Most people have realized for some time that Mr. Bush is not what you would call, well, smart. But this new budget request defies all reasoning. It is as if the president is willfully seeking to anger his critics. His new spending request calls for more spending on Iraq and seeks to reduce the amount America is spending on medicare and other health care programs.
It is almost as if Mr. Bush is reading the morning op-eds and letters to the editor, seeing the phrases like, "We need to spend money on education and healthcare at home, not billions on Iraq." and thinking, "Huh, we should destroy what is good about America and spend more on my failed war." Of course, the new budget has yet to allocate the funds we will need for our upcoming invasion of Iran. The good news is you won't have to wake up junior for school anymore once we stop funding education altogether.
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Comments: 42
They can easily justify passing a budget substantially different than what was submitted by the executive branch, plus they get a lot of political milage out of it.
Unfortunately, I expect nothing will get done and yet another ominbus bill will be shove through in the fall.
P.S. my reference to Congressman caning each other references a pre-civil war era incidenct wherein anger over the issue of slavery ignited a violent outburst on the part of one member. He beat a peer severely. I do not condone such action, the comment was made as a joke to point out that today's representatives tend to get a bit less excited about the issues.
By the way bush is stupid.
Now we have to delve in to political speak, Washington style. CUTTING a budget would be, at least to most people, reducing the level of funding below the previous year's level. On a personal level, you spent $400 on your car last year, you expect to spend $500 this year. Then you make changes to the car and find you only will need to spend $480. Have you CUT The amount you spend on the car? Nope, not even close, you still increased it, you just increased it LESS. Analogy is usually pretty slippery but this one is actually pretty accurate. Remember the social program "cuts" under Reagan? The "cuts" the left screamed so loudly about were cuts in the RATE OF GROWTH, not the dollar amounts spent, even adjusting for inflation. This is Washington speak, where a cut may not be a cut. The supposed "cuts" in health care programs are cuts in the RATE OF GROWTH yet again, yet listen to how this is a "cut." Even adjusted for inflation these programs are getting MORE money, so how is that a cut? The actual budgets are passed by Congress, not the President. Remember the Reagan budgets which were termed "dead on arrival" by the Democratic Congress?
Bush's so-called love for this country can be perfectly illustrated in his concern for the city of New Orleans. His regime has shamefully allowed a major American city to go down the tubes. "You're doin' a heckuva job, Bushie."
Maybe, just maybe, if Bush hadn't recklessly and irresponsibly plunged us into unfathomable debt, there might be some money for New Orleans, among other things.
Reagan with Alzheimer's is smarter than Dubya.
Technically, it IS a spending increase, because it is adding funding, but in reality, it is only allowing the program to tread water, not increasing the actual size of the program itself.
That's why, when republicans propose cuts to social spending programs, they can argue that their budget is increasing spending. Technically, they ARE increasing spending over the previous year, BUT, they are not increasing it enough to meet the inflation and member enrollment demands of the particular program, which equates to a CUT in program funding, whether they like to admit it or not.
Too bad, they don't have the same concerns with regard to corporate welfare and wasteful defense spending as they do for social spending.
I forgot to address this. Remember how dramatically spending increased under Redink Ronnie, and how he and Poppy Bush drove this nation deeply into debt with republican "borrow and spend" policy? Remember how republicans have defended this by saying "Yeah, but it was a democratic congress..." Just remember as well that the democratic congress handed Raygun FAR less than he'd requested each year. Without the democratic congress attempting to restrain spending, we'd have gone even further into debt than we did.
And, be aware of the fact that, while republicans rail against social and infrastructure of any kind, there isn't a corporate welfare proposal that they've met that they cannot support 110%, especially when it involves driving the nation into debt and forcing future generations to accept the necessary tax increases to pay off that republican debt. Ultimately, the goal is to eliminate social spending altogether, so that all government spending is focused on corporate welfare programs. That's the reason for "borrow and spend" policies. Their intention is to drive the nation so far into debt that it becomes necessary to gut social spending as a result.
Your last paragraph of your last comment was spot on!
George W Bush started office with an agenda. He has not and will not deviate one whit from it. I don't care what people want he is not about to change as that would indicate his agenda is wrong and he knows it is correct. Probably divine! When the president is unable to convince the people of the righteousness of his programs and he has tried then it behooves him to use subterfuge and obfuscation while claiming he is doing the will of the people but actually continues his own merry way. It's right dammit!
Whether he is smart or not is not the point and he knows it. If he can continue in this manner till he is out of office he will have accomplished a great deal of his ultimate goal. That is break the country so the next administration cannot possibly spend on social programs, insure the well being of the great corporations so they are untrammeled and unregulated and finally promote a new American imperialism designed to insure corporate welfare world wide into the new century!
