GOP Budget Plan Faces Intra-Party Rift

[UpInArms]

http://www.startribune.com/587/story/339868.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - A $2.8 trillion Republican budget plan approved by a conservative-dominated House panel faces a worrisome hurdle for GOP leaders plotting a floor debate for next week.

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The plan, for the 2007 budget year beginning Oct. 1, adopts Bush's $873 billion cap on agency budgets renewed by Congress each year. But it also assumes just $50 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, less than one-half of expected spending for the current year.

The plan endorses Bush's call for a 7 percent increase in the core defense budget - which doesn't include Iraq war costs - for next year. That increase comes at the expense of domestic programs like education, health research and grants to local governments and relief agencies.

The plan also assumes $226 billion in additional tax cuts over five years, more than half of which would go for extending Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, most of which are set to expire in 2010. But the committee didn't take the necessary steps under Congress' arcane budget process to facilitate speedy action on a tax bill.

<snip>

Rep. John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., said the national debt would almost double to more than $9 trillion under Bush's tenure in office, a natural result "from a fiscal policy that says you can have guns, butter, tax cuts too and never mind the deficit. ... It holds no real plan or prospect of balancing the budget.''

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[FloridaPat]

1. This should be treason. Have trials for * and anyone who backs

this crap.

[UpInArms]

2. Here's the myth buster for the GOP "conservative" crap

these freaks are absolutely untrustworthy with out nation's fiscal policies.

[FloridaPat]

4. This would not include *'s Iraq adventure right? Last I heard they're

not part of the budget. Love the way the repubs rearrange the figures for the economy. Then there's the GDP number. That includes gov't spending - so all that military money is added to that. Wonder where * would be if you add the military invasion costs to the deficit and subtract it from the GDP.

[Virginia Dare]

3. Thanks for bankrupting our future repukes... EOM