WP: Bush Touts Agenda, But Not $3 Trillion Cost

[bigtree]

Saturday, September 18, 2004

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040918/NEWS/409180354/1039

By MIKE ALLEN
The Washington Post

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 trillon 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 longterm 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 per month, but the president's annual budget does not reflect that cost.

[FloridaPat]

1. The price tag is $0. They have no intention of giving anyone but

the defense contractors and the drug companies any money. We the People will continue to be screwed.

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2. This is where the Kerry campaign hit Bush today people.

It is a positive sign that a major rag is echoing our candidate's concerns.