Top officials defend Bush plan
WASHINGTON (AP) - February 5, 2008 Democrats on two Senate panels tossed brickbats at Bush's budget
and some key Republicans criticized it as well as lawmakers made it
plain that they would ignore the president's proposals to cut
Medicare and Medicaid spending.
At the Senate Budget Committee, White House budget chief Jim
Nussle put in a combative performance, returning criticism of
Bush's budget with attacks on lawmakers for not fully funding his
long-pending war request and challenging them to join Bush in
curbing the rapid growth of benefit programs.
Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., slammed the budget
for piling almost $800 million in debt onto the government's books,
both in bonds held by investors at home and abroad and IOUs in the
Social Security trust funds.
"The debt has done nothing under this president's watch but
skyrocket," charged Conrad.
"Then let's open up mandatory spending," Nussle shot back,
referring to the spiraling growth of benefit programs like
Medicare.
Top panel Republican Judd Gregg of New Hampshire again
criticized the Bush blueprint for having "some serious flaws from
the standpoint of accuracy and even more serious flaws from the
standpoint of policy." But he also attacked Democrats for assuming
phony revenue boosts when passing a congressional budget plan last
year.
A few floors below, at the Finance Committee, with jurisdiction
over taxes and Medicare, the atmosphere was more sedate, but the
Bush budget plan wasn't faring any better.
"A good budget must be realistic," Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.,
said at a hearing featuring Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Baucus, Finance Committee chairman, said key aspects of the Bush
budget - proposed cuts in health programs, making Bush's tax cuts
permanent and omitting war costs in predicting a budget surplus by
2012 - failed that test.
The top Republican on the panel, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa,
chided the administration for not considering the costs of
adjusting the alternative minimum tax in future years and
acknowledged that people's attention was already shifting to the
next administration. "The focus is not going to be on the
president's budget. The focus is going to be on what the next
president will do."
Paulson defended the first-ever $3 trillion federal budget
proposal introduced Monday, saying its emphasis on a pro-growth tax
system, entitlement reform and a balanced budget was in the best
interest of the country. But his opening remarks centered on
prodding the Senate to act quickly on an economic stimulus package
aimed at keeping the country out of recession.
Bush's budget for fiscal year 2009 beginning Oct. 1 proposes
spending just below $3.1 trillion. Last year, he proposed $2.9
trillion for the current budget year, but the administration now
estimates that spending in fiscal 2008 will also exceed $3 trillion
once all the costs of the continuing war in Iraq are included.
Excluding the war, Bush is proposing an 8 percent increase in
the Pentagon's base budget, to $515.4 billion, next year. Overall
defense spending would decline from $670.5 billion this year to
$588.3 billion in Bush's 2009 budget. The request includes just $70
billion in initial war costs, a figure certain to be exceeded when
Bush leaves office.
Some of the spending increases would be offset by prescribing
$196 billion in savings to Medicare and Medicaid programs over the
next five years and reducing or eliminating 151 programs, saving
$18 billion.
"The (Medicare) proposals are not realistic. We already have
doctors who will not accept Medicare patients," said Sen. Pat
Roberts, R-Kan., normally a Bush ally.
But the effort to slow spending in those programs also reflects
Bush's determination to preserve his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts after
he's gone. Many of those tax cuts expire in 2010, and the cost of
writing them into permanent law would be $635 billion over five
years.
Democrats also said the White House's projection that the budget
deficit will hit $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009,
just under the $413 billion record set four years ago, was overly
optimistic, depending on rosy economic forecasts and understating
war costs.
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Associated Press writer Jim Abrams contributed to this story.
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On the Net:
The budget: http://www.budget.gov/
