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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (36653)	1/31/2004 12:38:50 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Givers and Takers nytimes.com By DANIEL H. PINK OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Published: January 30, 2004 WASHINGTON - Each of the Democratic candidates vying to replace George W. Bush has a serious electability problem. The problem has nothing to do with their biographies or temperaments — and everything to do with a significant, but unnoticed, structural divide in American presidential politics. Each year, the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit research group, crunches numbers from the Census Bureau to produce an intriguing figure: how much each state receives in federal spending for every dollar it pays in federal taxes. For example, according to the most recent data, for every dollar the average North Dakotan paid in federal taxes, he received $2.07 in federal benefits. But while someone in Fargo was doubling his money, his counterpart in neighboring Minnesota was being shortchanged. For every dollar Minnesotans sent to Washington, only 77 cents in federal spending flowed back to the state. Using the Tax Foundation's analysis, it's possible to group the 50 states into two categories: Givers and Takers. Giver states get back less than a dollar in spending for every dollar they contribute to federal coffers. Taker states pocket more than a dollar for every tax dollar they send to Washington. Thirty-three states are Takers; 16 are Givers. (One state, Indiana, has a perfect one-to-one ratio of taxes paid and spending received. As seat of the federal government, the District of Columbia has no choice but to be a Taker, and is therefore not comparable to the 50 states in this regard.) The Democrats' electability predicament comes into focus when you compare the map of Giver and Taker states with the well-worn electoral map of red (Republican) and blue (Democrat) states. You might expect that in the 2000 presidential election, Republicans, the party of low taxes and limited government, would have carried the Giver states — while Democrats, the party of wild spending and wooly bureaucracy, would have appealed to the Taker states. But it was the reverse. George W. Bush was the candidate of the Taker states. Al Gore was the candidate of the Giver states. Consider: 78 percent of Mr. Bush's electoral votes came from Taker states. 76 percent of Mr. Gore's electoral votes came from Giver states. Of the 33 Taker states, Mr. Bush carried 25. Of the 16 Giver states, Mr. Gore carried 12. Juxtaposing these maps provides a new perspective on the political landscape. (Interactive moment: Color in the blue and red states — then you'll get the full picture.) Republicans seem to have become the new welfare party — their constituents live off tax dollars paid by people who vote Democratic. Of course, not all federal spending is wasteful. But Republicans are having their pork and eating it too. Voters in red states like Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are some of the country's fiercest critics of government, yet they're also among the biggest recipients of federal largess. Meanwhile, Democratic voters in the coastal blue states — the ones who are often portrayed as shiftless moochers — are left to carry the load. For President Bush, this invisible income redistribution system is a boon. He can encourage his supporters to see themselves as Givers, yet reward them with federal spending in excess of their contribution — and send the bill to those who voted for his opponent. It's shrewd politics. And it puts the eventual Democratic presidential nominee in a bind, should he try to rally those who believe they aren't getting a fair shake from Washington. If the Democratic candidate won all 16 Giver states plus the District of Columbia in November, he'd collect only 254 electoral votes, short of the majority needed to capture the White House. The electoral votes of all the Taker states, by contrast, add up to 273 — two more than Mr. Bush won in 2000. Is there a way out for Democrats? Maybe not. With Republicans holding the purse strings, it's the Democrats who are being taken. _______________________ Daniel H. Pink, the author of "Free Agent Nation," was the chief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore from 1995 to 1997.

