Budget Sets Course for Military Buildup, Deficits
By REUTERS
In Depth
White House
Filed at 12:53 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will propose a $2.1 trillion wartime budget on Monday that promises the biggest military buildup since the Cold War, plunging the recession-hit federal government into deficits for the first time in five years.
Responding to the unprecedented demands of the Sept. 11 attacks and a recession, Bush will set aside campaign goals of smaller government and fiscal conservatism to propose a 9 percent increase in federal spending in fiscal 2003, which begins on Oct. 1, to fund the war against international terrorism, homeland defense and a new round of tax cuts aimed at stimulating the economy.
``Whatever it costs to defend our country, we will pay,'' Bush declared in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, justifying an unprecedented spending plan that will lead to federal deficits through 2004 and an interruption in the administration's efforts to reduce the national debt.
The military, the budget's biggest benefactor, will get a $48 billion boost, the largest in two decades. That includes a $10 billion ``war reserve'' that would fund an expansion of the war on terrorism beyond Afghanistan, bringing the total proposed defense budget to $379 billion and drawing comparisons to the first years of the massive military buildup under former President Ronald Reagan.
Bush will also propose nearly doubling spending on homeland security to $37.7 billion in 2003, with the ambitious goal of combating bioterorrism and stopping foreigners at the border who might try to launch attacks like those on Sept. 11 against New York and Washington.
Both the Pentagon and homeland defense proposals are expected to garner bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, in sharp contrast to the president's plans to boost economic growth and reform Medicare, the federal health program for seniors. |