After your recent vociferous defense of Ann Coulter and now your reference the Limbaugh I'm convinced you're just trying to provide me with my Tuesday chuckle!
I don't get Ann here but I've read her and heard Rush. These fight with Levitt and Savage as the most insulting people on the planet. Yeah, they're good for laughs!
Thanks and keep it up!
What I am getting at is that Gather is:
1. A place to post thoughtful pieces full of facts for intellectual types to ponder.
2. A place to post anecdotal or passionate calls for political change which contain more heart than substance. Notably, these types of posting have in my experience been far more successful in terms of drawing comments because:
a. People do not have alot of time.
b. People would rather have an online conversation than read what I have to think.
I think that many of the comments posted here have plenty of substance. So I do not regret that my post is not the equivalent of a Woodward expose. I have another featured article in the news section, which is about 10 times as long and contains indepth coverage of a recent presidential campaign event in New Hampshire, as well as interviews with voters in attendance and links to video coverage. Which is to say it has substance. That article has 9 comments, including about 3 from myself. This one now has 32. Make of it what you will.
You must mean the kind of analysis and thought reflected in your half-assed Comment, Dan e.
Great article, Dave A.
You know you're hitting a nerve when pre-pubescent drones like TJ circle through to quote Rush Limbaugh.
Bush, Limbaugh, ...do you have to do a lot of drugs to think Republican?
What do the Beatles. Pink Floyd, and the Dead have to do with political affiliation?
I listen to Wagner, but that doesn't make me a Nazi.
I listen to Sting, but that doesn't make me an enviromentalist.
1982 proposed budget, 695.3 billion dollars, the actual approved budget was 745.8 billion dollars. No reining in here.
1983 proposed budget, 773 billion dollars, approved budget was 808.9 billion dollars. No reining in here.
1984 proposed budget, 862 billion dollars, approved 851.8 billion dollars. Well, we actually have some reining in there.
1985 proposed budget, 940 billion dollars, approved 946.5 billion dollars. No reining in there.
1986 proposed budget, 973.7 billion dollars, approved, 990.3 billion dollars. Hmmm, still not reining in.
1987 proposed budget, 994 billion dollars, approved, 1003.9 billion dollars. Nope, still not reining in.
1988 proposed budget, 1024.3 billion dollars, approved 1064.1 billion dollars. Hmmm, still no reining in going on.
1989, the last Reagan budget, proposed budget, 1094.1 billion dollars, approved budget was 1144.1 billion dollars, a cumulative difference of 24.5% and an average of 2.8% INCREASE over what Reagan asked for. The source of these figures is the Office of Management and Budget web site. Care to show me where the Democrats "reined in" Reagan, Clark?
The truth is that budget process requires compromise when one party has control of Congress and the other has control of the Presidency. If one side or the other is really committed to reducing the deficit, then they CAN make it happen. The Republicans did it in 1996, the Democrats can do it now. The real question is do they really WANT to reduce the deficit. If they do, they can make it happen. Time will tell if the Democrats are as committed to reducing the deficit and ultimately balancing the budget as they claim.
Only a true BDL could see Dave's article as "Great".
(Brain Dead Liberal)
Clark, I had not previously considered growth in participation in a project as a reason to increase the funding for that project above the rate of inflation. You do make a valid point on that one.
Geoffrey, I beg your pardon, I'm perfectly capable of being obtuse, rude and ignorant, I merely choose not to be, and there are posters with NO red, white or blue in their icons who are every bit as rude, obtuse and ignorant.
I am Brilliant Determined & Literate.
Pink Floyd: Most of their songs are about how the "system" drives you insane.
The Dead: Don't think I even need to explain that one.
While the Beatles are not nearly as obvious, I think it is pretty clear the other bands were making music for those of us who "march to the beat of a different drum". So I find it a little wierd when people who read Rush Limbaugh also own copies of every live show the Dead ever played.
Thank you mr. bush and all the people who so blindly support you.
Please, not one more addendum showing your adulation for Raygun Ronnie. Want to balance the budget? Stop making ongoing war a murky permant line item via sleight of hand "supplementals." I don't care how many times the cons say it's an infinitesimal percentage of GDP. Priorities, priorities, priorities! Screw whether the dems or the repugs compromise with one another -- I say they certainly do -- at the expense of the people who put them there.
Speaking of rayguns and missile shields, everyone; wonder how that will show up in the budget. This president, and I'm glad to hear someone say the "disordered" word, is going to spend, spend, spend while he can.
Good luck on that!
How else could he break the nation to prevent the next democrat from doing something besides making war?
Very well put Missy!