American President George Bush announced his new budget spending plan today, and the package came out to a total of $3.1 trillion.Today's federal budget proposal marks the first time in America's history that a budget plan has been in excess of $3 trillion. Bush claims that his budget is "good" and "solid" and that the passing of this budget will help keep the troubled American economy growing.
All in all, this budget looks to lift government spending by 6% during the fiscal year 2009, and it will probably come to no one's surprise that defense gets a nice little boost from today's budget. Bush is looking to allocate 8.2% of his spending on security, and the budget is looking to stake a $70 billion "placeholder" for war costs during 2009. The Pentagon should be pleased with its figures, as Bush is looking to allocate $515.4 billion its way... the highest allocation since WWII (and represents a 7.5% jump).
Even with the high numbers that we are seeing for the war and national security, opponents of the plan, from both political parties, have been quoted as expressing their views that the numbers are underestimated, and basically unrealistic. Makes you wonder just how high the price tag will go; it's a scary thought. With so much having been invested in making America safer over the past five years, you have to start to wonder when is that safety going to materialize?
Senior citizens appear to be on the losing end of things this time around. Bush's plan proposes a curb on Medicare spending. All together, the budget is set up to save $196 billion in government health care programs over the next five years.
Politicians have already started coming out of the wood work to announce their displeasure with Bush's plan.
- House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Maryland Democrat): "An economic downturn is not the time for drastically reducing investment in health care, education and job training"
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nevada Democrat): referred to Bush's plan as "irresponsible and highly deceptive, hiding the costs of the war in Iraq while increasing our skyrocketing debt."
- Senator Judd Gregg (top Republican on the Budget Committee) : "a lot of games, smoke, mirrors, incomplete numbers, basically there's not much realism"
- Senator Kent Conrad (North Dakota Democrat) : expressed his displeasure in the budget by stating that it represented "more deficit-financed war spending, more deficit-financed tax cuts tilted to the benefit the wealthiest".
What is your take on Bush's plan? What suggestions would you have to make this plan a better one, or do you like what you see, and would suggest Congress leave it be?
Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-05-2008 @ 7:25AM
Dan Barnett said...
The problem is that this budget is a sham as it does not provide adequately for the war in Iraq or Afganistan. All last year there were "supplemental appropriations" for war funding. With the war essentially being run with "off-the-books" financing, the whole budget question is irrelevant. Actual govt. war spending may add another Trillion dollars to the amount requested.
Why can't the President be up-front with the American congress & people?