Democracy for Vancouver

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration unveiled a massive $3.1-trillion budget Monday with soaring deficits.

Main features of the proposed spending plan call for sizable increases in military spending while protecting President George W. Bush’s signature tax cuts.

It shows the U.S. government spending at $3 trillion in a 12-month period for the first time in history.

Despite the increases, most government programs outside of national security face a squeeze.

Among other things, the budget seeks $196 billion in savings over the next five years in the government’s giant health care programs - Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor.

Even with those savings, Bush projects that deficits, which have been declining, will soar to near-record levels, hitting $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009. The all-time high deficit in dollar terms was $413 billion in 2004.
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Bush projects that the deficit will decline rapidly starting in 2010 and will achieve a modest surplus in 2012.

But Democrats said that forecast was based on flawed math that only included $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009 and no money after that.

At almost $2 billion a week, our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing us about $100 billion a year. And don’t forget, kiddies: all previous appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan have all been designated as “emergency spending” so far - and hence are off budget. So Bush will doubtless ask for more than this paltry $70 billion, off budget, before he leaves office.

Yesterday I was out walking my precinct, dropping off info at every house about next Saturday’s Washington Caucus. While making the rounds, I talked to several very reasonable people who asked me why I couldn’t support Ron Paul, as he seems the most ready to pull troops out immediately. “But he also intends to pull federal money out of social services and regulatory agencies like the FDA, USDA and the Consumer Products Safety Commission - remember the Chinese leaded toys?” I asked.

If Bush’s budget holds sway, Ron Paul wouldn’t need to do a damn thing in office other than bring the troops home. With the exception of our bloated and overstretched military (that’s quite a trick to pull off, but they’ve have managed it), Bush and Cheney have effectively strangled the federal government.

Bush’s 2009 budget is Grover Norquist’s wet dream.