Des Moines Register

President's budget plan needs dose of reality

Register's Editorial

Last week President Bush delivered his final State of the Union address. Among his more memorable statements: "American families have to balance their budgets; so should their government."

A week later, he sent a $3.1 trillion budget proposal to Congress that boosts military spending, fails to fully include the projected costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and relies on a rosy economic forecast - at a time when he thinks the economy is so troubled that the government must stimulate it by sending rebate checks to millions of Americans.

Bush's budget amounts to a wish list from a lame-duck president. While military spending would continue to escalate, he would cut or hold flat funding for domestic priorities such as health care and education, reflecting a failure to understand the needs of working families.

Even worse than the proposed cuts is how he would make them.

For example, Medicare, the health program for seniors and disabled people, is already on shaky financial footing due to increasing health-care costs and the coming bulge of aging baby boomers who will soon be eligible for benefits. Bush seeks so-called savings by cutting increases in payments to health-care providers, hospitals and nursing homes. But health-care providers will simply shift costs to other consumers.

Rather, the president should be seeking to cut subsidies to private Medicare Advantage insurance plans, which allow insurers to take over management of seniors' care. These plans cost taxpayers an average of 12 percent more per patient than traditional Medicare.

Also, Bush says his budget will promise a small surplus by 2012. It's difficult to consider that anything more than a fantasy. The president will leave office in early 2009. So it will largely be up to the next president to make revenues and spending balance. Bush has said repeatedly he would get the country's fiscal house in order. What followed were costly wars, an expensive Medicare prescription-drug program and tax cuts.

The national debt stands at $9.2 trillion, more than $30,000 for every citizen, according to the Concord Coalition.

Yet the president continues to argue his tax cuts should be made permanent - even though White House Budget Director Jim Nussle has spoken the truth on tax policy: Because of offsetting revenue losses, cuts don't necessarily pay for themselves.

Fortunately, members of Congress likely won't pay much attention to the president's budget proposal.

Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley of Waterloo, who visited with Register writers and editors Tuesday, said he sees little evidence in the proposed budget that the president tried to find areas of common ground with lawmakers. The proposed budget will see a "huge push back" from the Democrat-controlled House, he said. "It looks like it's going to be another frustrating year."

That's for sure.

If the American families Bush mentioned in his State of the Union address budgeted the way he did - ignoring huge spending commitments and anticipating income boosts that likely won't materialize - they'd be in the red and would have to figure out how to dig themselves out of the hole.

That's a novel concept the president and Congress should consider, rather than tapping the national credit card for an economic-stimulus package that will pile on still more debt.

Source: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080206/OPINION03/802060347/-1/SPORTS12