Budget: potentially crippling issue to Bush?

[Onward]

I just read the article "A Tale of Two Budgets" by David Michael Rothschild in today's DU.

My question is this:

Is it possible to compare the relative scope of the US deficit (nearly 600,000,000,000 dollars), to the US GNP, and then scale that to what a family making, say $50,000 a year, would be owing?

Rothschild comes close to doing that -- he points out that a family earning $50K would probably want to spend just $40K, and put $10K towards retirement. But my questions is, what would be the relative size of that family's deficit (or debt -- I still don't unserstand the difference) be?

My point here is that such a number, and such a comparison, might make a good talking point in general against Bush, since it puts the deficit into perspective. And I think the deficit (and its related topics, like who's getting tax breaks and who's losing out on services) is a potentially crippling issue for the campaign.

Thoughts?

[leftyandproud]

1. unless we are ready to propose spending cuts...

the budget is a dead issue..

Bush has already proposed a pathetic 1% increase in non defense spending for next year...I doubt our guys will tolerate this..making them easy targets for the "big government" liberals who have endless greed for the taxpayer dollar. We have two options...to propose CUTS in domestic programs (aint gonna happen)...CUTS in the military budget...(definately aint gonna happen)...or tax increases (political death)..

[teryang]

2. The budget deficit is over $700 billion when

...you throw in the $200 billion plus they are taking from Social Security revenues. Add to this the declining proportion of taxes paid by corporations, the burden of taxes and debt service has fallen almost entirely upon the working taxpayers. It is about to get much worse. Here's a lie I heard repeated vociferously by the so called "economist" L. Kudlow, "unemployment benefits should not be extended by the Federal government because the states have plenty of money for this." This is a flat out lie. Actions by the Federal government have been undermining the fiscal integrity and stability of state and local governments with unfunded security mandates and cuts in federal funds for important community programs.

Meanwhile the defense contractors are having non stop parties in four star hotels and flying first class to their next posh hotel paid for by who? You guessed it.

[JPZenger]

3. Great Deficit Editorial in Philadelphia Inquirer

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/7867894.htm

Here's an excerpt:

"the new budget doesn't include an extra $50 billion that the White House admitted - only hours after submitting the spending plan to Congress - it will request from lawmakers for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Conveniently, the administration says this request won't come until sometime after the Nov. 2 presidential election. So consider that $50 billion as the lowest of lowball estimates.

And the President's new budget presumes that Congress will hold non-defense discretionary spending to an increase of 0.5 percent. This assumption doesn't matter, big time, because it's an election year, when lawmakers' passion for spending on their districts is more transparent than Janet Jackson's wardrobe.

Then, too, the proposed budget does not include the cost of making Bush's tax cuts permanent. To do so, which the Bush team has every intention of doing, would add $275 billion to the deficit in 2012 alone."

[JPZenger]

4. Real Costs of New Programs Were Hidden

Paraphrased from a news article in the Phila. Inquirer:

The Administration released estimates that the new Medicare law will cost $534 billion over 10 years - one-third higher than the $395 billion estimate that members of Congress had depended upon when they voted on the bill. In addition, the Administration released estimates that the new tax-free health savings accounts will cost $16 billion over 10 years - not the $7 billion that members of Congress had depended upon when they voted on that bill. Sorry.

Some members of Congress had tried to reduce the cost of the bill by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. However, Bush had said he would veto the bill if any changes were made.

[JPZenger]

5. Brag About Programs Today, Then Slash Them Next Year

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that many of the government programs that Bush is currently bragging about on the campaign trail are actually targeted for major funding cuts after the election. In most cases, he is proposing spending increases on these programs in this year's budget, and then major cuts in the next year's budget. The information is from a 1,000 page Administration long-range spending plan that was leaked to the Inquirer.

For example, Bush talked in the State of the Union about how he wanted to increase certain job training programs. However those same programs are planned for a $36 million cut the next year. "Other grams that the President plans to give funding boosts, then cuts the following year include the Women, Infants and Children supplemental nutrition program; Pell Grants for higher education; special education; the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program; and the National Institutes of Health."