Final Budget Comparison

tecoyah · 02-04-08, 07:39 AM

I place before you a very simple reality, one that does not bode well for the next president. Please take a look at these two stories....and tell us who has been more careful with your tax dollars, and try to remember the days of solvency:

Quote:

Clinton sends Congress the final budget of his presidency
Tells CNN he never envisioned length of economic boom
By Amy Paulson/CNN

February 7, 2000
Web posted at: 7:56 p.m. EST (0056 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bill Clinton sent his $1.84 trillion fiscal 2001 budget proposal up to Capitol Hill on Monday, saying, "Federal deficits are last century's news."

The blueprint, the president's eighth and last, would use the projected federal budget surplus to eliminate the national debt by 2013, while increasing domestic spending on health care, education and military programs.

VideoWillow Bay talks to the president about the economy, his proposed budget, taxes and other topics.

"We're on the way to an achievement that only a few years ago would have been inconceivable, making America debt free for the first time since Andrew Jackson was president in 1835," the president said Monday at the budget's unveiling.

The fiscal year 2001 budget, slated to take effect October 1, 2000, is Clinton's last before he leaves office next January. Its proposed 2.5 percent increase in spending over last year indicates the president is seeking to push an activist agenda in his final year of office. The budget seeks to ensure the solvency of Social Security until 2054 and Medicare until 2025.

"This budget, in short, makes really strong and significant steps toward achieving the great goals I believe America should pursue in this new century," Clinton said. "It is a balanced budget with a balanced approach to our national priorities. It invests in our families and our future."

The nation's longest-running economic expansion has provided powerful fuel for the Clinton Administration's's fiscal 2001 budget proposal. Booming economic times have resulted in administration projections of a surplus totalling some $2.9 trillion over the next 10 years.

Clinton sends Congress the final budget of his presidency - February 7, 2000

Quote:

Bush's $3 trillion budget is US first

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Sun Feb 3, 5:31 PM ET

WASHINGTON - In the nation's first-ever $3 trillion budget, President Bush seeks to seal his legacy of promoting a strong defense to fight terrorism and tax cuts to spur the economy. Democrats, who control Congress, are pledging fierce opposition to Bush's final spending plan — perhaps even until the next president takes office.

The 2009 spending plan sent to Congress on Monday will project huge budget deficits, around $400 billion for this year and next and more than double the 2007 deficit of $163 billion. But even those estimates could prove too low given the rapidly weakening economy and the total costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which Bush does not include in his request for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.

Last year, when Democrats were newly in the majority, there were drawn-out veto struggles. This year's fights could be worse because it is an election year.

As in past years, Bush's biggest proposed increases are in national security. Defense spending is projected to rise by about 7 percent to $515 billion and homeland security money by almost 11 percent, with a big gain for border security. Details on the budget were obtained through interviews with administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity until the budget's release.

The bulk of government programs for which Congress sets annual spending levels would remain essentially frozen at current levels. The president does shower extra money on some favored programs in education and to bolster inspections of imported food.

Bush's spending proposal would achieve sizable savings by slowing the growth in the major health programs — Medicare for retirees and Medicaid for the poor. There the president will be asking for almost $200 billion in cuts over five years, about three times the savings he proposed last year.

Bush's $3 trillion budget is US first - Yahoo! News

So much for the myth of a financial conservative.