Bush announces $2.4 trillion insanity
by Kevin Dangoor
Not surprisingly, the proposed $2.4 trillion budget includes deepest cuts for Agriculture and the EPA. I’m not as familiar with the Agriculture Dept, but Bush has certainly not been a friend to the EPA.
This budget includes a $521 billion deficit. That’s like $2,000 per person in the US. There are three of us in my household, so that’s like Bush grabbing my credit card and charging up $6,000 of my money, albeit at a much better interest rate than a credit card typically offers. And that’s this year alone. He’s projecting that by 2009 (after he leaves office) they’ll have that down to just $3,000 a year that they’re borrowing on my personal behalf. Gadzooks. And just like the Child’s Pay commercial says, this is money that my daughter will likely have to help to pay off when she joins the workforce. Thankfully, right now she just needs to worry about learning how to eat oatmeal.
My prediction is that the deficit will be higher than the expected $521 billion. I say this not only because Bush’s staff has had an awfully hard time coming up with reasonable projections (which is not unreasonable, because projecting something like our federal budget is almost like projecting the weather). No, the real reason is this assumption:
Revenues will total $2.04 trillion, a sizable 13.2 percent increase that the administration forecasts will occur from growing tax receipts powered by a stronger economy.
They’re expecting a 13.2% increase in revenues! Sure, it’s possible… but that seems like an awful lot to count on. Being wrong on that figure could add another $100 billion to the deficit.
I know that balancing the budget is hard, but this budget seems just plain irresponsible.
Has Bush mentioned anything about the space program in today’s budget proposal? He failed to mention anything about it during the State of the Union address, but I believe he was due to make an official announcement at the beginning of February.
As a matter of fact, the budget does include a bit about the space program. The budget has a $1 billion increase for NASA over the next five years, plus they’re reallocating another $11 billion. Not a huge increase, but I think that’s a good thing at the current moment.
I’m generally in favor of the government supporting pure research in areas that industry is not pursuing. (It’ll cost a fortune to send someone to Mars, and it’s doubtful that there’s any profit potential any time soon…) I’m not in favor of spending money on that sort of thing when the budget is nowhere near balanced.
I believe Bush made an announcement of the moon and Mars missions the week after the State of the Union address.
I guess I missed Bush’s post-State of the Union mention of the space program. I’m glad to see any progress in space travel–I know some may argue as to whether it’s progress or not to take us to the moon, but I believe it’s a step in the right direction. We should have never abandoned the moon in the first place, IMHO.
I understand your opinion about having a balanced budget first, but I think we’d be waiting a LONG, LONG time before we’d ever make any exploratory progress if we followed that credence. Space exploration is a relatively small cost, at least as proposed by Bush. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of this war (whether you agree with Bush’s war effort or not–I offer no opinion on the matter here).
Our exploration of space could lead to the most wonderful of discoveries. Besides, it’s in our nature to explore. What are we waiting for ? We’re always going to have budget problems. The universe is waiting for us.
I do agree that the amount of money NASA is given is pretty small. I believe the article said that NASA’s budget is around $16-17 billion, which is quite small in a $2.4 trillion package.
And I’m not saying that we should wait until the budget is actually balanced, because you’re right that that could be a long time in coming. But this deficit is huge! $2,000 for every American this year alone. A billion here and a billion there adds up, and any increases should be thoroughly scrutinized when there’s so much red ink.