Budget Hits $3 Trillion As Debt Marks Bush Legacy

[EV_Ares]

WASHINGTON -- George W. Bush took office in 2001 with budget surpluses projected to stretch years into the future. But it's almost certain that when he returns to Texas next year, the president will leave behind a trail of deficits and debt that will sharply constrain his successor.

On Monday, the president will unveil a $3 trillion-plus budget request for his final year, which is likely to show a deficit of more than $400 billion. New details of the budget emerged yesterday, with officials saying the White House plans to keep a lid on nonsecurity discretionary spending. It wants to cut about $200 billion from the government's medical programs for seniors and the poor.

The longer-term picture is darker. Despite his efforts, Mr. Bush failed to work out a deal with Congress to tackle the spiraling costs of government health and retirement programs. The next president, if he or she serves two terms, could find the U.S. government so deeply in hock that it would face losing its Triple-A credit rating, something that has never happened since Moody's Investors Service began grading U.S. securities in 1917.

As a result, the ambitions of Mr. Bush's successor to cut taxes, institute universal health care or aid troubled homeowners might have to give way to the reality of soaring costs for Social Security, the Medicare program for the elderly and the Medicaid program for the poor.

"We kicked this can down the road about as long as it can be," Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, said at a hearing this week. "It will absolutely bedevil the next administration."

Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist and adviser to Sen. Barack Obama, says that Mr. Bush has left his successor with little wiggle room. Sen. Obama has called for allowing some of the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled in 2010. Mr. Obama has also said he would like to remove the salary cap on the payroll taxes that fund Social Security.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, the other contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, identifies spending cuts or tax increases that she says would pay for almost every campaign initiative. For instance, she says she'd pay for a $10 billion-a-year universal preschool education plan by cutting the ranks of federal contractors by 500,000 and cracking down on no-bid government contracts. Mr. Bush "has rightly earned the legacy of being our nation's most fiscally irresponsible president," says Brian Deese, deputy economic director for the Clinton campaign. "As a result, the next president is going to have to deal with that."

Mr. McCain, the Republican front-runner, hasn't laid out a plan to deal with the looming fiscal crunch. But he has suggested that better-off seniors be required to pay more for drugs and outpatient visits, as a way of controlling Medicare costs. Distancing himself from the current administration and his party, Mr. McCain also calls for drug re-importation from Canada and negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies.

rest of the article @ link (subscription required): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120183030007834031.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news

[belpejic]

1. Mind boggling

The size of the federal budget just boggles my mind. If I recall correctly, when Clinton left office the budget was a bit north of a trillion. How did the chimp manage to double it in eight years when the supposed inflation rate was consistently low? I can remember being in DC in November 2002, seeing all of the construction taking place, and thinking about how wrong it all was. Why should HHS get to build a new headquarters when their professed belief was to shrink? Insane, fraudulent and corrupt.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. Tell me again why we haven't impeached and prosecuted these people?

[SpiralHawk]

3. The SURGE is, um, working. Smirk." - Commander AWOL

"Nothing quite compares with republicon homelander, um, economics and stuff. Smirk. D'oh."

- Commander AWOL

[FreeStateDemocrat]

4. "It wants to cut about $200 billion from the government's medical programs for seniors and the poor"

Where is John Edwards when we really need him?

[TonyZ]

5. 97% of All Money is Created out of THIN AIR as Loans by the Private Banks

Here are some facts that you will not find in the media:
1. In the private bankers debt-based money system that we are made to use, 97% of money circulating was originally created as computer ledger entries by private commercial banks when we take out loans and mortgages. It has no tangible existence outside the banks interacting computer systems because we withdraw hardly any of it in the form of Government created cash. This system is replicated in virtually every developed country, the world over.
2. No borrowing in the system would mean no money. When the commercial banks lend “money” its NEW Number Money (existing as data only) created the moment the amount appears in the “borrower’s” account. No depositor is ever sent a letter saying their money is temporarily unavailable because its been lent to someone else. Meanwhile not one person in a hundred grasps the fact that our governments have all permitted private banks to create over 95 percent of our money supply bringing huge profits to them and endless debt to us. Obviously there will not be enough money to pay the interest as the interest has to come from the same source, (more money creation by private financial institutions with yet more interest). So national and personal debt rises and the overall interest due also rises with time. This is the real reason why we are told the economy always has to grow. Present UK government debt mostly to the private banks is £0.5 Trillion, up from £90 Bn in 1980 and £26 Bn in 1960. In The US its almost $8 Trillion! Only a delusional would say the underlying economic fundamentals are sound with that level of debt.
3. For government, taxing the people helps pay the interest bill and that is why overall taxation is always rising. Much of our taxes go straight into the pockets of the super-rich international bankers to pay the interest on the "money" (data) they have lent and created out of thin air.
4. Banks are allowed to create money OUT OF NOTHING at virtually Nil cost to them and charge all borrowing individuals, businesses and governments interest on it. This is because it only circulates as data between banks' computers and not as cash which they would have to pay the government for. This freely created intangible data "money" circulates when you get paid by bank computer transfer or when you use your cards, direct debits, cheques, CHAPS payments etc. Look into "fractional reserve banking." Google "electronic money creation", "webofdebt", "prosperityUK".
I know its hard to get your mind round when none of our corporate media talks about it, hardly any MPs know about it and it goes against everything you've assumed or been taught. 99.99% of people assume that banks & building societies lend out money that their other customers have deposited, or that they've borrowed it from the Central Bank, (BoE in UK). We demand of our government a fairer money system. Money creation must be taken out of the hands of the money masters and into the hands of the people, "where it properly belongs." (Abraham Lincoln)
If you don't believe me & you don't want to bother researching the sources I have quoted then for a succinct explanation visit http://www.basicincome.com/basic_banks.htm OR
To watch an impressive explanatory FILM, vist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy-fD78zyvI OR Google "Money as Debt" to watch another 50 minute animated film.
Then act.

[w8liftinglady]

6. wow,Tony--excellent first post-welcome to DU!

[EV_Ares]

7. Hey Tony, thanks a lot for that info and the web page, good article, eom.

[TonyZ]

8. Thank-you

Thanks for reading my reply and good luck in your future awareness raising efforts

[TexasObserver]

9. It's what George has always done - leave messes for others

He comes. He trashes. He leaves.

It's a lifetime of letting others do all the heavy lifting, by a spoiled brat who has never once carried his own weight.

[EV_Ares]

10. Must be the Bush Doctrine, remember Hillary's comment at the debate with

Obama when she said "It took one Clinton to clean up after the first George Bush and it will take another Clinton to clean up after this George Bush". I am not endorsing Hillary at all, just liked the comment.

[WinkyDink]

11. It has always been the Modus Operandi of mobsters. #41 will die naturally,

in his rose garden.