WSJ.com - President Seeks Entitlement Cuts To Pay for Katrina
President Bush called on Congress to balance additional hurricane relief and reconstruction spending with “substantial” cuts in popular entitlement programs, and also said the storms showed legislation is needed to encourage construction of new U.S. oil refineries....Mr. Bush reiterated that he had no intention of cutting military or homeland-security programs. [Josh Bolten, Mr. Bush's budget director] said it is unlikely the administration will tamper with Social Security benefits or the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit. Mr. Bolten also appeared to shut the door on tax increases, which some Democrats favor, branding them “retrograde” steps that could slow economic growth.
Though Mr. Bush has continually cast himself as a fiscal conservative, he has yet to veto a congressional spending bill, and administration proposals for defense and homeland security have added billions of dollars to the national deficit. Some economic analysts have estimated that the deficit could balloon to $400 billion in the fiscal year that began this week -- up from the estimated $330 billion in 2005.
Yes, wouldn't want to stop wasting money in Iraq now would we? Rather balance the budget on the backs of the poor - they don't have any lobbyists anyway. I'm curious as to which of the many corporate entitlement programs the President is discussing. Or as they are called, tax breaks. Poor folks get 'entitlements', a word that sounds like it was hatched in Grover Norquist's Satanic Mills.
Tags: GWB, /Politics, /Worst_President
