That $250B you mentioned? Just about right. $304B is the estimate.
msnbc.com
MSNBC text seems to have gotten chopped up a bit before they posted it.
Bush’s budget to create record deficits Fiscal 2003 deficit estimated at $304 billion
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Newly printed copies of the 2004 U.S. Government
Budget are stacked in preparation for release Monday.
Bush’s budget
to create
record deficits
Fiscal 2003 deficit
estimated at $304 billion
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — President Bush sent Congress a
$2.23 trillion spending plan Monday that would accelerate
tax cuts to bolster the weak economy, overhaul some of the
government’s biggest social programs and shower billions
of additional dollars on defense and homeland security.
on a recession and a war we did not choose.” He said his budget would impose “spending discipline” through such efforts as reshaping the government’s big health care programs,
Medicare and Medicaid, along more conservative lines.
“The budget for 2004 meets the challenges posed by three national priorities — winning the war against terrorism, securing the homeland and generating long-term economic growth,”
Bush said in his budget message to Congress.
Bush sent Congress a 5-inch stack of books, weighing 13½ pounds, spelling out his proposal. The five separate documents, featuring a bright blue line drawing of the White House,
included one extra book this year analyzing the efficiency of hundreds of federal programs, part of a Bush management initiative.
Bush’s deficit figures do
not include the cost of a
possible war with Iraq,
which officials say could
add at least $61 billion.
EVEN THOUGH HUNDREDS of other government programs
would be squeezed, the president projects the deficit will still hit
record highs of $304 billion this year and $307 billion in 2004. Over
the next five years, deficits would total $1.08 trillion.
Allan Sloan: Bush's depressing economy
Bush’s budget plan for fiscal 2004 that begins Oct. 1 will set off
months of heated debate in Congress. Democrats attacked the tax
cuts as a boon for the wealthy that will do little to help the economy
but will rob Social Security of the money needed for baby boomers’
retirements.
“Instead of offering the nation a plan for long-term economic
prosperity, the Bush budget burdens us, and our children, with
trillions of dollars of new debt,” said Sen. Kent Conrad D-N.D.
“His plan will push up interest rates, retard economic growth
and create massive problems for the soon-to-be retiring baby boom
generation,” said Conrad, the Senate Budget Committee’s top
Democrat.
FACT FILE
The Bush stimulus plan
Following are proposals from the president’s $674 billion,
10-year economic stimulus package unveiled Jan. 7.
•
Dividends
•
Corporate taxes
•
Tax rates
•
Tax brackets
•
States
•
The unemployed
The president blamed the deficits “
Advertisement
The budget was released two days after the Columbia space
shuttle disaster. In the NASA section, prepared before the accident,
the administration proposed a substantial increase in spending on
the shuttle in 2004. The spending had dropped 1.9 percent this year.
White House budget director Mitch Daniels said it was too
early to say what spending changes the president would
recommend in light of the Columbia tragedy.
“The president is committed to moving forward in space. He
has made that plain. His budget makes that plain,” Daniels told
reporters at a budget briefing. “If there is a lesson in the last couple
of days, I suppose it is another sad example that more money alone
can’t always avoid very sad setbacks.”
Bush’s $670 billion economic stimulus tax cuts include
eliminating the double taxation of stock dividends, plus making
permanent his 2001 tax cuts that are now set to expire after 2010.
Taken together, all the new tax cuts Bush is proposing would add
up to $1.3 trillion over the next decade, on top of the $1.35 trillion
tax reduction passed in 2001.
Democrats have vowed to fight the new tax reductions, saying
the country can’t afford them when the nation is preparing for
possible war with Iraq, which officials say could add at least $61
billion.
FACT FILE
Will you benefit from the plan? |
