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WriterofLight,
Please! Your nose is so far up this man's "hole" you can't smell the shit!
posted by
Glennb
on October 18, 2005 at 4:07 AM
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Or Lets Talk...
...about a
massive and pointless spend on an illegal invasion based on lies.
Point taken on spending obfuscation. I'd be surprised if just one side is guilty.
D
posted by
DamonLeigh
on October 18, 2005 at 3:47 AM
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Thanks for touching on a sore spot I have with President Bush . . .
. . . namely fiscal discipline. I don't think he's vetoed a single spending bill since he's been in office.
Since you were so kind as to share this, damon, I have a homework assignment for you. I'd like you to present us with a summary of spending on these programs over the past several years. I'm a bit suspicious of your information as presented here.
Let me tell you why. The world of government spending is a fiscal and mathematical cloud cuckoo land. The thinking goes like this. A spending increase of, say, 8% is expected or desired. If it stays at 8% or is increased even further, then it is reported as an increase, as it should be. But if the increase is less than 8%, something absolutely bizarre happens in the minds and mouths of those who wanted the increase. If the spending increase is only 5%, it suddenly gets reported that spending was cut 3%.
To put it another way: Spending is currently $100. You want it increased to $110, but instead it is increased to $105. By the perverse thinking that rules government spending, $105 in proposed spending is regarded as a reduction from the $100 in current spending.
I lnow this is terribly confusing, but that's how it works. So I suspect that your reductions are more accurately a reduction in the rate of increase from previous spending levels.
Now if you really want to make some cuts, let's talk about pork like $250,000,000 bridges to sparsely populated islands and $250,000,000,000 shopping sprees by Louisiana senators.
posted by
WriterofLight
on October 17, 2005 at 6:58 PM
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Yes, But It's Not Quite Like That, Is It?
Bush is making the deepest cuts in social programs since the Reagan administration.
Joshua Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the cuts -- including $20 billion next year in a slew of domestic programs for seniors, veterans, children, and the poor -- were necessary to restore fiscal discipline and fulfill Bush's pledge of halving the budget deficit by 2009.
Critics deemed the budget blueprint an assault on the nation's neediest, saying Bush planned to pay for making his $1.6 trillion in tax cuts permanent by robbing funds for education, food stamps, and healthcare for the poor. "There's a direct trade-off -- help the rich and hurt seniors and children," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, which advocates more generous social spending.
The plan calls for a 1 percent cut in domestic programs unrelated to national security, marking the first time the government proposed an out-and-out reduction in social spending since the Reagan administration two decades ago, Bolten said.
The administration is offering a plan to cut Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor, which provides guaranteed benefits to those who qualify. The Medicaid cuts would cost Massachusetts $1.26 billion over the next decade, according to Families USA.
In contrast, he would raise overall defense spending by 4.8 percent, and homeland security programs would get a 8.6 percent increase.
Then there's a $530 million in cuts to education programs, including the elimination of Perkins college student loans and loan forgiveness for members of the armed forces and Peace Corps volunteers. The Even Start literacy program would be zeroed out, along with the Safe and Drug Free Schools program.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, asserted that the No Child Left Behind education law that he crafted with Bush would again not be fully funded, at $13.3 billion instead of the authorized $22.8 billion. ''Three million children left behind," he said, referring to his estimate of how many students would not be served because of that shortfall.
Veterans would be forced to pay more for their healthcare, a proposal that Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said could force 22,000 active and retired service personnel in his state out of the Veterans Affairs Administration system because of the higher cost. Food stamps would be cut, as would child-care assistance for low-income families and home heating aid. Federal operating subsidies for Amtrak would end.
A Clinton-era program to help state and local law enforcement hiring offices would take a hit, going from $378 million to $117 million. Local fire departments would see their federal assistance drop from $715 million to $500 million under Bush's plan, angering legislators who think the administration is not doing enough to help states and cities combat potential terrorists.
Housing and community development programs would be cut from $5 billion to $3.7 billion, and were shifted from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to the Commerce Department. That seemingly small bureaucratic change could mean death for some of the 18 local development programs, since the Commerce Department does not have an attachment to the programs and may not fight for them in Congress, advocates for those programs said.
''The president has taken a lot of money out of programs that are the bread and butter of low-income communities," said Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/02/08/bush_spending_plan_hits_social_programs/
posted by
DamonLeigh
on October 17, 2005 at 7:52 AM
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