{"id":90,"date":"2006-02-07T15:58:47","date_gmt":"2006-02-07T23:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/2006\/02\/07\/this-budget-is-busted\/"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T08:00:00","slug":"this-budget-is-busted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/2006\/02\/07\/this-budget-is-busted\/","title":{"rendered":"This Budget is Busted"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bush’s new budget was released today. There are some sadly predictable things about this budget, like an all-time record deficit of $423 billion.<\/a> An increase in the Pentagon’s budget to $439.3 billion.<\/a> And yet again the cost of the war was mostly left out, only $50 billion, so the budget doesn’t seem quite<\/i> as bad as it might. They just ask for that separately:<\/a><\/p>\n

The OMB analysts also include the $50 billion that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says he will request in “supplemental” funds for FY 2007, sometime this year, to cover anticipated expenses of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That brings the total to $513 billion.<\/p>\n

And there’s more. The Pentagon also announced Monday that it would ask Congress for $70 billion as a supplemental to fund war costs for the rest of FY 2006 (which lasts until this coming October). Strictly speaking, this $70 billion doesn’t count in a toting up of military appropriations for FY 2007. But if you view the whole budget package simply as a request for more new money, whether for next year or slipped in through the back door of this year, then that takes us to $583 billion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bush has never incorporated the cost of the war into his annual budget, instead preferring to have the money doled out throughout the fiscal year. $120 billion was already requested for 2006 since last<\/i> January.<\/a><\/p>\n

The budget is still recovering from Bush’s first term tax cuts, which will cost $1.35 trillion over the next decade.<\/a> Meanwhile, to make it seem just a little bit<\/i> better…<\/p>\n

In addition to strict limits on most discretionary, non-security spending in the budget, Bush sought drastic cuts or total elimination on 141 programs that would produce savings of nearly $15 billion in 2007.<\/p>\n

The targeted programs included 42 in the area of education ranging from drug-free schools to federal support for the arts, technology and parent-resource centers. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We’ve got $439 billion for the Pentagon but can’t scrape together $15 billion for art and drug free schools??? No Child Left Behind, indeed. <\/p>\n

And as always, the ablity of this administration to say the exact opposite of whatever they’re doing is unequaled.<\/p>\n

“This budget represents the president’s dedication to fiscal discipline, an efficient federal government and the continuation of a thriving U.S. economy,” Treasury Secretary John Snow told the Senate Finance Committee. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bush’s new budget was released today. There are some sadly predictable things about this budget, like an all-time record deficit of $423 billion. An increase in the Pentagon’s budget to $439.3 billion. And yet again the cost of the war was mostly left out, only $50 billion, so the budget doesn’t seem quite as bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}