View Single Post
Old 02-09-2005, 12:28 AM   #1 (permalink)
CShine
Crazy
 
Bush Puts The "Big" Back in Big Government

So much for all that Bush talk of budget cuts. When you look at the whole picture, it's just more of the same old, same old GOP spending that's been completely out of control for a damn-long time. Nice to see that at least some GOP Congressmen see his budget proposal for the whopper it is.


Quote:
Even as President Bush proposes significant cuts in healthcare, farm subsidies and other domestic programs, his new budget makes one thing clear about the legacy of his first term in the White House: The era of big government is back.

Bush's $2.57-trillion budget for 2006, if approved by Congress, would be more than a third bigger than the 2001 budget he inherited four years ago. It is a monument to how much Republicans' guiding fiscal philosophy has changed over the 10 years since the GOP's Contract With America called for a balanced budget and abolition of entire Cabinet agencies.

No longer are Republicans arguing with Democrats about whether government should be big or small. Instead, they are at odds over what kind of big government the U.S. should have.

"This Republican Party is much less fiscally conservative than the one that took Congress 10 years ago," said Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research and policy center in Washington. "That Congress believed in eliminating entire departments that weren't justified. You don't hear that these days. I wish we did."

.......

"This is a promise in which his position so far is not credible," said William A. Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, and a former economic advisor to President Reagan. "President Bush also promised to reduce the deficit in half last year, but it went up $15 billion."

.......

Republicans' commitment to eliminating the deficit, a cornerstone of the Contract With America, also seems a thing of the past. Party members now argue that the deficit — although it is a record in absolute numbers — is manageable because, when measured as a share of the economy, it is not as large as Reagan's 1983 deficit.

But Stanley E. Collender, a budget analyst with Financial Dynamics, a business communications firm in Washington, said that amounted to "using the budget failure of one Republican to make the large deficits of another appear to be less troubling.

"President Bush would never admit this, but he has transformed the party into the party of permanent big deficits," he said.

A key question is whether that prospect spooks Republicans into taking more aggressive steps to reduce the deficit and curb spending.

Ironically, the initiatives that might suffer are the cornerstones of Bush's second-term agenda. Some Republicans already are balking at his Social Security overhaul because of its high transition costs. And even some Bush loyalists — including Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), former chairman of the Senate Budget Committee — are having second thoughts about Bush's proposal to make his tax cuts permanent.

Said Steve Bell, Domenici's chief of staff: "These deficits are serious business."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...ck=1&cset=true

Last edited by CShine; 02-09-2005 at 12:41 AM..
CShine is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360