week a supplemental budget request for an extra $80 billion to pay for Iraq and Afghanistan in fiscal 2005, which ends Sept. 30, including about $75 billion in spending for the Pentagon. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...64&e=3&u=/nm/20050208/ts_nm/budget_defense_dc That's one of the reasons why Kerry voted for it before he voted against it last time.
The Rove spin in four years is that Dems will have to tax and spend to get out of this mess. If more people buy the ownership society BS, they might agree. Leadership in the DNC is at an all time low.
Agriculture SHOULD take a hit, if it means eliminating subsidies. I doubt whether or not it will make it though.
Exactly. Kerry's vote was way more responsible, and held people accountable, protective against waste, etc. People loved to jump on Kerry for that vote, but in the end his vote was the smart one. Of course no Bush supporter will have anything to say about this now. What can they say? They bought into the hype that it was just Kerry Flip flopping, and now after it is too late we see that it was sound policy. The people of Mass. should thank Kerry for voting soundly on this policy.
Sam have you been reading about the shaft New York is going to take from this budget? WASHINGTON - New York City and State would lose more than $3 billion in federal funding for schools, beat cops, seniors, hospitals and housing under President Bush's proposed budget, congressional Democrats charged yesterday. ------- But Rep. Anthony Weiner, who is expected to run for mayor against Bloomberg, mocked the budget as a slap in the face to the city after it hosted the GOP convention last year. "If this was a thank-you note, it certainly wasn't a very gracious one," said Weiner. Full Story http://www.nydailynews.com/02-08-2005/news/wn_report/story/278867p-238966c.html
Times are tight and we all have to make sacrifices... or at least everyone who makes under 200K should have to make sacrifices. The wealthy should actually get more back while the rest of us are making sacrifices.
I quickly looked through the Chronicle and couldn't find any articles on how the proposed budget would affect Houston. All I could find was that NASA is getting a slight increase. Anyone else care to take a stab?
I agree. But it gives us insight into where W's head is at as to what is important to this administration. Don't you think?
Any of the above might be. The point on who ends up making the sacrifices still stands. It also still stands that the wealthiest are getting bigger breaks than ever before, while services are being cut from others that need them.
[BORROWED LOGIC] Isn't paying your fair share of taxes your civil duty? Why don't rich people love America? [/BORROWED LOGIC]
