$3 trillion budget is a first -- Bush legacy of debt and deficits will constrain his successor.
From The Wall Street Journal:
George W. Bush took office in 2001 with budget surpluses projected to stretch years into the future. But it's almost certain that when he returns to Texas next year, the president will leave behind a trail of deficits and debt that will sharply constrain his successor.
On Monday, the president will unveil a $3 trillion-plus budget request for his final year, which is likely to show a deficit of more than $400 billion. New details of the budget emerged yesterday, with officials saying the White House plans to keep a lid on nonsecurity discretionary spending. It wants to cut about $200 billion from the government's medical programs for seniors and the poor.
The longer-term picture is darker. . . . The next president, if he or she serves two terms, could find the U.S. government so deeply in hock that it would face losing its Triple-A credit rating, something that has never happened since Moody's Investors Service began grading U.S. securities in 1917.
As a result, the ambitions of Mr. Bush's successor to cut taxes, institute universal health care or aid troubled homeowners might have to give way to the reality of soaring costs for Social Security, the Medicare program for the elderly and the Medicaid program for the poor.
Mr. Bush and Congress . . . increased federal spending by 25% between 2001 and 2007, adjusted for inflation, according to Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation. By Sept. 30, the U.S. will have spent almost $800 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A new Medicare prescription-drug benefit for seniors costs almost $80 billion a year. Mr. Bush's signature tax cuts, in 2001 and 2003, sapped tax receipts and sliced the projected budget surplus by about $1.7 trillion through 2011, according to the CBO.
Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, a former Bush economic adviser says the seniors' drug program was "a step in the wrong direction from the standpoint of fiscal imbalance."
Doomsayers have been warning for years of an approaching tsunami of health and retirement costs. What has changed is that the next president will actually have to confront the doom.
Ratings agency Moody's has warned that it could eventually downgrade its rating of U.S. debt unless there's a sharp change of course with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The government's triple-A rating allows it to borrow cheaply and sets the benchmark for global financial markets.
George W. Bush took office in 2001 with budget surpluses projected to stretch years into the future. But it's almost certain that when he returns to Texas next year, the president will leave behind a trail of deficits and debt that will sharply constrain his successor.
On Monday, the president will unveil a $3 trillion-plus budget request for his final year, which is likely to show a deficit of more than $400 billion. New details of the budget emerged yesterday, with officials saying the White House plans to keep a lid on nonsecurity discretionary spending. It wants to cut about $200 billion from the government's medical programs for seniors and the poor.
The longer-term picture is darker. . . . The next president, if he or she serves two terms, could find the U.S. government so deeply in hock that it would face losing its Triple-A credit rating, something that has never happened since Moody's Investors Service began grading U.S. securities in 1917.
As a result, the ambitions of Mr. Bush's successor to cut taxes, institute universal health care or aid troubled homeowners might have to give way to the reality of soaring costs for Social Security, the Medicare program for the elderly and the Medicaid program for the poor.
Mr. Bush and Congress . . . increased federal spending by 25% between 2001 and 2007, adjusted for inflation, according to Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation. By Sept. 30, the U.S. will have spent almost $800 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A new Medicare prescription-drug benefit for seniors costs almost $80 billion a year. Mr. Bush's signature tax cuts, in 2001 and 2003, sapped tax receipts and sliced the projected budget surplus by about $1.7 trillion through 2011, according to the CBO.
Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, a former Bush economic adviser says the seniors' drug program was "a step in the wrong direction from the standpoint of fiscal imbalance."
Doomsayers have been warning for years of an approaching tsunami of health and retirement costs. What has changed is that the next president will actually have to confront the doom.
Ratings agency Moody's has warned that it could eventually downgrade its rating of U.S. debt unless there's a sharp change of course with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The government's triple-A rating allows it to borrow cheaply and sets the benchmark for global financial markets.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 4:32 PM
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