Bush seeks to balance the federal budget on the backs of poor children, old folks and the handicapped, while eliminating taxes on investment income and estates that billionaires pay and spending $622 billion on the military (over $2000 for every man, woman and child in America), much of which goes to contractors that donate to the Republican party. How much greed is enough?
Most workers have received meager pay increases in the current decade. The median full-time worker earns 1 percent less than he or she did in 2001, after inflation is taken into account. Since 2001, the percentage of people who receive health insurance from their employers has also dropped, to 59.7 percent from 63.2 percent.
Source: "Polls Indicate Voter Anxiety on Economy" By DAVID LEONHARDT - NY Times - December 30, 2007



President Bush will ask Congress in his budget next week to squeeze more than $70 billion of savings from Medicare and Medicaid over the next five years, administration officials and health care lobbyists said Thursday.

The proposals, part of a White House plan to balance the budget by 2012, set the stage for a battle with Congress over entitlement spending. Even some administration officials say they cannot imagine approval of such large cutbacks in a Congress now controlled by Democrats.

Mr. Bush is also expected to propose changes in the Children’s Health Insurance Program to sharpen its focus on low-income families. The changes could reduce federal payments to states that cover children with family incomes exceeding twice the poverty level. Under federal guidelines, a family of four is considered poor if its annual income is less than $20,650.
Source: "Bush Seeks Big Medicare and Medicaid Saving " - NY Times - 2/3/07



According to the Congressional Research Service, the Iraq war has so far cost $500bn.

In the run-up to the invasion in 2003, the Pentagon's projected estimate of the total cost of the war was $50bn. A White House economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, was fired by President Bush when he suggested that the total cost would be $200bn.

The New York Times noted that the cost of the war would have paid for universal healthcare in the US, nursery education for all three and four-year-olds in the country, immunisation for children round the world against a host of diseases, and still leave about half of the money left over.
Source: "Bush Slashes Aid to Poor to Boost Iraq War Chest" - By Ewen MacAskill - The Guardian UK



The Bush administration is seeking a record military budget of $622 billion for the 2008 fiscal year, Pentagon officials have said. The sum includes more than $140 billion for war-related costs.

“It is the highest level of spending since the height of the Korean War,” said Steven Kosiak, a military budget expert with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a policy analysis organization here.
Source: "Record $622 Billion Budget Requested for the Pentagon" By DAVID S. CLOUD - NY Times - 2/4/07



Previewing the fiscal year 2008 budget he will unveil on Monday, Bush also said it would show his goal of erasing the deficit by 2012 could be accomplished while making his tax cuts permanent.

Many Democrats have called Bush fiscally reckless and contend his huge tax cuts were heavily skewed toward the wealthy and were unaffordable.

``Controlling spending also requires us to address the unsustainable growth of entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,'' Bush said.

The president would boost the regular Pentagon budget by 10.5 percent to $481 billion, the official said.

An additional $245 billion will be sought to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through late 2008.
Source: "Bush Says Budget Will Limit Non - Defense Spending" By REUTERS (via NY Times) - February 3, 2007




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3/29/2024

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