WASHINGTON — The record $3.1 trillion budget proposed by President Bush on Monday would produce eyepopping federal deficits, despite his attempts to impose politically wrenching curbs on Medicare and eliminate scores of popular domestic programs.
The Pentagon would receive a $36 billion, 8 percent boost for the 2009 budget year beginning Oct. 1, even as programs aimed at the poor would be cut back or eliminated. Half of domestic Cabinet departments would see their budgets cut outright.
Slumping revenues and the cost of an economic rescue package will combine to produce a huge jump in the deficit to $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009, the White House says, just shy of the record $413 billion set four years ago.
But even those figures are optimistic since they depend on rosy economic forecasts and leave out the full costs of the war in Iraq. The White House predicts the economy will grow at a 2.7 percent clip this year, far higher than congressional and private economists expect and the administration’s $70 billion figure for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is simply a placeholder until the next president takes office.
Bush’s lame-duck budget plan likely will be ignored by Congress, which is controlled by Democrats already looking ahead to November elections. His long-term projections are mostly academic since he’s leaving office next January.
The president forecasts a $48 billion surplus by 2012, keeping a promise he made two years ago when strong revenue predictions made it look far easier. Now, he’s relying on spending cuts — for everything from transportation to Medicare and Medicaid to nonprofit groups that help the poor — to do the job in order to keep his signature 2001 and 2003 tax cuts intact instead of expiring at the end of 2010.
Bush is leaving his successor an enormous fiscal dilemma. The deficit numbers will mean pressure to allow some tax cuts to expire, especially the 35 percent bracket for wealthy taxpayers, which will revert to 39.6 percent at the end of 2010 unless renewed. Pressure from Wall Street to trim the deficit may cause even Democrats to go after the spiraling growth of Medicare and the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled.
“There was an assumption that in the short term (that) the budget would start to correct and that we could balance in the short term,” said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, top Republican on the Budget Committee. “But with the stimulus package and with the continuing war costs, that’s not going to happen.”
“We’ve been able to close the deficit gap with good economic growth, therefore good revenue growth. Those days are coming to an end, and we’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way, through real spending discipline,” said top House Budget Committee Republican Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Bush’s budget does contain some increases, for abstinence education, Pell Grants for college students from low-income families and grants to school districts. The Food and Drug Administration would get a larger-than-average budget increase to send staff overseas to inspect food and drugs coming to the U.S.
Comparing 2008 with 2009
Estimated total spending by federal agencies this year and President Bush’s proposal for the 2009 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
All numbers are in millions of dollars.
Agriculture: 92,242 (2008); 96,985 (2009)
Commerce: 7,604; 8,919
Defense: 670,517; 588,290
Military retirement: 49,019; 51,162
Education: 66,590; 64,883
Energy: 21,223; 22,292
Environmental Protection Agency: 7,426; 7,044
Health and Human Services: 717,126; 733,298
Homeland Security: 41,144; 40,122
Housing and Urban Development: 40,401; 39,432
Interior: 10,457; 9,584
Justice: 24,370; 23,697
Labor: 49,111; 53,131
State: 22,937; 19,238
Foreign aid: 15,987; 18,381
Transportation: 63,437; 57,138
Treasury: 522,493; 549,964
Veterans: 87,961; 91,194
Social Security: 658,614; 694,683
NASA: 17,104; 17,600
Legislative branch: 4,418; 5,132
Judiciary: 6,461; 6,942
Corps of Engineers: 5,571; 10,483
Other agencies: 96,456; 105,904
Allowances and undistributed receipts: -285,581; -289,908
TOTAL: 3,013,088; 3,025,590
What’s in a trillion?
n A trillion is a one followed by 12 zeros, or 1,000,000,000,000. That’s a million times one million, or a thousand times one billion.
n There are about 6.8 billion people in the world, meaning that every living person would get $441 if the U.S. government’s budget was divided up. If the money was split among the 300 million Americans, everyone would take home $10,000.
n Counting to 3 trillion at a rate of one number per second would take almost 95,000 years.
n One would have to circumnavigate the globe 120 million times to travel 3 trillion miles.
n The universe, 15 billion years old at the outside, would need another 200 such lifetimes to reach 3 trillion years.
Associated Press
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