Bush proposes cuts in health, domestic progams; Debt remains his legacy RAW STORY

Published: Friday February 1, 2008



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Print This Email This With less than a year until he leaves the White House, President Bush is proposing deep cuts in health programs while allowing virtually no increase for other domestic priorities in his final budget. Kevin Freking of the Associated Press, citing a senior administration official, reports that the budget "will virtually freeze most domestic programs." Nonetheless, economists predict the president has saddled his successor with near-crippling debt that could threaten the US credit rating for the first time in more than 90 years. "Despite his efforts, Mr. Bush failed to work out a deal with Congress to tackle the spiraling costs of government health and retirement programs," report the Wall Street Journal's Michael M. Phillips and John D. McKinnon. "The next president, if he or she serves two terms, could find the U.S. government so deeply in hock that it would face losing its Triple-A credit rating, something that has never happened since Moody's Investors Service began grading U.S. securities in 1917." Bush has proposed nearly $200 billion in cuts to Medicaid and Medicare as part of his $3 trillion budget to be unveiled Monday, and he will provide miniscule increases in spending on other domestic programs. "It's a very small increase," an Office of Management and Budget official tells the Associated Press. "Very small." The deficit is expected to reach $400 billion in the next budget, adding to what Philips and McKinnon call the "trail of deficits and debt" Bush is leaving in his wake. Excerpts from the Journal: The president's critics say his failings are twofold: He has squandered surpluses that could have helped pay down the $5 trillion federal debt. And he has let two terms pass without persuading Congress to take action that would preserve the government's social programs. According to the Concord Coalition, a fiscal watchdog group, the shortfall in Social Security and Medicare through 2080 will total $72.3 trillion, a number that dwarfs the impact of Mr. Bush's spending and tax cuts. Mr. Bush's defenders say he did the best he could in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, and that he has recently tightened up on spending. The budget deficit in fiscal 2004 measured 3.6% of gross domestic product; last year it narrowed to 1.2% of GDP, low by historical standards. The deficit is expected to rise to 2.5% of GDP, or about $350 billion, this fiscal year, assuming Congress passes an expected economic-stimulus package. "You could say, 'Gee, he inherited surpluses and now we have a deficit,'" said Rob Portman, the former head of the White House budget office under Mr. Bush. "On the other hand, you could say he inherited a recession" in 2001. Mr. Portman called the country's fiscal health "relatively strong" and said the president has left a solid base for "the next president and the next Congress to deal with the real problem, which is the unsustainable growth in mandatory spending." In his State of the Union address this week, Mr. Bush signaled he wasn't going to use his last year trying to revamp entitlement programs. Instead, he called on lawmakers to "offer your proposals and come up with a bipartisan solution."



