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[Wangja]

Bush seeks defence spending rise

President Bush aims to secure more funding for defence and security
President George W Bush has proposed a $2,770bn (£1,600bn) annual budget, with more money for defence, but less for many social areas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4686684.stm

[Kuros]

All figures come from this monstrosity, although be warned, it requires Adobe Acrobat reader to open. It's from the Heritage Foundation and in many cases I've just copied what they've written. To see the graphs you'll have to click the link, though. I've left commentary out, because the numbers speak for themselves. Enjoy.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=93690

Spending abounds

- Spending has increased by 8% in 2005 and is up 33% since 2001.

- In 2005, inflation-adjusted federal spending reached $22,000 per household, the highest level since WWII, however, the government only has taxed $19,062 per household, leaving a budget deficit of $2,816 per household.

- Federal spending has grown twice as fast under President Bush as President Clinton

- Military spending has jumped from $305,000million to $535,000million from 2001 to 2006, a 76% increase over five years

- Federal education funds have more than doubled in the past 5 years under the No Child Left Behind Act, from $35,000million to well over $80,000million.

Needless Discretionary Spending surges

- Discretionary spending went up 49% since 2001, a whopping 35% after accounting for inflation. Discretionary spending that excludes Defense/Homeland Security/Katrina relief still increased by 34%, or by 23% after adjustments for inflation

Entitlement Crisis

- Entitlement spending consumes over 50% of our spending and over 10% of our GDP. The big entitlements are Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

- The unfunded liability for Social Security is 3.7 trillion dollars, but the unfunded liability for Medicare Drug entitlement is 8.1 trillion dollars. Our taxes are going directly to ensure pharmaceutical companies' profit figures.

- Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid entitlements are expected to jump from tying up 8.4% of our GDP in 2005 to 18.9% of our GDP in 2050. If taxes were collected to correspond to these costs, they would have to be raised every year until they became 60% higher than they are today, in other words household tax burden would increase by $11,000.

Welfare State

- Under the Bush administration, anti-poverty spending has risen by 39% to become a record 16% of all spending. (Under the Bush senior administration it never topped 10%, during the height of the war against poverty led by LBJ, it never topped 4%)

- From 2001 to 2005, Medicaid rolls have increased by 10 million and Food Stamp rolls by 8 million. Benefit levels on average have outpaced inflation.

Pork, Pork, Pork

- Today, Congress actually determines for itself who will receive government grants by 'earmarking' grant money to specific recipients. Before, federal and state agencies would select individual recipients through a competitive application process. Lobbyists gain money by securing these earmarks for their clients, who once having attained such earmarks, do not need to engage in a competitive bidding process or have to endure any other such oversights.

- The recent highway authorization bill included around 6,370 earmarks for a total cost of $25 billion dollars. Such pork projects include the Rock and Roll Hall of fame, a therapeutic horseback riding program, a grant to combat teen "goth" culture in Missouri, an indoor rainforest in Iowa, and everyone's favorite, Alaska's bridge to nowhere.

Waste

- The Defense Department wasted $100 million on unused flight tickets, and though they were refundable, never collected the refunds.

- The Federal government cannot account for $24.5 billion spent in 2003.

- Washington annually spends $60 billion on corporate welfare, as opposed to $43 billion on Homeland Security

- HUD's $3.3 billion in overpayments in 2001 accounted for over 10% of their budget

- The Advanced Technology Program alots $150 million annually to subsidize private businesses, and 40% of that goes to Fortune 500 companies

- Food stamp overpayments total $600 million annually, and Veterans' programs overpayments total $800 million annually.

[bucheon bum]

While no fan of the heritage foundation, I must say that's some powerful stuff. Bush, what a disgrace of a "conservative."