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George Bush Arms Himself with Dollars
// White House Unveils Its New War Chest
Yesterday US President George Bush presented his budget for 2008 to Congress. The president, aware of the abysmal depths to which his approval ratings have sunk, is prepared to go to any lengths necessary to win the love of the electorate. And judging from what he plans to spend the government's money on in the next year, the president is planning to boost his popularity with a new war.
Since the Democratic victory in the last congressional elections, every conversation on Capitol Hill eventually turns into a pitched battle between supporters and opponents of President Bush. By this point, Mr. Bush certainly has no shortage of the latter, and torpedoing presidential initiatives has become something of a fashion of late. The tensest face-off between Republicans and Democrats in the year ahead, however, promises to be over the new budget, which was presented to Congress yesterday by President Bush.
The new $2.9 trillion budget is for the 2008 fiscal year, which will start in the US on October 1 of this year. This will be the first time in his tenure in office that the president will have to try to ram his budget past a hostile Democrat-controlled Congress.
The Democratic Party has traditionally enjoyed reminding the current president of the budget surplus that was bequeathed to him by his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, and this year George Bush again finds himself claiming defensively that a budget operating in the black is one of the main goals of his economic policy. According to the budget that he presented to Congress yesterday, the deficit could be tamed completely by 2012.
The number one item in Mr. Bush's latest budget is war. And, judging from his financial plans, not just a continuation of the war he is already embroiled in but an expansion of US military operations. In the next year, on top of the approximately $70 billion already earmarked for military expenditures, the White House is asking for an additional $100 billion for the war in Iraq and the struggle against global terrorism. The administration promises that a year from now Iraq and other military operations will require only $145 billion and that two years from now the sum will be even lower – only $50 billion. Of course, these numbers come with one tiny, insignificant proviso attached: if the situation in Iraq and elsewhere deteriorates instead of improving, those expenditures can only rise.
In total $481 billion will go for defense, which is close to the historic maximum spent by Lyndon Johnson on the Vietnam War, even accounting for inflation. The White House calculates that the war in Iraq will cost American taxpayers around $300 million over the next two and a half years. Those who stand to gain from the new budget are companies working on American overseas military bases, such as Boeing and Halliburton.
Another important aspect of the new American budget is its particular interest in energy conservation and in companies that are searching for new sources of energy. Companies that are engaged in developing alternative sources of energy will be extremely pleased by President Bush's new budget, which promises hefty subsidies. The main recipients of the government's largesse will be companies that are working on producing an ethanol-based fuel, such as Archer Daniels Midland, VeraSun Energy, and Pacific Ethanol of California.
In order to achieve a budget surplus by 2012, the White House is proposing to cut $100 billion in funds for various social programs. In order to find the money to continue his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while staying one step ahead of a looming deficit, Mr. Bush, who claimed during his second presidential campaign that social issues are his top priority, intends to slash funding either wholly or in part for 141 federal programs, which will save the government around $12 billion over the next five years. Two other programs that are facing big cuts are Medicare, which provides health insurance to 43 million elderly Americans, and Medicaid, which provides healthcare for children from poor families. Together, cutbacks for these two programs will add $66 billion to the government's war chest over the next five years.
George Bush's budget also anticipates that the tax breaks introduced by his administration during his first year in office will become permanent – something that is likely to be a stumbling block for the Democrats, who have made no secret of their plans to roll back Mr. Bush's tax cuts as soon as the legislation expires in 2010.
Given that the election campaigns for next year's presidential elections are already up and running, the budget will undoubtedly become a favorite target for pre-election mudslinging, particularly at the upcoming Democratic Party Caucus. The candidates' tactics promise to be familiar: the Republican front-runners, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, will faithfully support the president but will try to distance themselves as much as possible from his plans in order to avoid sharing any responsibility for his failures, while leading Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, will do their best to make sure that George Bush's political house of cards collapses around his ears.
Mr. Bush stumped for support for his budget, the details of which take up four massive tomes, at a meeting with House Democratic members in Williamsburg, Virginia. "My formula for balancing the budget reflects our country's priorities at this point in time: securing our homeland, combating terrorism, supporting a strong economy while keeping taxes low, and continuing to keep expenditures under control while increasing the effectiveness of federal programs," said President Bush. The president, who racked up a $248 billion deficit last year, emphasized that the White House and Congress should work together to strike a working balance between income and expenditures. "Some of you will like the budget, and some of you won't. You all have your own ideas, but I hope that we will be able to work together to achieve the main goal of erasing the deficit," said Mr. Bush to the assembled legislators.
The Democrats are well aware that the adoption of the budget will be a vote of confidence in George Bush's foreign policy, as part of which he has his eye on forcing regime change in Iran. The White House will see a green light for its expansive new plans if the Defense Department receives the funds allocated in the new budget, and of course it will be the next – presumably Democratic – administration that will be stuck with the consequences. Thus, the Democrats in control of Congress will pull out all the stops to minimize the threat posed by Mr. Bush's latest project.
Petr Yozh
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 06, 2007
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