Applying Brakes to Benefits Gets Wide G.O.P. Backing

[Rose Siding]

In his budget request to Congress, President Bush will try to impose firm, enforceable limits on the growth of federal benefit programs, and the chairmen of the Senate and House Budget Committees say they strongly supported that effort.

Administration officials and Congressional aides said Mr. Bush would also seek cuts in housing assistance for low-income families, freezes or slight increases in most domestic programs, and larger increases for domestic security. The spending plan for 2006, like the appropriations enacted for this year, would give priority to military operations and domestic security over social welfare programs.
...
Mr. Bush plans to submit his budget to Congress early next month. Officials at the affected agencies said he would propose a virtual freeze for the National Science Foundation and a very small increase for the National Institutes of Health.

Agency officials throughout the government spoke on condition of anonymity because the White House wants to control the way details of the president's budget are released.

A legislative proposal drafted by the White House would make it more difficult for Congress to pass legislation increasing the "long-term unfunded obligations" of benefit programs like Social Security, Medicare, Civil Service retirement and disability, veterans disability compensation, and health benefits for retired federal employees.......MORE........

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/politics/09budget1.ht...

[Rican1]

1. How about putting the brakes on corporate welfare and subsidies

[PA Democrat]

3. Yes and lets put the brakes on those Republican

legislators' big fat pensions.

[FreakinDJ]

10. don't forget Crop subsidies to corporate farms too

[MichiganVote]

2. Put the bite on the homeless. Figures. What a crock.

We pay the taxes and the rich win out again and again and again.

[Solly Mack]

4. surprise surprise

disgusting

[Massacure]

5. Everyone remember what happens when you put guns before bread?

*cough* *cough* Rome *cough* France *cough* Soviet Union *cough* *cough*

[FreakinDJ]

11. Ya...welcome to Russia

[Pastiche423]

6. Cuts in housing assistance for low-income families

Increase the homeless?

[ally_sc]

18. there was this story on local tv here in south carolina

about housing vouchers being cut. and what they did was they did statisitics on which people were trying to work and how many people were in the house, etc. well, the end result was there were a 150 families that according to their standards (housing authority of charleston) that were going to lose their vouchers because the state felt that the people in the family could work orf get better work.
the lady they interviewed had seven children in the house. i think that the voucher only pays for some of the costs of the rent. rent here is sky high even in the poorer sections...such a shame. i am glad she went to the tv channel because this is something the governor mark sanford(repulseican)does not want known. that was just one case...horrid. yes there will be more homeless because of bushitler just like when reagan was in office. sorry so long.

[0007]

27. .....and more soldiers to guard those homeless that will be classed

as terrorist, because they have no I.D.

America will become diseased, hungry and crime ridden with soldiers seen everywhere.

[leesa]

36. They never learn. Remeber when Reagan kicked all the mentally ill

out into the streets and then, surprise, surprise, crime increased!

[trogdor]

7. Yup. We saw that comin'

Rick folks get rewarded. Po' folks get the shaft.

[Rose Siding]

9. "Bush will try again to end the Advanced Technology Program..."

It eads like satire. Everyone will end up shafted.

snip>
Mr. Bush will try again to end the Advanced Technology Program in the Commerce Department, which is spending $142 million this year to speed development of high-risk technologies in medicine, manufacturing, engineering, computer science and other fields. President Bill Clinton liked the program, but the conservative Heritage Foundation calls it "corporate welfare at its worst."

[JerseygirlCT]

8. It's going to take so very long to dig out from

the huge mess this administration is making. This kind of nonsense will have lasting effects on society as a whole.

So very stupid.

[deadparrot]

12. I cannot stand these people. How can they do this?

Keep it up, George. Fuck up the country even more. Make the poor poorer and the needy needier. It's the American way, after all. As long as you and your oil buddies are happy, eveyone else can suffer.

[happynewyear]

14. probably a lot of the poor and needy will die

on the street with nowhere to live, no nothing.

[Just Me]

13. They view themselves as neo-Romans,...

,...and believe THAT empire died due to failure in maintaining an overwhelming military defense,...against "the people"!!!

They are pro-power, anti-democracy. No matter what they do,...they will lose because the power of the people is a power no TOTALITARIAN can contain.

