Bush's agenda could top $3 trillion | WP

[BootinUp]

Will someone phone this info in to Kerry, and tell him to kick some gawddamn ass with it. :)
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Bush's agenda could top $3 trillion

President doesn't emphasize 10-year price tag

ANALYSIS
By Mike Allen
Updated: 7:15 a.m. ET Sept. 14, 2004

The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.

A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.

Bush's pledge to make permanent his tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of 2010 or before, would reduce government revenue by about $1 trillion over 10 years, according to administration estimates. His proposed changes in Social Security to allow younger workers to invest part of their payroll taxes in stocks and bonds could cost the government $2 trillion over the coming decade, according to the calculations of independent domestic policy experts.

And Bush's agenda has many costs the administration has not publicly estimated. For instance, Bush said in his speech that he would continue to try to stabilize Iraq and wage war on terrorism. The war in Iraq alone costs $4 billion a month, but the president's annual budget does not reflect that cost.

[liberalmuse]

1. Yesterday in the cafeteria at work...

I saw the chimp on TV making fun of Kerry because his programs will supposedly top 2 trillion which was the height of irony. It took all I had not to stand up, throw my Sun Chips at the screen and yell, 'LIAR!!!'.

[BootinUp]

3. You ever wish you were in NYC

for the protests? I bet that was an invigorating experience. :)

[BootinUp]

2. One other thing I heard on NPR

Today the administration will ask congress to reallocate 20 billion of the Iraq budget to security from rebuilding. SLAM BUSH ON THIS!@!!

[flpoljunkie]

4. But don't count on the cable news talking heads to point this out.

Their lips are sealed!

[BootinUp]

5. I hope Kerry and Edwards put it into their stump speeches.

Then it will get some coverage.

[indepat]

6. What can't go on forever won't: A catastrophic economic maelstrom

worse than Ivan the Terrible has been brewing since the early days of RR, but the good news is almost all those trillions of dollars of fast-becoming unserviceable Federal debt accumulated during the past twenty-three years will have been dispersed into the coffers of mostly wealthy patrons including large corporations through regressive tax schemes. Hopefully they will contribute to the soup lines and food banks.