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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FastC6 who wrote (158654)	7/7/2001 4:04:43 PM
From: asenna1	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 769667

Mr. Bush's Fiscal Gaffe No sooner had George W. Bush become president than he began warning of an impending recession and campaigning for a huge tax cut. But he forgot — or perhaps did not know — that a slowing economy, with lower corporate profits and personal earnings, would automatically result in lower tax collections and throw his knife-edged fiscal plan into imbalance. So instead of residing peacefully in "lockboxes" for the next decade, the trust funds collected to cover baby boomers' Social Security and Medicare benefits may be tapped as early as this year. Mr. Bush gave up long-term fiscal discipline for short-term political gain, and the salad days of surpluses have transmogrified into the bad old days of budget bickering. It all began in January. With a decade of budget surpluses ahead, Mr. Bush swore he could deliver a trillion-dollar tax cut while erasing the national debt and leaving the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare untouched for 10 years. But after Congress set its spending levels and passed Mr. Bush's tax cut, less than $10 billion worth of leeway was left in this year's budget before the government would have to pry open the lockboxes. Now, thanks to shrinking income tax revenues, that narrow margin of error is about to disappear. In August the Congressional Budget Office will probably adjust its estimates of this year's corporate tax collections downward for the second time in four months. Senator Kent Conrad, the new chairman of the Budget Committee, believes that the Budget Office will find this revenue estimate $23 billion lower. Since so little of the surplus was left, the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will have to shore up the shortfall. Lawrence Lindsey, Mr. Bush's top economic adviser, maintains that Congress is as much to blame for this sudden budget crunch. He says increases in non-defense discretionary spending exceeded the amounts presumed by Mr. Bush's plan. Yet for many programs these increases are actually decreases when adjusted for inflation and population growth. One might argue that Congress did surprisingly well relative to Mr. Bush, since he had the easy job of touting a tax cut while Congress had the unpopular task of capping spending. These recriminations are reminiscent of the 1980's, when Democrats in Congress blamed Ronald Reagan's tax cuts and defense buildup for the nation's vast deficits while the president blamed Congress for profligate spending on entitlement programs. The ballooning deficits of those days, however, will be dwarfed by the ones that arrive when Social Security and Medicare go into the red. Delving into their trust funds now would bring that financial crisis, usually assumed to be a decade away, several years closer. There is no quick escape from this morass. Congress will probably have to raise its unrealistically low spending caps, and promised initiatives such as a Medicare prescription drug benefit are not even included in the current calculations. Routine extensions of expiring tax credits and spending programs, which the Budget Office's projections do not encompass, will create more shortfalls even if the economy makes a speedy recovery. The safest plan of action would be to trim the tax cut — especially in its later, more regressive years. That seems unlikely with this president, though his father did manage to recoup some of the Reagan tax cuts. In the meantime, prudent Americans should try to sock some money away. By cutting their taxes now, Mr. Bush has virtually guaranteed a costly future. nytimes.com

To: FastC6 who wrote (158654)	7/7/2001 4:18:04 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Now there's a surprise... incredible how often the publicans in here constantly refer to all others as morons, and other touching adjectives. and the use of the phrase demo lib and vacant minded liberals is so overdone it's pathetic. wiping you ass with a spotted owl...may it shred your constipated hemorrhiods to the point of hospitalization under medicare or better yet....under NO HEALTH PLAN cc

To: FastC6 who wrote (158654)	7/7/2001 4:32:25 PM
From: Mr. Palau	Respond to of 769667

Now, that something CY would pay to see!

To: FastC6 who wrote (158654)	7/7/2001 4:51:31 PM
From: ManyMoose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

I wouldn't do that [use a spotted owl to wipe] if I were you. A colleague of mine once had his lunch underneath a spotted owl nest. He got some very nasty bites from whatever critters were living in the detritus there. Spotted owls are actually very nice critters. I visited my favorite one many times---on a skid trail built by some loggers. They do not conform to the myths about them perpetrated by the environmentalists.