US News
Bush unveils record US budget
Feb 4, 2008, 17:36 GMT
U.S. President George W. Bush\'s Fiscal Year 2009 Budget delivered to the Senate Budget Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. USA. President Bush is sending Congress a 3 trillion US dollar budget that provides a big boost to defense and protects his signature tax cuts. EPA/SHAWN THEW
Washington - US President George W Bush proposed a record 3- trillion-dollar budget Monday that would boost military spending by about 7 per cent, slow the growth of social programmes and widen the government deficit.
Administration officials estimated that Bush's last spending plan as president would cut the annual growth rate for Medicare - health insurance for the elderly - to 5 per cent over the next five years from about 7 per cent. Health care spending for the poor would also be slowed.
The Pentagon's general budget would rise to 515.4 billion dollars, the 11th consecutive year of increase. Separately, Bush is seeking another 70 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush said his proposal 'understands that our priority is to defend our country' and would keep the US economy growing.
But in an election year, his plan to increase the deficit while limiting social programmes is likely to face stiff resistance in Congress, where opposition Democrats hold majorities in both chambers.
As a lame duck whose term ends next January, Bush's ability to twist arms in Congress - including among members of his own Republican Party concerned about fiscal discipline - appears limited.
His budget, which covers the fiscal year starting October 2008, includes a 150-billion-dollar package of emergency tax incentives for US consumers and businesses in an effort to fight the risk of a recession. Meanwhile, 151 federal programmes would be cut or ended.
The budget would widen the federal deficit to about 400 billion dollars in 2009 after three years in which the gap shrank, the administration says. Bush insists that his goal of a balanced budget by 2012 remains intact.
In a 21st-century break with tradition, it was the first paperless government budget, filed to Congress entirely electronically.
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Older Talkback
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But the Bush-man claims a balanced budget by 2012, long after he's gone.
After the carnage created by the fiscally irresponsible neocon clowns,
it makes one yearn for tax and spend demonrats. If the demonrats had run the country like the retarded republicans have over the past eight years,
authentic conservatives would be in revolt against the government, instead of continuing to perpetrate fear and paranoia as a way of generating support for their crazy fuhrer. The neocons are pathological liars and self-serving manipulators, and they certainly are not conservatives.
The GOP gets elected based on promising on spending for THEIR special interest groups, and the working class is not part of that retinue. The cuts in social spending were always the point for the GOP, which has recklessly spent huge amounts under their leadership 2001-2006, creating these deficits that are now magnified by the failure to wrap up Iraq in any reasonable timeframe. Now the cost of modern weapons systems to replace the ground troops will cause further escalations in layout, as well as replacement of what was consumed, and expansion of forces necessary due to a long-term continuing large presence in Iraq.
The entire Supply-Side theory has NOT worked as promised, and at this point on the Laffer Curve (it's a CURVE, not a STRAIGHT LINE) any further cuts in tax rates would require a massive amount of growth, at those further-reduced tax rates, just to get even - like any Ponzi scheme, you run out of customers at some point. Predicted economic growth just makes it worse, and we are likely headed for a 'growth recession', where unemployment increases and job creation drops as the economy levels out. This reduces industrial demand, which will reduce demand for oil (and the OPEC nations are already planning production reductions), and with fewer direct labor hours increasing capacity, the risk of inflation abates, giving the Fed some maneuvering room.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_recession
The term Growth Recession indicates economic growth so low that it creates net unemployment. The term was created by Dr. Solomon Fabricant (New York University, National Bureau of Economic Research)and is recognized and cited more recently by business economists. Note that the term also has slightly different secondary meanings including a more general one that growth is below potential. However, the more specific meaning indicates the growth weak and insufficent to provide jobs for those entering the labor market. There may also be a third meaning refering to growth in which more jobs are actually being destroyed than created. In all cases the term indicates, Real GDP is expanding (slowly) but with job contraction, so the economy behaves or feels in many ways like a recession.
Is there need for nay further proof thjat the republicans don't even care for their own population.Better health care could have saved at least 800.000 american lives during the BUsh administration .Yet it is no issue at all for your president ,who prefers to serve the interest of Exxon,Raytheon,Halliburton and the big insurance tycoons .There is always plenty of money to buy weapons ,even as the colsd war is over .
From the Washington post a while ago:
A separate study by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine provided further evidence that the United States often falls short on health outcomes despite spending more per capita on health care than any other country. That research, also published today in Health Affairs, found that the United States ranked worst among 19 countries in the number of deaths that could have been prevented through better access to timely and effective health care.
Had the United States performed as well as the top three countries -- France, Japan and Australia -- it would have seen about 101,000 fewer deaths per year from conditions such as hypertension, appendicitis, tuberculosis, and colon and cervical cancers. unquote
Appalling figures but no issue to the republicans at all.A shame for any modern country that claims to defend the lives of it's citizens
Thought you might like some more of the Bush regime achievements -
In the USA nearly 40 million people live in poverty—the largest percentage in the industrialized world.
Nearly one in four children lives below the poverty line.
The U.S. ranks 29th in the world in infant mortality.
High school graduation rates in the U.S. are not in the top ten of industrialized nations.
One in nine Americans is functionally-illiterate.
Sixty-five percent of Americans believe God created humans. The percentage believing Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is the lowest of any industrialized nation.
American high school students rank 28th in math, but believe themselves to be first.
Life expectancy in the U.S. lags behind France, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, UK, Singapore, and Spain.
The infant mortality rate in Washington, D.C. is higher than India.
In the Economic Freedom index, a measure of freedom from governmental intervention and restriction, the USA came tenth.
The United States has the world’s largest trade deficit.
United States teens lead the world in obesity, as defined by body-mass index.
China graduates ten times as many engineers per year as Americans. Even per capita, China’s number is higher.
TherE is absolutley NO WAY ON EARTH that this veteran and citizen, and middle aged independent American will allow ANY sector of my government to collect physical features data on myself or any other American in the name of Homeland Security.
Today's news reports that the F.B.I intends to collect everything from Iris recognition data to every American's palm print 'so as to prevent terrorist activity on our soil' is absolutely a felony waiting to happen. What a line of crap this is sought in the name of security!!!!!! Do they think we are all wing-nuts to EVER allow this kind of surrendering of our privacy???????????????????/ NOT OVER MY DEAD BODY! I DARE ANY CANDIDATE CURRENTLY RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT TO UTTER SUCH A GOAL! HE / SHE WILL BE RUN OUT OF THEIR HOMES VIA TORCH-BEARING CITIZENS IN A NEW YORK MINUTE. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
geo. bush needs to be praised.
he single handed has destroy the country.
and he is very proud . and they thought hitler was bad...???
'Supply-side Economics' has not worked in the US because our legislators are on a see-money, spend-money diet. Matters are made worse because they will not address old mistakes such as Social Security.
The Bushbaby has proposed ridiculous budget. It is akin to a seller's asking price. He knows he won't get it and so does everyone else.
And one of the really nice features of the Huckabee tax plan is that it would put choke collars on our legislators. The second they raise taxes, everyone knows about it and everyone screams. It really is a fair tax in that respect.
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orlandogFeb 4th, 2008 - 18:19:57
The dollar is headed towards carrying no value
if he keeps making it out of thin air. My dog is
smarter.
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