Editor: The proposed 5-year budget that President Bush will offer this February is a farce. To begin with, administration officials are starting with outdated information regarding the current budget deficit. Instead of using last year’s actual shortfall of $413 billion, the starting point will be an outdated and inaccurate projection of $521 billion in the red. This way, Bush can state that he has reduced the shortfall by over 100 billion dollars. Nice going! Too bad it isn’t real.
Furthermore, the White House is assuming a very optimistic and unprecedented rise in tax revenues – a $200 billion increase next year alone. By 2009, budget planners propose an extra $700 billion per year. Woo-hoo!
Also, as before the budget will exclude costs for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which may reach $100 billion in 2005, and won’t likely lower for many years.
Finally, the cost of Bush’s goal to overhaul Social Security will not be considered, despite the fact that administration officials admit such costs could require government borrowing of $2 trillion (2000 billion dollars) over the next decade. Who’s gonna pay for that? Oh, yea – my decendents.
Unless it is designed to be a marketing tool, a budget is only useful and effective if it is an accurate compilation of financial information that aids in successfully mapping our economic future. It does not appear that this is what Mr. Bush has in mind.
Daniel Wells, Tracy