by Joe Snyder
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The President’s next budget hasn’t hit Capitol Hill yet but even those in his own party are beginning to think of placing some barriers up simply because what many see as a spending spree is little more than a bad habit. Even some Republican members of Congress have set off alarms.
It appears that President Bush may sense a coming rift in his own ranks over one of its main goals: to create a smaller, less costly government. Our president hasn’t entirely forgotten what fiscal restraint is since in recent days he has called on Congress to cut the federal budget in half over the next five years. Trouble is, he has created a government that’s more like a liberal Democrat’s than a conservative Republican one.
Many experts agree that recent forecasts of U.S. fiscal health are not encouraging. Deficits are expected to reach or exceed $5 trillion over the next decade. The federal budget deficit is expected to approach $500 billion this year. Deficits are expected to reach $5 trillion in the next 10 years. That will be a new record!
Among other good news picked up this week, the Medicare system is expected to run out of money in 2015. I don’t think I will still be around to see that happen and I must also mention that Social Security will run out of cash in 2018. My hope is that somewhere
between now and then fiscal sanity will prevail and that the retired and the needy can be given some help.
Republican John McCain (who happens to be one of my favorite congressmen) has this to say: "It’s a system that’s completely out of control, and it’s an absolute disgrace."
"What we have here is an administration that has overseen the biggest fiscal reversal in the nation’s history," commented Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina. "Unless we change course we are left with deficits as far as the eye can see."
Balancing the budget by 2013 would require the following drastic steps: raising individual and corporate taxes by 17 percent; eliminating Medicare entirely or cutting Social Security benefits by 60 percent, according to the Committee of Economic Development. In case you haven’t heard, in a mood of controlled desperation the Bush people have asked for a bailout in Iraq from the Bush-scorned United Nations!
All we can add to this miserable situation is that spending control in Washington, D.C. will be extremely difficult in an election year, if at all. Even the conservative Republican Study Commission, a caucus of 90 GOP conservatives, has called for zero net growth in spending for the 2005 fiscal year and urged President Bush to find offsets for new spending. Will he pay attention?