Big Jump in Spending Marks 2003 Budget

The Washington Post ^ | 04/15/2002 | By Glenn Kessler

[Sir Gawain]

It's a long term strategy. Duh!

[Sir Gawain]

Long term GOP strategy bump.

[Carry_Okie]

I think that passes for profanity.

[Carry_Okie]

Thank you.

[Moonman62]

Correct me if I'm wrong: Doesn't an increase in government expenditures (the largest such increase since the liberal "Great Society") mean that taxes have to go UP, not down? Otherwise, how can we spend more with less coming in?

The other option is for the economy to grow at a rate that would make up for the government's increased demand for money from the private sector. That's going to be unlikely while the Bush Administration continues to apply Hooverism to the tech sector.

[gunshy]

You guys just don't get it do you. This is just another ploy by GWB to confuse the democrats. Gwb is so far in front of the democrats it's funny. These spending increases will never see the light of day once we get by the 2002 elections. Gwb probably has a 22% across the board spending cut in the wings.

Go GWB, go, a man of honor, integrity and honesty. By the way, my shrink figures that I will be released from the nut house any day now.

[dts32041]

Excuse me, I just remember how he will pay for the increases, the new tariff on steel.

That is why he imposed it.

[Victoria_R]

Correct me if I'm wrong: Doesn't an increase in government expenditures (the largest such increase since the liberal "Great Society") mean that taxes have to go UP, not down?

Otherwise, how can we spend more with less coming in?

After looting the Social Security "trust fund" dry, the Federal Government is starting on the Federal Pension Fund.

I guess they learned that from Enron...

[Ken H]

"I guess they learned from Enron."

Doesn't Arthur Andersen audit both Enron and the GAO?

[Satadru]

You guys just don't get it do you. This is just another ploy by GWB to confuse the democrats. Gwb is so far in front of the democrats it's funny. These spending increases will never see the light of day once we get by the 2002 elections. Gwb probably has a 22% across the board spending cut in the wings.

Wanna put your money where the mouth is? How much you want to bet that these spending cuts you are thinking of will never take place.

[dread78645]

Wanna put your money where the mouth is? How much you want to bet that these spending cuts you are thinking of will never take place.

Sarcasm disability ?

[brat]

Pork barrel spending is up 33% over last years, according to Fox News.

[texlok]

I'm just bothered by the fact that I voted for Bush and got Gore instead.

It's like buying a car and being told it'll get 35mpg and do 150mph, and finding out it gets 5mpg and does 25mph.

[galt-jw]

the repubs and dems are one in the same. It is like branding of products, you think you are getting something different, but the same company makes both products. Libertarian is what you have to pick if you like freedom. Wake up gang, its the old switcheroo.

[rightwing2]

The Bush administration is poised to complete the biggest increase in government spending since the 1960s' "Great Society," the result of conducting the war on terrorism while substantially boosting the education and transportation budgets, according to a detailed analysis of government spending patterns.

As I have been arguing since 1999, Bush is a closet liberal who is a BIGTIME supporter of Big Government so his indefensible balanced budget busting deficit spending budget which puts liberal pet programs like the Department of Education (which works to education our children in liberalism and sexual promiscuity among other things) and the fascistic AmeriKorps program first comes as no surprise to more seasoned conservative political analysts like myself.

[Uncle Bill]

"I think I finally know what Bush mean't when he said he was a 'compassionate conservative.' He meant, fiscally, that he's a bleeding heart liberal."

Compassionate Conservatism Means Big Government Conservatism

No to 'compassionate conservatism'
"I respect Marvin Olasky, the former Marxist journalism professor who coined the term. But he and George W. Bush are barking up the wrong tree if they think "compassionate conservatism" is going to rally popular support necessary to effect the real change needed to turn this country around."

[rightwing2]

Spending on annually funded programs, in inflation-adjusted dollars, rose about 9 percent in the last two years of the Clinton administration and is scheduled to grow nearly 15 percent in the first two years of the Bush administration... after approving last year a substantial increase in education spending -- which has risen nearly 50 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1999.

Well, the jury is out on whether Bush did a good job in Texas. You would know that better than myself. However, we do know that Bush as Governor did raise state government spending by 33% from 1995-1999 during his first five years in office. This is hardly the record of an enemy of Big Government.