John Snow: New Bush budget will "call for sacrifices, no doubt about it"

Snow says new Bush budget will impose tight spending controls and require sacrifice

By Martin Crutsinger
ASSOCIATED PRESS

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20060110-1421-snow-budget.html

WASHINGTON – President Bush's new budget will call for sacrifices as a way to meet his goal of cutting the budget deficit in half by 2009, Treasury Secretary John Snow said Tuesday. Snow said every government agency would be asked to help reduce the growth of government spending in the budget proposal that Bush will submit to Congress in early February. The spending blueprint for the budget year that begins Oct. 1 will contain "good, tight spending controls" that will "call for sacrifices, no doubt about it," Snow said in an interview with a small group of reporters.

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The administration is emphasizing its deficit-cutting efforts in part to deflect criticism from Democrats that deficits have exploded because of sweeping tax cuts Bush got through Congress during his first term. That argument is expected to intensify in coming weeks as the administration seeks passage of legislation to raise the national debt limit. Snow has said the government's borrowing needs will probably bump up against the current limit of $8.184 trillion as early as mid-February. In the interview, Snow said his top priority this year was making sure that Congress does not undo Bush's tax cuts, either by passing tax increases or allowing the current tax cuts to expire.

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Snow refused to directly answer questions about the possible resurrection of the administration's top priority from 2005, reform of the Social Security system. Bush's proposal to set up private accounts for younger workers went nowhere in Congress last year and experts don't expect it will be addressed in 2006, a congressional election year. "Whether we will see legislative movement in '06, '07 or '08, I am not in a position to predict," Snow said. He said the administration will continue lobbying for its proposal.

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The administration is expected to delay another priority – overhauling the tax code to make it simpler and fairer – until 2007. Snow's Treasury Department is currently reviewing recommendations from a tax advisory panel appointed by the president, but Snow said he had no timetable for when he will make recommendations to the president.

Programs that aid the poor will be cut, education will be cut, scientific research will be cut.

Defense will continue to spend like a besotted groom at his bachelor party in Vegas on a Saturday night at a strip bar with no other clients around.

And they'll be damned if they let Bush's asinine tax giveaway to the uber-rich expire.

Gee, will Bush Sr be sacrificing? Karl Rove? Anyone with an income over $200,000/yr?

No sacrifice for them will be required. Only the poor, sick, elderly, children, and the enviroment will be sacrificed or have to sacrifice - so the rich can be even more "comfortable", fat, lazy, and happy.

It's the Republican Way..

and in fact will most likely be laid upon those least likely to afford it. Man, for a "christian" bunch they sure don't bother to be compassionate to the less fortunate ones. Guess words are all one really needs to succeed in the US; only have to make it sound like you really mean it.
fucking hypocritical lier's.

Typical.

The depreciation time for yachts will be increased from 7 to 7.1 years, but they will get a tax rebate to reimburse them for the onerous price increases of fuels for Lear jets.

We all have to pitch in to help solve this deficit and the wealthy are only too glad to toss in a few crumbs. God bless them.

WTF, were they lying about that too!?!?

Fuck them and their sacrifices! :grr:

The first is defense spending. Expect this to be left to spiral out of control, as always.

The second is benefits for retirees, widows, and the incapacitated -- read Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Disability. These were formerly the "third rail" of politics, but now that we're in the USSA, that will have to change.

Seriously, nothing else comes close to having the requisite level of funding to meet bush's ridiculous notion of defecit reduction in the face of massive tax cuts. You could eliminate huge federal programs wholesale, and still not make more than a tiny dent in bush's record-setting defecits.