February 8, 2005

"The federal budget is not just an accounting tool. It is a statement about our priorities and our values as a nation. But because of decisions this president made to benefit an elite few -- at the expense of the rest of us -- we're now facing a set of budget choices that are unsupportable, immoral and dangerous." [more]

Sweeping cuts in welfare, education and housing programmes for the poor were the centrepiece of austerity budget proposals announced by George Bush yesterday to meet his campaign pledge of halving the US budget deficit in his second term. In a package hailed by the White House as the toughest since the days of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, only defence and homeland security were spared from the fiscal squeeze. The dollar rose on the foreign exchanges as Mr Bush responded to growing concern on Wall Street at the deteriorating budgetary position with a package that he said would cut the deficit from more than $500bn (£270bn) in 2004 to $251bn by 2008. Critics said that Mr Bush had used an inflated initial estimate of the deficit in 2004 to make the reduction by 2008 look bigger. They added that the deficit projections excluded the $80bn cost of military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, the transitional costs of privatising America's pension system, and of making the tax cuts in Mr Bush's first term permanent. [more]and [more] and [more]

Bush Budget May Force Debate in Congress [more]
The rationale for cuts to essential discretionary programs is pretty well summed up in this quote: "This cannot afford to be a guns-and-butter term," says Sen. Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who will be the Senate Budget Committee's new chairman. "You've got to cut the butter." (The Wall Street Journal, December 21, 2004) [more]