To: Knighty Tin who wrote (272705 ) 1/5/2004 5:07:43 PM From: mishedlo Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 436258 Bush Readies Budget As Spending Balloonsapnews.excite.com Conservatives wait warily as President Bush makes final decisions about his election-year budget, three years into an administration on whose watch spending has mushroomed by 23.7 percent, the fastest pace in a decade.What has vexed conservatives most is the 31.5 percent growth since Bush took office in discretionary spending. Such spending grew by an annual average of 3.4 percent during Clinton's eight years. Further infuriating conservatives, Bush and the Republican-run Congress have enacted a $400 billion, 10-year enlargement of Medicare; $87 billion in expanded benefits for farmers; and $40 billion for increased veterans' payments and the Air Force's leasing and buying of refueling tankers."Re-election has become the focus of Republicans in the White House and Congress. And those in power have determined the road to staying in power is paved with government spending," said Brian Riedl, who monitors the budget for the conservative Heritage Foundation. "The U.S. budget is out of control," the investment bank Goldman, Sachs & Co. wrote its clients, projecting large deficits for the next decade. "Any thoughts of relief thereafter are a pipe dream until political priorities adjust." ======================================================================== Can any Bush supporters here seriously tell me that if Clinton was in the whitehouse doing what Bush is doing they would not be screaming bloody murder? Anyone who calls themselves a "fiscal conservative" and has supported a president that has not vetoed a single appropriations bill and has increased discretionary spending by 31.5%, is either a liar, a hypocrite, or an idiot. Mish