The Bush Budget 2007 Bottom Line: More “Entitlement” Cuts
by Pamela LeaveyBush sent Congress his 2007 budget proposal today. It’s not a pretty picture… As a matter of fact, it’s absolutely appalling.
The $2.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2007 would cut billions of dollars from domestic programs that help the poor, including “Medicare and food stamps to local law enforcement and disease control.” The plan also calls for “extending most of his tax cuts beyond their 2010 expiration date.”
Bush said in his budget message, “We have set clear priorities that meet the most pressing needs of the American people while addressing the long-term challenges that lie ahead. The 2007 Budget will ensure that future generations of Americans have the opportunity to live in a Nation that is more prosperous and more secure.” Who the heck is does he think he is kidding?
To accommodate increased spending in the president’s favored non-security programs such as diplomacy and foreign aid, veterans health care and energy, other programs would face significant cuts. Agriculture spending would fall 6.5 percent, education spending $3.8 percent. The Department of Transportation would lose 9.4 percent of its discretionary budget. The Army Corps of Engineers — a congressional favorite that was highly criticized in the wake of Hurricane Katrina — would be cut 11.2 percent.
The biggest savings from Bush’s budget proposal would come from more cuts to “entitlement” programs, which have recently been cut in the budget that passed in the House last week.
The president proposed cutting Medicare by $36 billion over five years, and $105 billion over a decade — mainly by cutting payments to providers such as hospitals. Federal child support enforcement payments would fall slightly, while Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program would lose $5 billion over five years and $12 billion over 10 years.
Some of the savings Bush seeks were specifically rejected by Congress last year, such as tightening eligibility for food stamps and opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
And a slew of tax cuts, tax incentives and tax-cut extensions would cost the Treasury $1.7 trillion over the next decade, dwarfing the $172 billion in entitlement savings and proposed user fees in the budget. Bush also included the cost of his embattled plan to add private investment accounts to Social Security, at a cost to the Treasury of $82 billion in the first two years of the program and $172 billion over the first seven years.
All totaled, his proposals for entitlement programs — including cuts, tax hikes and Social Security partial privatization — would actually increase spending by $551 billion. But those costs are not reflected in Bush’s deficit projections, since the president did not deduct the Social Security costs from the bottom line.
AP News reports, among the biggest losers in the plan “were 141 government programs that Bush sought to sharply reduce or eliminate entirely. Almost one-third of the targeted programs are in education including ones that provide money to support the arts, vocational education, parent resource centers and drug-free schools.”
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We need to prepare for the Baby Boomers and start cutting back on government spending. I think Bush’s budget did not go far enough in trimming government coffers.
In about 10 – 15 years, there will be no way that we can afford to pay for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
We could radically increase taxes. However, this will cripple future generations. We can increase the budget deficit. But it will lead to serious systemic risks to our economy. We should reduce benefits promised during a previous era of prosperity in our country. Of course, we can try a combination of all three, but we would be left with a situation akin to eurosclerosis.
We must make the painful choice of reducing benefits and reshaping Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to care for the very neediest in our country. It will be hard, but the demographic trend is inexorable.
Reality shouts that this is not a Republican or Democrat issue.
Aaron is parroting more Republican baloney. It would help if you actually read the budget and looked at facts. What a bunch of bull!
The United States is experiencing the largest military spending build up in the last 5 years more than has been seen for any five year span in 30 years. We alone account for 50% of all global spending for military research and weapons development. Roughly 80% of that funding is for conventional warfare NOT counter terrorism. The Budget does not even fairly reflect the costs of Afghanistan and Iraq, as even Republican senators acknowledge. Anyone who bothered to run the numbers would see that in the last 5 years , the greatest benefits for the tax cuts have been the top 5% of the US population with over a 400% increase in wealth in that bracket! We now have enough debt for $30,000 for every person in America. Here is a real fact! You can balance the budget and make social security solvent by a few simple steps: cut back on DOD R&D spending by 50% (we do not need a new fighter jet or bigger and faster tanks, we are THE super power hands down!–those weapon systems are MEANINGLESS for counter terrorism), cut back on military intervention spending– duh stop invading countries — instead let UN sanctioned interventions happen(Wars bankrupt countries LOOK AT HISTORY!), Next increase the income level that is taxed for social security up to $150,000 — guess what? That WILL HELP A LOT!, 3 – bring back the estate tax — it wasnt a lot but it helped, 4. Tax the upper 2% of the income bracket at 50% (because if you are worth 250 million you can afford it! read up on regressive trax systems and look at the US!), finally do not cut education dummy that is what drives the economic engine — patents and technological innovations that give the US market edge. The Baby Boomers paid into Social Security their whole lives why should they get shafted ? And do you think the world’s Super Power should be the only industrialized nation not to have universal health care?
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