• Federal Budget Federal Budget In keeping with Oscar season, President George W. Bush has sent to Congress what might be called a “Lord of the Rings” budget: an extraordinarily expensive fantasy full of special effects, heavy on warfare and
• Federal Budget
Federal Budget
In keeping with Oscar season, President George W. Bush has sent to Congress what might be called a “Lord of the Rings” budget: an extraordinarily expensive fantasy full of special effects, heavy on warfare and designed to appeal to his fans.
At $2.4 trillion, the fiscal 2005 budget proposes spending 18 percent more money than the government will take in next year. But even with the deficit at $364 billion, the president underestimates the problem.
The budget doesn’t include another $50 billion that will be needed for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Bush is conveniently waiting until after the election to request that money.
It assumes the House and Senate will go along with a $256 billion six-year highway and transportation proposal, instead of passing the Senate’s $311 billion version or the House’s extravagant $375 billion bill.
The budget does not yet reflect the underestimated cost of the Medicare prescription drug benefit. The administration admitted last week that the drug plan would cost $534 billion over 10 years, instead of the original $400 billion estimate.
While acknowledging that this year’s $521 billion deficit is a “legitimate cause of concern,” the budget still calls for $1.24 trillion in tax cuts in the next decade. This year alone, the tax cuts will cost $272 billion.
And despite all of that, Mr. Bush claims his plan will cut the annual deficit by 54 percent within five years.
Notice the focus on five-year projections, rather than the usual 10 years. One reason: The costs of making the tax cut permanent and most additional costs of the drug benefit don’t show up until after the five-year period.
How will Mr. Bush accomplish these marvelous special effects? Not by cutting defense spending, which gets a 7 percent increase to $402 billion, or homeland security, properly up 9.7 percent to $30.5 billion, or by cutting entitlement programs or interest on the debt, which are untouchable.
No, the president is limiting his cuts to domestic programs that account for only 17 percent of all federal spending. Mr. Bush would kill 65 programs and slash funding for 63 more. Among those targeted for elimination: assistance for workers affected by NAFTA; the $247 million Even Start family literacy program and Hope VI; the $149 million program that St. Louis has used to revitalize its public housing.
Among the programs that would be severely cut: vocational and adult education; rural development assistance; housing for the elderly; childhood disease-prevention programs and the Environmental Protection Agency. These cuts would save about $4.9 billion. All of them could have been fully funded by reducing this year’s $272 billion in tax cuts by 2 percent.
The president’s proposed cuts are fanciful. He knows full well that in an election year, Congress won’t go along with reduced highway funding or big cuts in farm subsidies – to say nothing of the bleeding hearts who think the government might still have some obligation to help house the poor and elderly and prevent childhood disease.
Congress is going to have to do the heavy lifting while the president runs for re-election. This isn’t leadership. It’s cynicism.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
