No Escaping the Red Ink as Bush Pens '04 Agenda

[papau]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/29/politics/campaigns/29BUSH.html

No Escaping the Red Ink as Bush Pens '04 Agenda
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and EDMUND L. ANDREWS


ASHINGTON, Nov. 28 — <snip>
The deficit, projected a few months ago to be around $475 billion for the fiscal year that started on Oct. 1, now seems likely to hit $500 billion, up from $374 billion last year. The White House's goal of cutting it at least in half within a few years will be hard to achieve despite the economic rebound and the growth in tax revenue it is expected to generate, budget analysts in the government and on Wall Street say....bringing the deficit down to some $250 billion in the next five years "is going to be very hard to do" even if the economic recovery remains strong and unemployment falls sharply. “The thing I would caution is that economic growth is not going to be enough" to solve the fiscal problem, Mr. Holtz-Eakin said in an interview.<snip>

Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said government spending per household in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 was $20,301 — the highest level since World War II, he said, even after adjustment for inflation. (His analysis showed that the figure peaked in 1944 at $26,445, as measured in current dollars.)<snip>

In the long run, the government faces rising interest costs from the increasing level of debt it is amassing. (Debt held by the public, the portion of the total national debt generated by year-to-year budget deficits, currently stands at around $4 trillion.) Only a few years ago, when the nation was awash in budget surpluses, both parties pledged to pay off the debt held by the public. Such a step would have made it easier for the government to address a problem now just over the horizon: the prospect that Social Security and Medicare will not be able to pay full benefits to the baby boomers as they retire.

Mr. Bush is considering a new push next year on behalf of his plan to overhaul Social Security through the creation of private investment accounts, a change that would require large though temporary infusions of cash. But any effort to promote his approach will run into questions about whether it is fiscally feasible given the likelihood of large long-term budget deficits.<snip>


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-congress30nov30,1,4740792.story?coll=la-home-headlines

THE NATION GOP Puts Its Mark on Congress and Deficit
By Janet Hook Times Staff Writer

November 30, 2003

WASHINGTON — <snip>

The Republican-controlled Congress has passed the third tax cut in as many years, an enormous Pentagon budget, a costly experiment in nation-building in Iraq and a vast expansion of Medicare — all at the request of President Bush. Their actions have left the federal budget swimming in the largest deficits in history.

As one lawmaker heard from a Republican friend, "Democrats are the party of 'tax and spend'; Republicans are the party of 'don't tax — and spend.' " That is the ironic product of the first full year since 1954 that Republicans have controlled the White House and Congress.<snip>

On the international front, Republicans rallied behind and financed Bush's doctrine of preemptive military action. Congress financed the war in Iraq and, despite reservations, put up almost $20 billion for rebuilding Iraq, the most ambitious foreign aid initiative since the Marshall Plan. The pro-business agenda thrived, as Congress cleared the way for Bush to limit overtime pay, relax certain clean-air requirements and increase logging in national forests. Congress almost passed — and may do so early next year — a bill bristling with tax breaks and subsidies for oil, gas and other energy industries. <snip>

"Republicans used to believe in fiscal responsibility, limited international entanglements and limited government," said Sen. Charles Hagel (R-Neb.) in a commentary published Wednesday in the Omaha World-Herald. "We have come loose from our moorings.<snip>

[xray s]

1. I give you the 'Exxon Valdez' Republican congress and White House

Spending like drunken sailors on shore leave with no-limit credit cards in their wallets, running the federal budget into the rocks, a huge fiscal disaster in the hull of the ship waiting to ooze its poison into our economy for years to come...