The president's budget ("short-term optimism," )

[papau]

"short-term optimism," where costs of war, a long-term plan that addresses the alternative minimum tax (AMT), and budget deficit predictions after 5 years were omitted from his budget proposal.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060206-093147-9133r.htm

The president's budget
TODAY'S EDITORIAL
February 7, 2006

In at least two important respects in the fiscal 2007 budget, which the White House released yesterday, President Bush has revealed himself to be an optimist.


<snip> For other, equally important reasons, the 2007 budget arrives on Capitol Hill in trouble. The administration has low-balled defense outlays for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. The budget includes a small down payment, or "bridge fund," of $50 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in fiscal 2007. Just last week, during the fifth month of the 2006 fiscal year, the administration formally notified Congress that it would be seeking the final installment -- another $70 billion -- to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress had already appropriated $50 billion.

Another important omission in the 2007 budget is any long-term effort to address the alternative minimum tax (AMT), which most experts believe will cost more than $1 trillion over 10 years to fix. Now that tax reform has been shelved, there is no legitimate excuse to exclude a long-term AMT fix.

For the 2007-16 period, the budget has tallied what tax relief would total if the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were made permanent: $1.35 trillion, including $1.17 trillion (87 percent) for 2012-16. However, conspicuously absent are any projections of the budget deficit beyond 2011.

Meanwhile, the lack of attention given to AMT and foreign military operations means that the administration's forecast of the budget deficits before 2011 are rather low. The only meaningful deficit estimate relates to 2006, and it is projected to total a record $423 billion, or $105 billion higher than the 2005 deficit. Remove Social Security from the budget, and the so-called on-budget deficit for 2006 would total a staggering $602 billion.