Good luck americans (you're going to need it)

[fourier jr]

Bush looking at freezing domestic spending
Friday, December 17, 2004 Posted: 1747 GMT (0147 HKT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House is telling federal agencies to expect lean budgets next year, with congressional aides and lobbyists saying President Bush appears ready to propose freezing or even slightly cutting overall domestic spending.

Targeted would be all annually approved programs except for defense and domestic security.

Excluding those two would leave a part of the budget the administration estimates will total $388 billion for the fiscal year that began October 1. Also excluded are automatically made payments like Social Security and interest on the federal debt.

Bush's stringent approach comes as record federal deficits that hit $413 billion last year hinder his ability to pay for overhauling Social Security and extending his tax cuts. He also has tied the budget shortfalls to the weakening dollar, and pledged to reduce red ink to help prop up the currency.

At his White House economic conference on Thursday, Bush said he made "good progress" in holding the growth of non-defense, non-homeland-security programs this year to about 1 percent.

"What I'm saying is we're going to submit a tough budget," he said. "And I look forward to working with Congress on the tough budget."

The president is still making final decisions about the $2.5 trillion budget for 2006 he will propose in February.

But House and Senate aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, said cuts appeared destined for such programs as housing, grants for community development, purchases of new equipment for the Federal Aviation Administration, and Army Corps of Engineers water projects.

... etc

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/17/bush.spending.ap/index.html

 

[BobG]

At least that's a more realistic stand than either candidate took during the campaign.

There's things a president can do that leave some other guy further down the road stuck rather than the current president. Eisenhower did that in the 50's. He could have done what was best for the US economy. Instead, having the strongest economy left in the world, he did things that helped Europe and Asia. Nixon paid a little for Eisenhower's policies, Ford paid more, and Carter paid most of all, with a little left over for Reagan's early years. A strong world economy provides a better long term environment for the US economy, so the price was worth it, but certainly those policies were easier knowing it was some future president that would have to pay the price.

The way we've handled Social Security is similar. We've just kept pushing the due date back further and further. Sooner or later, some president is going to the unlucky guy who actually has to start fixing the problem.

About the only thing I find fault with is thinking he'll be able to hold on to his tax cuts and pursue an aggressive foreign policy at the same time he starts fixing Social Security. In other words, instead of a 'tough budget' being bad, maybe he needs to go even a little further.

 

[kat]

Other then the rumours from the "anonymous" aides..this is gooood news not baaad news...