To: mishedlo who wrote (36653)	2/2/2004 10:41:57 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 89467

The biggest "takers" are Bush and his GOP buds.Bush unveils $2.4 trillion budget featuring big increases for defense and homeland security and record deficit MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Monday, February 2, 2004 (02-02) 07:37 PST WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush sent Congress a $2.4 trillion election-year budget on Monday featuring big increases for defense and homeland security but also a record $521 billion deficit. He blamed the soaring deficit on the 2001 recession and the costs of fighting a war on terrorism. "The reason we are where we are is because we went through a recession, we were attacked and we're fighting a war. Those are high hurdles for a budget and for a country to overcome," Bush told his Cabinet. He said he was confident he could cut the deficit in half in five years by working with Congress "to bring fiscal discipline to the appropriations process." To battle the soaring deficits, Bush proposed squeezing scores of government programs and sought outright spending cuts in seven of 16 Cabinet-level agencies. The Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency were targeted for the biggest reductions. The president declared that his spending blueprint, which will set off months of heated debate in Congress, advances his three highest priorities -- winning the war on terror, strengthening homeland defenses and boosting the economic recovery. "Our nation remains at war," Bush said in his budget message. "This nation has committed itself to the long war against terror. And we will see that war to its inevitable conclusion: the destruction of the terrorists." The president's plan for the 2005 budget year, which begins next Oct. 1, proposes spending $2.4 trillion for all government activities, up 3.5 percent from the current year. Revenues will total $2.04 trillion, a sizable 13.2 percent increase that the administration forecasts will occur from growing tax receipts powered by a stronger economy. The president projects the 2005 deficit will be $364 billion, down from a projected record high deficit in dollar terms of $521 billion this year. He pledged to cut that in half over the next five years. The president's budget, featuring a line drawing of the White House in forest green on the cover, states that stronger economic growth and reductions in general government spending will produce steady improvements in the deficit, which the administration projects will fall to $237 billion in 2009. However, Democrats immediately attacked the spending proposal for what they viewed as harmful reductions in various government programs and the president's insistence on making his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent at a cost projected in the budget of more than $900 billion over 10 years. "This administration pledged that its tax cuts and policy choices would not turn record surpluses into record deficits, but this budget shows that's exactly what's happened," said Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass, called on Congress to reject Bush's spending plan, charging it was the "most antifamily, anti-worker, anti-healthcare, anti-education budget in modern times." Rep. John Spratt, senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said Bush's budget would reduce government spending on a broad swath of government programs from transportation to environmental protection that provide "priority services that the American people want and expect." Bush would boost military spending by 7 percent in 2005, but that does not include the money needed to keep troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Officials said a supplemental request for these funds will be sent to Congress but not until after the November elections. Congress last year approved an $87.5 billion wartime supplemental for the current budget year. Homeland security, another top priority would receive a 10 percent boost, including an 11 percent increase in FBI funding to support increased counterterrorism activities. A firestorm of criticism erupted last week when it was revealed the administration had re-estimated the 10-year cost of the newly enacted Medicare prescription drug benefit program at $534 billion, far above the $400 billion figure Congress used in passing the measure two months ago. The budget documents said the major reasons for the discrepancy were higher estimates for the number of participants in the program and new projections for health care price increases. As previously announced, Bush's budget proposes an ambitious program to return Americans to the moon as early as 2015 and eventually send a mission to Mars. However, the budget only contains $1 billion in new money for the effort over the next five years with another $11 billion reallocated from current NASA programs. In 2005, Bush proposes increasing NASA's budget by 6 percent to $16.2 billion. Other programs that would receive boosts in Bush's budget include his No Child Left Behind education program; job training programs, including one that links community colleges with employers' and an $18 million increase for the National Endowment for the Arts. Bush's budget proposes to hold the spending increase for all of the government's discretionary programs -- those other than mandatory entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare -- to 3.9 percent in 2005. That average rise includes big boosts for the military and homeland security. Scores of government programs outside those two areas will be restrained to an overall increase of just 0.5 percent, below the rise in inflation, and some agencies will suffer outright cuts. The budget calls for outright spending cuts in seven of 16 Cabinet-level agencies. The Agriculture Department's budget authority for 2005 would be reduced by 8.1 percent while EPA's budget would be cut by 7.2 percent. The departments of Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice, Transportation and Treasury would also see their funding for discretionary programs decrease in 2005 under Bush's spending plan. Some non-Cabinet agencies would also see large reductions for 2005 including a 49.2 percent cut for the General Services Administration, the government's landlord, and a 10.4 percent reduction in spending at the Small Business Administration. The Corps of Engineers, builder of dams and other water projects favored by members of Congress, would see its budget reduced by 13.1 percent under Bush's proposal.