In my view, these freaks of human nature are simply accelerating both their and this nation's downfall. They FAIL to acknowledge or appreciate the present,...the advancement of humanity. They are stuck in both themselves and history.

Humanity ain't gonna tolerate the power-mongers from the past,...for very long.

[Straight Shooter]

15. Whatever happened to compassionate conservatism?

Oh, yeah, right. Nevermind. It never existed.

I'm sure that the starving homeless will be really concerned about an attack on our "homeland." Truth is, nothing agitates an anarchist like injustice. And no matter what they do, they can't stop the lone individual from carrying out his homemade style of revenge.

I'm just sayin', everything that goes around, comes around.

[ananda]

16. They voted for it

A lot of the poor and working class voted for Bush and live in red states. Too bad, but they got the big, strong leader who doesn't waffle or flipflop on the important issues like making sure that everyone has the opportunity to make a living and have a roof over their head, while making sure that the rich get richer and that tax money gets siphoned off into the military-industrial complex, its parasitical contractors, and big pharma.

But they got that good, strong leader America needs in a time of war... against them.

[0007]

28. You forgot the moral thingie! '0 how those Christians love junior

and how he protects the sanctity of man and woman and the unborn.

[drscm]

17. Thank God he is funding Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing,

Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing, Killing,
above human life-giving needs.

[Amigust]

19. Defense & HS increases good for the family fortunes

since the Bush's are so deeply involved in those kinds of investments.

[rockedthevoteinMA]

20. this is great (sarcasm)

snip...
A White House document describing the proposal says that Medicaid, the health program for low-income people, can be added to the list as soon as federal officials devise a reliable way to estimate its long-term costs. Medicaid spending has shot up 63 percent in the last five years, so that federal and state outlays together now total more than $300 billion a year.

Wonder why Medicaid has shot up so much ... could it be so many are unemployed and can't afford f*cking health insurance anymore??

[KDLarsen]

34. Whoa, Bushspeak at it's finest

"as soon as federal officials devise a reliable way to estimate its long-term cost"

=

"as soon as federal officials devise a way to make it look like it's going to bankrupt the nation"

[Skittles]

21. heartless f***ing BASTARDS

nt

[Corgigal]

22. Osama then can use one of our homeless

and hungry "Americans" for his next act. Of course this govt never thought of that angle.

[mulethree]

23. Sure they did, now destitute = threat hence the domestic security $$ n/t

[Gloria]

24. So when do all those "Christians" protest???? You know they

won't....and the mainstream and progressive religious organizations won't be able to be heard above the din.

We are rotting from within.

[lovuian]

25. Bush is trying to destroy what ever benefits Americans have

He's going to be a busy fellow!!! The Iraq War is going to be a foul stench in Americans throats!!!

[mtnester]

26. This is the compassionate right?

Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I’ll piss on ’em
That’s what the statue of bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let’s club ’em to death
And get it over with and just dump ’em on the boulevard

Think God/Yahweh/Budda/whoever will forgive them when the time comes? Or is it go directlty to hell, do not pass go?

[durablend]

29. They're reading from the "New Improved Testament"

Embrace the poor and middle class, steal their money, then kick them into the street.

[NVMojo]

30. he is going to bleed our wallets and our souls dry ....

for his corporate buddies. Rummy and Cheney are licking their chops. We are all just disposable shit to these people.

[durablend]

33. And when they're done with that

They'll send your @$$ off to Iraq to die.

Simply brilliant!

[TahitiNut]

31. They seek only to PROFIT from taxes they pay.

I'm more and more of the mind that these people really regard taxes like 'loaves' ... and feel they're entitled to receive in return far more than they pay. These are people who feed at the public trough ... from federal rangelands to federal oil and minneral deposits to federal forests to federal irrigation to federal power generation facilities. The 'blue' states are notorious for being greater beneficiaries of federal spending than the amounts they pay in federal taxes.

So, consistent with their attitude of entitlement, they regard the very people whose labor they've stolen and whose lives they've fed upon as having no remaining entitlements ... no rights other than the 'right' to die (unlike the immortal repositories of wealth called 'corporations.').

[Earth_First]

32. Building an Empire isn't cheap...

always at cost to the citizens.

[leesa]

35. More increases for domestic security, which somehow never seem

to be funded. Whose pocket are they going into.