President Bush Unveils His Proposed 2009 Budget
by Irwin Nesoff
On Monday, February 4th President Bush released his budget proposal for fiscal year 2009 plunging the country into record deficits and crushing debt. This $3.1 Trillion budget proposes a record $515 billion for the Pentagon, making the US defense budget larger than all defense expenditures of all other countries combined. If the Democrats roll over on this budget, as they have on nearly every other Bush initiative, with its combination of defense increases and domestic cuts, it will add $410 billion to the national debt. This one year deficit is only surpassed by the record-breaking deficit of 2004, which was $413 billion. In the eight years of the Bush presidency, the national debt will have increased by 75%, placing a crushing burden on future generations and ensuring little if any growth in social welfare and health services regardless of who occupies the White House next year.
When George Bush started his first term as president he inherited a balanced budget and $4 trillion in debt. In just one year he increased the national debt to $5.77 trillion and today, as a result of Bush economic and tax policies the national debt stands at $9 trillion. The interest alone on this debt costs US taxpayers $250 billion annually.
To date the US has spent $600 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is expected that the president will ask congress for $200 billion more, a figure that does not show up in the federal budget. In addition to this is the so-called stimulus package that will cost the federal government $150 billion, which the government must borrow to make good on.
According to the Federal Office of Management and Budget, in the seven years of the Bush presidency federal spending on national defense has increased from 17.3 per cent to 20.5 per cent of the national budget. That means that twenty cents of every dollar collected in taxes is spent on the military. At the same time, the share of the federal budget spent on human resources has declined from 65.5 per cent to 63.2 per cent. That number will slip even further this year with Bush proposing cuts in Medicare, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health Resources and Services Administration, technical education grants to states and alcohol abuse counseling to name a few of the 151 domestic programs slated for cuts.
This is not a budget for growth, nor one that looks to the future. It is a budget that borrows against the needs of current and future generations. As the debt grows so too will the interest payments on that debt, siphoning off an ever increasing share of taxpayer dollars.
Finally, as if to thumb his nose at the working men and women of America, Mr. Bush calls for his tax cuts to be made permanent. This in spite of the fact that fully 65% of this GOP tax cut went to the top 10% of income earners, while 90% of Americans shared a mere 35% of the tax cut benefits. If the Democrats in Congress were to live up to their campaign rhetoric and allow the tax cuts to lapse when they expire in 2011 the government would collect an additional $2.1 trillion in taxes through 2018. If they had the courage to roll back these tax cuts before they expire, even more could be saved. Imagine what an additional $300 billion in annual tax revenues can begin to do to repair some of the damage done by the reckless fiscal policies of the current administration and the Republican Congress of the last six years.
On Monday, February 4th President Bush released his budget proposal for fiscal year 2009 plunging the country into record deficits and crushing debt. This $3.1 Trillion budget proposes a record $515 billion for the Pentagon, making the US defense budget larger than all defense expenditures of all other countries combined. If the Democrats roll over on this budget, as they have on nearly every other Bush initiative, with its combination of defense increases and domestic cuts, it will add $410 billion to the national debt. This one year deficit is only surpassed by the record-breaking deficit of 2004, which was $413 billion. In the eight years of the Bush presidency, the national debt will have increased by 75%, placing a crushing burden on future generations and ensuring little if any growth in social welfare and health services regardless of who occupies the White House next year.
When George Bush started his first term as president he inherited a balanced budget and $4 trillion in debt. In just one year he increased the national debt to $5.77 trillion and today, as a result of Bush economic and tax policies the national debt stands at $9 trillion. The interest alone on this debt costs US taxpayers $250 billion annually.
To date the US has spent $600 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is expected that the president will ask congress for $200 billion more, a figure that does not show up in the federal budget. In addition to this is the so-called stimulus package that will cost the federal government $150 billion, which the government must borrow to make good on.
According to the Federal Office of Management and Budget, in the seven years of the Bush presidency federal spending on national defense has increased from 17.3 per cent to 20.5 per cent of the national budget. That means that twenty cents of every dollar collected in taxes is spent on the military. At the same time, the share of the federal budget spent on human resources has declined from 65.5 per cent to 63.2 per cent. That number will slip even further this year with Bush proposing cuts in Medicare, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health Resources and Services Administration, technical education grants to states and alcohol abuse counseling to name a few of the 151 domestic programs slated for cuts.
This is not a budget for growth, nor one that looks to the future. It is a budget that borrows against the needs of current and future generations. As the debt grows so too will the interest payments on that debt, siphoning off an ever increasing share of taxpayer dollars.
Finally, as if to thumb his nose at the working men and women of America, Mr. Bush calls for his tax cuts to be made permanent. This in spite of the fact that fully 65% of this GOP tax cut went to the top 10% of income earners, while 90% of Americans shared a mere 35% of the tax cut benefits. If the Democrats in Congress were to live up to their campaign rhetoric and allow the tax cuts to lapse when they expire in 2011 the government would collect an additional $2.1 trillion in taxes through 2018. If they had the courage to roll back these tax cuts before they expire, even more could be saved. Imagine what an additional $300 billion in annual tax revenues can begin to do to repair some of the damage done by the reckless fiscal policies of the current administration and the Republican Congress of the last six years.
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