Bush’s Final Budget Hints at Tough Choices Ahead

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Bush’s final budget, a $3 trillion plan offered Monday that would continue his tax cuts and sharply reduce domestic spending, has little chance of surviving in a Democratic Congress. But the problems it lays out will survive and grow, presenting tough choices for the next administration.

How, for example, will the next president rein in the cost of retirement and health programs? What will he or she do about tax increases on Americans when Mr. Bush’s tax cuts expire at the end of 2010, or when the alternative minimum tax propels millions of taxpayers into higher brackets each year?

Beyond these familiar traps, how will a Republican president pay for further promised tax cuts or a Democratic president pay for a sweeping health care overhaul without increasing the red ink left by Mr. Bush?

“Republicans and Democrats are in complete denial on these issues,” said Robert D. Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and former director of the Congressional Budget Office. “But were they to face up to the long-run fiscal challenges, it would be a ticket to defeat. It’s not what voters want to hear.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/washington/05assess.html?hp

[Rydz777]

1. Bush will be leaving behind a whole medicine cabinet full of

poison pills. The new Democratic President, either she or he, will have no honeymoon. There will be a series of crises from day one.

[Supersedeas]

15. the shock-jock's know this and do not want McCain to win the election

[flamin lib]

2. It's maddening. Republican tax cuts drain revenue and run up the debt.

The debt screws up the value of the dollar. The economy goes into recession and the only remedy offered by Republicans is more tax cuts.

Go figure.

[Roland99]

4. The debt is NOTHING compared to future SS/Medicare obligations. NOTHING.

That's where the real dangers lie.

http://www.concordcoalition.org/

[Teaser]

13. you broke the code

create the circumstances to utterly defund the government. It is their program and it is their promise.

[tanyev]

3. Yeah--food, medicine or shelter. Choose which one you want.

[liberal N proud]

8. If the republicons have their way those wont even be an option

It will be big bombs or small bombs your choice.

[Supersedeas]

16. bankrupt with large military expenses yet to pay -- Bush economics

[Phred42]

5. Bush has been Successful.

He has destroyed the treasury of this country and we are Bankrupt.
Now the republicans traitors can say that we need to make tough choices and spend every nickel on their treasonous trans-national corporate friends and create the world of Charles Dickens - right her in 21st century America.

If we have to choose between a new Submarine and repair some of our infrastructure - I choose the infrastructure.

We don't need to be the World Cop. we need jobs and Universal Health care.

[lligrd]

7. Exactly, It Was Always Their Plan

I wonder why so few seem to acknowledge this.

[melody]

17. Damned straight n/t

[LynnTheDem]

6. Guns and starvation. Or

guns and starvation.

[sutz12]

9. Actually, there is a choice....guns and starvation...

or starvation and guns.

Big difference.

:evilgrin:

[ladywnch]

10. well, it is going to sound very petty, but when we have to make those

tough calls, ie: raising taxes, who ever is president is going to have to take a page from the Bush administration blaming Clinton for everything and lay the blame squarely where it belongs: at the feet of Bush the republican party.

'because bush and the republican party thought it was possible to pay for an illegal war completely on credit and continually leave it out of the budget, and earmark pet projects without thoughts on how to pay for them we now find ourselves BROKE. And because we are now indebted to hostel countries like Saudi Arabia, the country that produced and harbored the 9/11 attackers, we have to raise taxes to make ourselves solvent and secure again. We will begin with increasing the taxes of the top 2% of the country'

'irresponsibilities of the previous administration and the republican party have brought us to this point.........'


Regardless, the next president is inheriting a nightmare.

[luckyleftyme2]

11. well said

THIS IS A PAGE RIGHT OUT OF THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION.why the republicans in charge liked Reagan so much is he proved you could flaunt the law and repay your war chest by ignoring the people and raiding the treasury.
If you think about who his vice president was you can understand how this is a perfected re-run.
Reagan's budget deficits were a record at the time but smaller than Bush senior's.
and Bush jr's will be the greatest of all time.
when reagan took office we were the richest nation in the world. when he left we were the largest debtor's in the world.
when junior leaves we will be lucky if his foolish fiscal policies doesn't cause our economy to tank like russia's did.

[sutz12]

12. It's a vicious cycle...

The Republicans make no choices, then the Democrats have to make the tough choices.

:shrug:

[Carni]

14. God help us when that second set of books comes out...

It'll be like Enron times a million.