Shocking I tell you, shocking!:
Bush would slow the growth of benefit programs by $137 billion over the next decade, nearly quadruple the savings he proposed a year ago with little success. Chief among the targets would be Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor and disabled, but farmers' payments, student loans and veterans medical services were also on the chopping block.
"It's a budget that focuses on results," Bush told reporters after meeting with his Cabinet. "The taxpayers of America don't want us spending our money into something that's not achieving results."
...Yet largely because of Bush's plans for a defense buildup, this year's Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) war costs, and a handful of new tax cuts, the budget shows that deficits over the five years ending in 2010 would total nearly $1.4 trillion.
That is $42 billion worse than they would be if the government continued current spending levels and made no tax-law changes other than making permanent his already enacted tax cuts, his budget tables showed.
Bush's blueprint would leave next year's deficit at an estimated $390 billion, and omits any new money next year for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That would be a reduction from last year's record $412 billion shortfall and would still leave Bush on his course to halve deficits by 2009, the White House said.
Even so, a $390 billion shortfall would be the third worst ever if his projection for $427 billion in red ink for this year comes true.
Without Bush's new tax and spending plans, the 2006 deficit would otherwise be $361 billion, the budget tables showed. The figures demonstrated how federal costs are soaring despite growing revenues the economy is pumping into the government....
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050208/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_budget
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