Bushonomics

More on this disaster of a budget.
Education: "Financing at the state level for the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program would be eliminated, and about $2 billion would be cut from other high school programs, including vocational education and efforts like Upward Bound, Gear Up and Talent Search that help prepare students from disadvantaged backgrounds for college." [NYT]

This budget imposes $5.3 billion in new, regressive taxes, including new taxes that will increase the price of a six pack of beer, an airline ticket and prescription drugs for veterans. Meanwhile, the budget cuts funding for education, public health and environmental protection and includes $1.4 trillion in new tax cuts for the wealthy. Welcome to Bushonomics.

The Shell Game: fuzzy math indicates that the budget deficit in 2006 will be $390 billion. BUT, that includes $1 billion in revenue from drilling in ANWR, AND excludes the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, and the $2 trillion social security package.

Kicking the poor: The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities sums it up: "The number of poor went up for the third straight year in 2003, the share of total income that goes to the bottom two-fifths of households has fallen to one of its lowest levels since the end of World War II, and the number of people lacking health insurance rose to 45 million in 2003, the highest level on record." [CAP]

Medicare: The industry-backed prescription drug bill President Bush jammed through Congress is a bad law that keeps getting worse. While the bill was pending before Congress, the administration promised the bill would cost $400 billion over 10 years and threatened to fire the Medicare actuary who knew that figure was too low. Later, the administration revised its estimated price tag to $534 billion over 10 years, largely due to excessive payments to private insurers and HMOs. Now, in the most recent budget, the Bush administration estimates the bill will cost $395 billion over five years. In the meantime, drug companies have already jacked up their prices enough to offset any discount to seniors. [CAP]

Sex: Even though the Administration-backed programs were packed with lies, Bush continues to increase funding to abstinence-only programs. Bush is calling for increased funding of $39 million to a whopping total of $209 million. [CAP]

Clean water: Bush's budget is proposing to reduce federal funds that states use to improve water quality by $369 million. The new budget would call for an amount of $730 million, down from $1.98 billion four years ago. [CAP]