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Conservatives Fiscally Responsible??? Prove it.
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Conservatives are always railing on about how they are the fiscally responsible party. Well, after living thru the deficits or Reagan, and now Bush, I really question how they can keep pushing this image when the facts don't bear out. This just out today: Budget Office Puts Deficit at $855 Billion Over 10 Years

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 25, 2005



Filed at 10:27 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Congressional Budget Office is predicting the government will accumulate another $855 billion in deficits over the next decade, excluding the costs of President Bush's Social Security plan and ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report, described by a congressional aide who spoke on condition of anonymity, was being released Tuesday, the same day administration officials were expected to describe President Bush's request for fresh $80 billion request to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

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The deficit projections for the years 2006 through 2015 is almost two-thirds smaller than what congressional budget analysts predicted last fall, but the drop is largely due to estimating quirks that required it to exclude future Iran and Afghanistan war costs. Last September, their 10-year deficit estimate was $2.3 trillion.

The CBO now also projects this year's shortfall will be $368 billion. That was close to the $348 billion deficit for 2005 it forecast last fall. If the estimate proves accurate, it would be the third-largest deficit ever in dollar terms, behind only last year's $412 billion and the $377 billion gap of 2003.

Besides lacking war costs, the budget office's deficit estimates also omitted the price tags of Bush's goal of revamping Social Security, which could cost $1 trillion to $2 trillion and dominate this year's legislative agenda; an estimated $1.8 trillion price tag of extending Bush's tax cuts and easing the impact the alternative minimum tax would have on middle-income Americans; and other expenses.

Those omissions prompted Democrats to warn about the deficit forecasts.

``Whatever we get'' Tuesday from the budget office ``needs considerable adjustment before it is brought back to reality,'' said Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

On the war financing front, White House budget chief Joshua Bolten or other administration officials were expected to describe Bush's forthcoming request for funds on Tuesday, according to congressional aides who spoke on condition of anonymity. The package won't formally be sent to Congress until after Bush unveils his full 2006 budget on Feb. 7, the aides said.

White House officials declined to comment on the war package, which will come as the United States confronts continued violence in Iraq leading up to that country's Jan. 30 elections.

Aides said about three-fourths of the $80 billion was expected to be for the Army, which is bearing the brunt of the fighting in Iraq. It also was expected to include money for building a U.S. embassy in Baghdad, estimated to cost $1.5 billion.

One aide said the request will also include funds to help the new Afghan government combat drug trafficking. It might also have money to help two new leaders the U.S. hopes will be allies, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko.

The aides said the package Bush eventually submits to Congress will also include money to help Indian Ocean countries hit by the devastating December tsunami.

The forthcoming request highlights how much war spending has soared past initial White House estimates. Early on, then-presidential economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey placed Iraq costs at $100 billion to $200 billion, only to see his comments derided by administration colleagues.

By pushing war spending so far beyond $280 billion, the latest proposal would approach nearly half the $613 billion the United States spent for World War I or the $623 billion it expended for the Vietnam War, when the costs of those conflicts are translated into 2005 dollars.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Monday it was Congress' ``highest responsibility'' to provide the money that American troops need. But in a written statement, she said Democrats would ask questions about Bush's goals in Iraq, the eventual costs, and why Iraqi troops aren't playing a larger role in security.

The White House had not been expected to reveal details of the war package until after the release of the full budget.

But lawmakers, as they did last year, want to include war costs in the budgets they will write. They argue that withholding the war costs from Bush's budget would open it to criticism that it was an unrealistic document, one aide said. Last year, the spending plan omitted war expenditures and received just that critique.



So let me get this straight--almost $1 trillion w/o SS revamping (est $4.6 trillion over 20 years), any war costs ($280 billion so far--oh, I forgot--Iraq was going to be able to pay for the war costs out of oil revenues + another $80b + this year) & Bush wants further tax cuts? Please explain to me how this spending spree is conservative? No deflection about what the Dems might have done (yes, they would have rolled back the Bush tax cuts--gee, that would have cost everyone (on average) about 3-5% more on their taxes when COL is going up by 12%---good math Repubs) differently.

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"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." John Rogers
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Re: Conservatives Fiscally Responsible??? Prove it. [mopdahl] [ In reply to ]
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Do you sell Audis?

This seems like a clever ploy to get an ad out.

You cad!

"Nobody gets out of here alive."
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Re: Conservatives Fiscally Responsible??? Prove it. [mopdahl] [ In reply to ]
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The events of September 11, 2001 appear to have altered the paradigm in which Liberals are seen as big-spending and Conservatives as in favor of small government.

All that talk in the past about relying less on government and reducing government spending has been replaced by calls for MORE government programs aimed at strengthening "homeland security". Instead of focusing on shrinking the size of government, attention has turned toward reorganizing and enhancing local, state, and federal agencies that help guard the nation against the new vulnerabilities brought on by the threat of terrorism.

Thus, government has played, and continues to play, an important role in the day-to-day economic impact on ALL of our lives. Whereas we wanted government OUT of our lives, because of this new "vulnerability" and sense of unease brought about by 9/11, we now generally tend to want MUCH MORE government back into our lives.

All of this costs BIG BUCKS. Talk by both Democrats and Republicans, who are busily accusing each other of budget-busting, is just that.....talk. The play is to their various constituencies, who all seem to be screaming for border protection, building protection, protection against NBC warfare....all kinds of things that cost all kinds of money.

Basically, "damned if you do, damned if you don't". N'cet pas?

Tony
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Re: Conservatives Fiscally Responsible??? Prove it. [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]
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The current republican administration is far from conservative. In fact starting with Bush Sr.,the Republicans have moved left.

Bush Sr. called Reagonomics "Voodoo economics" during the campaign for the republican nomination.

Many conservative, including myself, have become independents -- I do not like how the current republicans insist on growing government and having govenment involved more in my daily life.

I do not need any administration, republican or democrat, to impose thier "values" on me.

I want personal responsability and freedom!!!

I do not support George W. and do not call him a conservative.
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Re: Conservatives Fiscally Responsible??? Prove it. [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]
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I can almost accept the security and defense spending, but non-defense/security spending has also risen dramatically to ridiculous levels. 911 isn't to blame for the prescription drug benefit or much of the other pork that has been passed.
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Re: Conservatives Fiscally Responsible??? Prove it. [Wolfwood] [ In reply to ]
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I agree, for the most part, but the psychology of our expectations for government has now changed, and politicians of all stripes have used it as an excuse to fatten the proverbial golden calf. It's almost palpable, how citizens in our country now demand that government do something, anything, about the least little problem that now confronts us.

Dubya, the Congress...everybody, has seized on that and are busily pumping up the size of government in attempt to assuage the vulnernabilities that our citenzry seems to be feeling. It's ham-handed, at best, but there probably wouldn't have been anything different that Kerry could have pulled off, either, sadly.

Tony
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Re: Conservatives Fiscally Responsible??? Prove it. [mopdahl] [ In reply to ]
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Your criticism is rightfully directed at Republicans. While Republicans include conservatives, and conservatives certainly support Republicans, the two are not mutually inclusive. There are many Republicans that are not conservative, especially not on fiscal issues. President Bush, for one, has never really run as a fiscal conservative, at least when it comes to spending. Many of the House Members that ran in 1994 on closing down a few government departments have now become the party of government and responded by ensuring that enough pork gets distributed in home districts to assure re-election.

I think, however, that most conservatives could easily find a way to knock a few hundred billion out of the annual federal budget and restore the country to a more or less balanced budget, at least until the Social Security and Medicare time bombs strike.
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