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Bush’s budget focuses on War on Terrorism, faces scrutiny
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by Kirsten Kukolowski
Tuesday, February 3, 2004
President George W. Bush presented his $2.4 trillion dollar budget proposal to Congress Monday, focusing spending on winning the war on terrorism, building the infrastructure of the Department of Homeland Security and initiating policies for economic recovery.
According to Bush, his proposed budget advances the nation’s top three priorities.
During his speech, the president praised the military success in the war on terror thus far while also calling for sustained action.
“This nation has committed itself to the long war against terror,” Bush said in his address. “And we will see the war to its inevitable conclusion: the destruction of the terrorists.”
Along with the seven percent military spending increase, homeland security will also receive an increase of 10 percent in 2005. The substantial increase in funds will be used most specifically by the FBI for heightened security alerts against terrorist attacks.
These increases, along with Bush’s economic recovery plan to make the tax cuts of 2003 permanent, leave the president in a bind with both the Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Many fiscal conservatives think Bush’s plan for spending is irresponsible during a time of large deficits.
“The president’s budget takes some good steps toward reforming the broken budget process and restraining spending, but it doesn’t nearly go far enough,” U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R ?WI, said in a press release. Ryan is currently working on legislation to reform government spending and create more accountability.
On the other hand, democrats like Ted Kennedy strongly oppose the permanent tax cuts when spending for governmental programs is being simultaneously eliminated according to the New York Times.
While President Bush stressed the importance of economic reform in his proposal, proponents say that his actions are unnecessary for current economic conditions. UW professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs, Andrew Reschovsky, argued that Bush’s tax cuts are detrimental to the economy in the long run.
“During this time when the country is successfully getting out of a recession and the economy is looking increasingly prosperous, permanent tax cuts are only going to break the growth and put us into a tailspin when it comes to inflation and increasing interest rates,” Reschovsky said.
Reschovsky also said if the Bush administration was serious about increasing economic prosperity they would consider tax breaks to the low-income bracket in order to spur increased spending and saving.
While the 2004 budget was met with intense scrutiny in Congress, it is said the current proposal will be met with just as much — if not more. In an election year, Republicans are apprehensive of the idea that Bush has cut spending on many domestic programs, causing support for the president to lag during the election this fall.
Of the 13 cabinet-level agencies, seven of them will experience decreases in funds if the proposal goes through the legislature as is. The agencies with the largest reduction in funds are the Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agencies.
With Bush’s emphasis on military and defense spending as well as his permanent tax cut plan, he has little room for other spending he had previously supported such as an overhaul of Medicaid.
