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

To: Mr. Palau who wrote (703571)	9/23/2005 1:09:16 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

"The great irony is that the conservative political movement was spawned in response to Lyndon Johnson's domestic policies. Now, it's leader, George W. Bush, may cause it's undoing. It's no wonder so many conservatives are turning on the president." TWO may be too small a number to generalize from --- but it's beginning to look like if one wants a BIGGER government, and MASSIVE increases in deficit spending --- then all you have to do is elect a President from Texas. So Bush II beat LBJ for spending increases in his first term... one can only wonder how great the final damage will be after TWO.

To: Mr. Palau who wrote (703571)	9/23/2005 3:02:10 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Congress should make some sacrifices, too by Stephen Slivinski September 15, 2005 cato.org Stephen Slivinski is director of budget studies at the Cato Institute In the wake of Hurricane Katrina's devastation, millions of Americans did what they always do when presented with heartbreaking stories of lives destroyed. They donated to various private charities in record numbers. As the Chronicle of Philanthropy recently reported, Americans have voluntarily donated at least $400 million to the hurricane relief effort so far. When corporate and other donations are included, Americans and businesses have together donated close to $740 million to the hurricane relief effort so far. For those donating, the sacrifice might be small. But it is a sacrifice nonetheless. Contrast this with the federal government's financial response. Congress rushed to pass a $10.5 billion emergency relief bill. On September 8, Congress piled on an additional $51.8 billion. Total relief expenditures are expected to climb to $150 billion. Yet none of that spending is going to be offset by budget cuts elsewhere. The Associated Press reported that the White House Office of Management and Budget director Joshua Bolten has already dismissed spending cuts to offset even some of the emergency spending as not "practically realistic." Perhaps this attitude is not surprising. The White House and Congress couldn't seem to find offsetting savings over the past few years to finance the occupation of Iraq, an operation that has been financed largely by "emergency" appropriations bills even though many of the costs were anticipated. The message to taxpayers is clear: While many American families are sacrificing for others, it's just too much to expect politicians to strip away some of their pet programs to pay for the expenses to which they're committing the nation. The only voices calling for cuts, as in most other spending battles, are Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and John McCain (R-AZ). They've called for across-the-board budget cuts to offset the spending on hurricane relief. Coburn has noted what many Americans already know: "Charity requires sacrifice." The president has already proposed some small spending cuts in his 2006 budget. These could offset the relief spending in part. The total amount of program terminations in the White House's 2006 budget proposal amounts to $8.8 billion in savings. Additional cuts add about $6.5 billion. So, a total of over $15 billion could be created simply by enacting the spending cuts that the White House proposed. Better yet, making those cuts retroactive to the current fiscal year would save money immediately, and double the savings. Unfortunately, the Bush administration seemed to give these cuts up without a fight months ago. Or what about finding savings in the fiscal 2005 omnibus spending bill, which contained over $23 billion in pork projects? Add the cuts the White House requested for 2006, and make them retroactive to 2005, and you instantly have $53 billion in savings already. And that's before we look at the $24 billion in pork projects over seven years in the recent highway bill. Finding offsetting budget cuts to pay for disaster relief is obviously not impossible, nor is it unheard of. Relief bills for the 1994 California earthquake and the Oklahoma City bombing were all paid for by offsetting spending cuts. There's no reason why money spent on natural disaster relief should not compete with spending in other areas of government. If spending this money is truly necessary than other less essential programs in the budget then those less essential programs should be pared back to make room for it. Congress does not seem concerned about how the federal government (read: taxpayers) is going to pay for any of this. Yet now is exactly the time to figure that out. Charity does require sacrifice, even from big spending politicians using other people's money for charitable purposes. This article appeared in Newsday on Sept. 16, 2005.

To: Mr. Palau who wrote (703571)	9/23/2005 5:48:26 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS, UNBELIEVABLE NEWS by James W. Harris theadvocates.org GOP House Leader Says There's No Room to Cut Federal Budget House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) wins, hands-down, the award for the single most mind-bogglingly absurd political comment of recent weeks (if not years). Fiscal conservatives have expressed alarm over the Bush administration's proposal to spend anywhere from $60 billion to $200 billion or more in New Orleans disaster relief. Many argue that this money should at least be raised by cutting unnecessary federal spending, rather than by still more deficit spending. But that's just not possible, countered Rep. DeLay in a press conference after the president's proposal. Get this: DeLay said that Republicans have done such a stellar job of slashing federal spending during the past decade that there simply is no place left in the federal budget where further cuts are possible. (No, he wasn't joking.) According to DeLay, the GOP has won an "ongoing victory" against wasteful federal spending "My answer to those that want to offset the spending is sure, bring me the offsets, I'll be glad to do it. But nobody has been able to come up with any yet," the Texas Republican told reporters. "Yes, after 11 years of Republican majority we've pared [the federal budget] down pretty good." The GOP House Leader's comments stunned and outraged fiscal conservatives and libertarians, who have watched President Bush and the GOP Congress lead one of the biggest social spending sprees of all time. The arch-conservative New Hampshire Union-Leader newspaper responded bluntly: "That has to be the lie of the year. The only thing Congressional Republicans have pared down is the party's reputation." DeLay, the paper charged, is guilty of "lying to the American people about how their government is being run." The San Diego Union-Leader similarly noted: "Since the GOP took over Congress in 1994, the supposed party of small government has presided over the largest expansion of federal spending since the New Deal -- and, no, that doesn't count the post-9/11 spikes in military and homeland security spending. This binge has only accelerated with a Republican president. No wonder the president blithely touts a $100 billion-plus rebuilding of New Orleans without outlining how to pay for it; his indifference to running up $1 trillion in total debt since 2001 shows it might as well be Monopoly money to him." "If Mr. DeLay actually believes what he said then he has clearly lost touch with reality wrote John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union, in the Wall Street Journal. "After all, total federal spending, aside from interest, has increased 79 percent since 1995 -- much greater than the inflationary increase in prices of 28 percent. Republicans have dramatically increased the size of government to an extent not seen since Richard Nixon was in the White House." Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) -- a nonpartisan organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government -- was quick to respond with a long list of specific proposals for cutting. CAGW released "Prime Cuts 2005," which catalogues 600 recommendations throughout the government that could save taxpayers $232 billion in fiscal year 2006 and $2 trillion over the next five years. Just a few examples from "Prime Cuts" of programs that could be abolished: Community Development Block Grants (saving $24.7 billion over five years); the White House's National Youth Anti-drug Media Campaign (saving $1 billion over five years); the Advanced Technology Program (saving $750 million over five years) and on and on it goes, page after page of waste, duplication, and federal destructiveness. Our own suggestion is that Rep. DeLay spend some time talking with his fellow Texas Republican House colleague, libertarian Congressman Ron Paul. We have no doubt at all that Congressman Paul could come up with a few suggestions for trimming the budget. In fact, Congressman Paul has proposed a bill, The Liberty Amendment, to restrict the federal government to performing only those functions permitted it under the Constitution. (Talk about a radical proposal!) Doing so would cut the federal government so dramatically that the entire federal income tax could easily be abolished. Unfortunately, only two GOP Congressmen have thus far signed on to support it. Perhaps Congressman Paul could persuade DeLay to be the third? Sources: washingtontimes.com washtimes.com theunionleader.com signonsandiego.com