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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (1826)	2/11/2004 8:25:03 PM
From: PartyTime	Respond to of 173976

Bush's Bikini Budget By DALE McFEATTERS Feb 11, 2004, 05:00 Email this article Printer friendly page President Bush's 2005 budget is reminiscent of that old saw about the bikini: What it reveals is interesting but what it conceals is vital. Because of White House obfuscation, only now, more than a week after the budget's unveiling, are analysts beginning to sort out its real costs. Missing from Bush's budget were the detailed figures that show the impact of the president's proposals on individual programs on what are called the "out years," the years following the budget year. These tables have been part of presidents' budgets for at least 30 years. Analysts were only able to discern the impact by combing through a 1,000-page print out later released by the White House budget office. The new budget did have cheerful color pictures and campaign rhetoric. While the White House used 10-year budget projections to justify its first rounds of tax cuts, it has now decided that 10-year forecasts are too inaccurate so in this budget it confined itself to five-year projections. Perhaps that's because more than 80 percent of the revenue loss of his tax cut proposals will come after 2009 _ not, one suspects, coincidentally the year a Bush second term would end. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates the total costs of those tax cuts at the end of 10 years as $2.2 trillion. (The total spending Bush is proposing in this new budget is $2.4 trillion.) If Bush were re-elected and if his budget were enacted, he would be a lame duck when its impact hit, not so for Congress. The members would have to take the fall for making real cuts of more than $50 billion more than five years in programs popular with both them and the voters. Having delivered the budget, the president is now largely out of the process. Congress now begins work on a concurrent budget resolution, essentially drawing up its own budget. A concurrent resolution is something that Congress enacts on its own. But buried in the Bush budget is a proposal that instead Congress be required to enact a joint budget resolution that the president would sign, thus giving it the force of law. This would give the executive branch a mighty say in the spending process, possibly even more than the Constitution intends. Congress should enact a budget resolution _ a concurrent budget resolution _ that gives the nation a candid and honest look at where the lawmakers see our money taking us. It's vital. capitolhillblue.com