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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (25771)	1/23/2004 2:42:36 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793879

"I tell ya, Karen, I'm gonna swear off booze tomorrow!" White House Vows Restraint on Spending By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 23, 2004; Page A05 Under mounting pressure from conservatives angered by surging federal spending, White House officials said yesterday that President Bush's 2005 budget will hold the growth of spending outside of defense and homeland security below 1 percent. The pledge came as David M. Walker, a Republican and the comptroller general of the United States, added his voice to a growing bipartisan chorus urging Bush to address a federal budget deficit that could reach $500 billion this year. Walker, who heads the General Accounting Office, told reporters yesterday that the fiscal gap, both currently and in the long term, is now far too large to be addressed through economic growth and spending restraint alone. Congress and the president will have to curtail the growth of Social Security and Medicare, cut Congress's annual discretionary spending and simplify taxes, raising some, he said. He suggested that the government begin selling off valuable properties, such as a veterans hospital in downtown Chicago; curtail some new military weapons programs; and examine the need for the country's vast nuclear defense network. "I don't believe members of Congress and key policymakers in the executive branch understand the nature of the problem," Walker said. "People are not taking it as seriously as they should." Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday sparked anger from conservatives and liberals alike, with Republicans saying the president has yet to detail significant spending cuts and Democrats saying his call to make three successive years of tax cuts permanent would expand the deficit by at least $1 trillion over the next 10 years. For weeks, administration officials have promised to hold discretionary spending increases in 2005 to no more than 4 percent. Yesterday's 1 percent pledge strengthened their promise to conservatives. With inflation just under 2 percent, a 1 percent budget increase would represent, at best, level funding for most domestic agencies and a cut for some. "In his State of the Union address, the president made clear we are on track to cut the deficit in half within five years," said Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the White House budget office. Concerns over the deficit have been raised in recent weeks by the International Monetary Fund, former Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin and Allan Sinai, a Wall Street economist who prominently endorsed Bush's tax cuts. Conservatives remain skeptical that anything significant will be done in an election year. Just yesterday, the Senate approved a long-delayed $328 billion bill to finance much of the government for 2004 that included 7,931 "earmarks" for lawmakers' home districts and states, worth $10.7 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group. Brian Riedl, a federal budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said the Republican definition of "homeland security" has become increasingly elastic as budget pressures have grown. In that context, holding spending outside of homeland security to 1 percent may mean less than it appears to, he said. Discretionary spending rose in 2003 by 12.5 percent, capping a two-year surge that saw the government grow by more than 27 percent. Those numbers -- coupled with the passage of a 10-year, $400 billion expansion of Medicare and the record budget deficit -- sent angry conservatives to Republican congressmen's doorsteps over the winter break, said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). "What people heard is 'What are you guys doing?' " he said. © 2004 The Washington Post Company