Budget Blogwatch: Bush's Budget

This week President Bush’s budget release has gained the attention of bloggers and journalists around the nation.  This is intense debate raging regarding cuts to various sectors, spending on national security and a number of other budget-related issues.  It should be noted that much of the blogosphere is leaning left in this discussion, as critics are rampant and forthcoming.

To begin today’s Blogwatch, OMB Watch makes no bones about having issues with President Bush and his budget plans:

“As we have come to expect from Mr. Bush, his budget consists of harsh cuts to discretionary programs outside of defense and homeland security, unrealistic assumptions about both current and future economic conditions and policy options related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Alternative Minimum Tax.”

OMB Watch also points out the list of programs that the president plans to cut or eliminate.  This might be an interesting starting point for those of you looking for more pointed information on the federal budget.

In Grasping Reality With Both Hands, Brad DeLong mirrors the sentiment presented by OMB Watch.  He cites numerous issues with Bush’s proposed budget and claims that it is far from “prudent and responsible.”  He reprints an article from Bloomberg.com that starts with the following:

“President George W. Bush sent Congress a $3.1 trillion federal budget that trims Medicare and health care programs, boosts military spending and projects the deficit this year and next will hit near-record levels.”

Over at The Hill’s Congress Blog, partisan devotion is running rampant as well.  Mich. Dem. Sen. Debbie Stabenow wrote an entry entitled, “President’s Budget Shows Priorities Are Out of Sync”; the piece focuses on economic hardship, cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and other associated issues.  Stabenow says that the budget “…is clearly out of sync with the values and priorities of middle-class families across Michigan and across our country."

On the flip side, N.H. GOP Sen. Judd Gregg wrote an entry entitled, “New Budget Offers Chance for Honesty and Transparency” that focuses on the viability of budgets in general.  He turns the focus from Bush’s budget to the up-and-coming budget release from the Democratic Congress next month.

And over at Beat the Press, Dean Baker is questioning whether the current deficit really is record high.  Econbrowser takes on the budget as well, pointing out the fact that the Bush Administration budgeted for about $70 billion in war funding (he points out that the war has consistently been $200 billion each year).  His piece questions whether the administration is underestimating the both cost and the deficit.

And be sure to check out Scott Bittle’s piece, entitled, “$3 Trillion and Counting” where he urges us to keep our eyes on what’s really important:

“Amazingly enough, the fact that this is the first $3 trillion federal budget is not the big picture. In this case, the big picture means the long-term picture. The fact that the deficit is rising is ugly, without question. But the uglier facts are that we're $9 trillion in debt and facing $50 trillion in obligations for Medicare and Social Security that we have no real plan to solve. The implications of that are pretty frightening.”

Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, editors of Public Agenda Online and writers of the new book Where Does the Money Go? Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis (HarperCollins) also published an excellent piece in the Huffington Post that provides some “ugly” little truths about the federal budget!