Via WaPo: $2.5 Trillion Budget Plan Cuts Many Programs
President Bush plans to unveil a $2.5 trillion budget today eliminating dozens of politically sensitive domestic programs, including funding for education, environmental protection and business development, while proposing significant increases for the military and international spending, according to White House documents.Overall, discretionary spending other than defense and homeland security would fall by nearly 1 percent, the first time in many years that funding for the major part of the budget controlled by Congress would actually go down in real terms, according to officials with access to the budget. The cuts are scattered across a wide swath of the government, affecting a cross-section of constituents, from migrant workers to train passengers to local police departments, according to officials who read portions of the documents to The Washington Post.
While, no doubt, if the goal is cutting the deficit then spending must be gotten under control, but I have to wonder as to how much of this is going to happen. As Cokie Roberts noted on NPR this morning, a lot of these cuts have been proposed before and did not happen. Still, these proposals will give the deficit hawks the chance to fight for budget cuts. If the Republicans in Congress are serious about the deficit, then they have no excuse not to support these cuts, or to find others, given that whole control of both Houses thing.
It will also give the Democrats who have been griping (rightly) about spending a chance to shown their sincerity. Of course, I expect the Democratic response to be nothing more than focusing on the Bush tax cuts. Indeed, I predict that despite all the talk about deficits (including by the likely new DNC Chair) that the only solution that the Democrats will propose about the deficit will deal with “rolling back the Bush tax cuts.”
While I am skeptical I would very much like to see serious attention given to the concept of controlling federal spending.
On both the national scene and the local scene (at least in Mississippi), budget deficits are getting lots of talk of the day. And if we could get an honest discussion and debate going about what government should fund and by how much, we would be so much the better for it. But I’m afraid we’ll just see the same smoke and mirrors we’ve had for years.
Comment by Harry — Monday, February 7, 2025 @ 8:56 am
I am also skeptical. Cutting the pork is the thing congress does
worstleast.Comment by bryan — Monday, February 7, 2025 @ 9:02 am
Since, in the case of the budget, the president proposes and the congress deposes it is entirely rational that the Democrates should react to his cuts. Their counter-proposal will offset them by not funding some of the big ticket military items like the ABM boondoggle. This will trigger the Republicans to say the Democrats are weak on defense. Meanwhile, the veterans and the working poor take it in the ear again.
Comment by lindata — Monday, February 7, 2025 @ 11:58 am
Hopefully there will be a meaningful proposal-counter-proposal cycle. We haven’t had one of those in a while.
Comment by Steven Taylor — Monday, February 7, 2025 @ 12:22 pm
That would be nice!
Comment by lindata — Monday, February 7, 2025 @ 12:37 pm
The budget Bush proposes doesn’t even cut spending. It increases overall spending by $90 billion and discretionary spending by $18 billion.
That 1% WaPo mentions is a cut in non-security discretionary spending and totals only about $3 billion. The deficit will be $427 billion in 2025.
If you’re interested, I go more into the numbers at my website.
Comment by Q — Monday, February 7, 2025 @ 2:16 pm