WP,pg1: 2007 Budget Favors Defense: 141 Programs to Be Cut or Halted

[DeepModem Mom]

"Wide-ranging as they are, those cuts pale in comparison with the White House's attempt to carve money from MEDICARE -- the first tangible result from a vow the president made in his State of the Union address last week to constrain the massive entitlement programs for the elderly and the poor."


2007 Budget Favors Defense
141 Programs to Be Cut or Halted
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 5, 2006; Page A01

President Bush plans to propose a $2.7 trillion budget tomorrow that would shrink most parts of the government unrelated to the nation's security while slowing spending on Medicare by $36 billion during the next five years, according to White House documents.

The spending plan Bush is to recommend to Congress will call for the elimination or reduction of 141 programs -- for a savings of $14.5 billion -- across a broad swath of federal agencies, according to administration and congressional officials who have had access to budget documents in advance. Wide-ranging as they are, those cuts pale in comparison with the White House's attempt to carve money from MEDICARE -- the first tangible result from a vow the president made in his State of the Union address last week to constrain the massive entitlement programs for the elderly and the poor.

Overall, the budget for the 2007 fiscal year would further reshape the government in the way the administration has been striving to during the past half-decade: building up military capacity and defenses against terrorist threats on U.S. soil, while restraining expenditures on many domestic areas, from education programs to train service.

For the second consecutive year, the White House will ask for an outright reduction in the "discretionary" part of the budget -- the portion that is determined year to year -- apart from the Pentagon and homeland security. According to one congressional source, White House officials plan to emphasize their frugality in discretionary spending, as they propose to cut it more deeply than Congress just did in the budget for the current fiscal year that was approved last week....

***

Spending for the departments of Commerce, Education, Energy and Interior, in particular, will be flat or decreased....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/04/AR2006020401179.html

[Sadie5]

1. Chimpy made me gag

when during his SOTU he mentioned the cuts he was about to make. Let the poor starve or freeze to death as long as he gets his cuts.

[high density]

2. yeah, hundreds of billions for war but we need to cut $15 billion

elsewhere? It's just so dumb.

[rooboy]

3. The Republican Challenge...

would you rather your Grandparents were killed by us or Al Qaeda?

[Charlie Brown]

4. that 14.5 billion is palfry

compared to the 141 billion requested for Iraq and Afghanistan.

I call foul.

[DELUSIONAL]

5. It seems to be the aim of this criminal gang to dump all of this on

the states.

Eventually all our Federal Taxes will pay for military and other Halliburton/Enron clones entitlements.

Some of the richer states may be able to fill in the gaps left by the massive cuts but the poor and mostly red states will tell their citizen to eat dirt.

By the end of the bush reign the USA will firmly be in the 3rd world column. And I believe we are there already -- because what happened to New Orleans could as easily happen to the rest of the Nation.

So the poor will be told to pay for their own health care, to save for their retirement -- BUT at the same time more money (from earned income) will be required for fuel, food, heat, etc -- leaving very little surplus to be invested or put into savings accounts. But then whatever money is invested will probably be looted by the bush crime family.

Meanwhile the gap between the haves and have nots will increase in geometric proportions -- putting all the wealth in increasingly fewer hands.

Why are people having children?? Seems like the future income for babies born today is being spent by the bush gang.

[Charlie Brown]

6. back to feudalism we go

where the proletariat live on the bread crumbs and scraps thrown to them by the wealthy.

[scarletlib]

9. Historically speaking this did not really happen in a feudalistic

state. In a feudalistic state people were more or less born into their slot in society. However, the lords (for the most part) did not 'lord' it over the serfs in the way we moderns might think. It was not a slave/owner world. Serfs did have some rights--just not as many as the higher ups. (But think about it: does someone in our world born in a ghetto really have the same rights as someone born to a wealthy family in Manhattan? Maybe on paper but in reality?)

Anyway, serfs did have some rights even though they were 'bound' to the land. They were the responsible people in that society for getting the food/crops sown and into harvest. Each serf tilled the land for the lord but each serf also had his own strip of land to grow his own food. They did not have to work 24/7 and had time off and pretty much worked their own schedule. They were entitled to use the commons (land open to all) just the same as the lord of the manor.

If crops failed everyone in that society would go hungry at some point. The lords did have greater rights to hunt and bring in game but famine in a feudal society would have affected all its members.

Dog eat dog, crumbs from the table crap started with the end of feudalism and the growth of industrialization. The commons were enclosed, the people forced off the land and into factories where they lost their traditional rights, etc.

Feudalism did restrict individual rights for all members in its society. There is no doubt that it was not a 'free' society. It was heirarchical, top down rule. But economically it was quite successful for a long period of time.

[UrbScotty]

7. Of course, it won't REALLY go toward defending us...

...as we all know.

[Rageneau]

8. And Repukes think we exaggerate when we say the GOP hates the old...

...the poor and the weak.

But they really do.

Conservatives, being spawns of Satan, will happily spend billion upon billion for bombs to destroy life and property, but won't spend an ungrudged dime to help those that humanity (and Jesus) commands us to provide for.

[DeepModem Mom]

10. Well said, Rageneau. nt

[phantom power]

11. Norquist has triumphed. I hope the GOP voters enjoy what's coming.