| Politics of a Portlander |
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| "(Bush's) latest budget includes new tax breaks, like provisions to let people who make more than $100,000 take bigger write-offs for dependents and to allow wealthy investors to shelter more investments. The nation can't afford this, financially or morally: we cannot balance the budget on the backs of workers, the elderly and our children." NY Times. The CBO added that over the longer term, the deficit would soar to a cumulative $2.6 trillion over 10 years under the Bush plan, compared with the $980 billion shortfall the CBO had forecast without the proposal. "Over the 2006-2015 period, the president's proposals would increase the total deficit by an estimated $1.6 trillion," CBO said. Bush's plan to extend certain tax cuts is the main reason for a loss of $1.4 trillion in revenues under his budget plan, the CBO said. The agency had also been expecting the deficit to turn to a small surplus in 2012 under current policies, but that would disappear under Bush's plan. The CBO also noted that Bush's 2006 budget, which only covers five years, did not include any estimates for the cost of adding private accounts to Social Security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or other new expenses. Estimates say that Social Security could cost $2 trillion over 10 years and we have been spending over $90B a year on the wars, which the Bush administration continues to insist must go on indefinitely. I continue to believe that our representatives need to point out that our national debt and the deficit are national security issues, because our debt is held by other nations that could at any moment call that debt and put our economy at risk. As the Bush administration grows these deficits the dollar declines and the likelihood that foregin nations that hold our debt will ask America to pay their obligations. This is much more urgent than the issue of Social Security, where are obligations are secured intil at least 2042. So rollback the tax cuts Bush created for people whose income is over $200,000 a year to balance our budget and begin to reduce our national debt. Close tax loopholes for companies that ship jobs overseas. And in 2004 the Bush administration gave tens of billions of dollars to only the richest corporations in America by telling them they didn't have to pay taxes on taxable profit that was made by using cheap labor overseas. Voters need to force our government to return to the American values of protecting the individuals that make this country great, not the corporations that perpetuate corruption in government as well as business. |
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| Bush's Budget and the National Deficit |