When They've Got You Over a Barrel

Bush signs $464 billion spending bill


President Bush on Thursday signed a $464 billion spending bill that closes out last year's unfinished budget business but made clear he wasn't entirely happy about it.

Bush said in a statement that he was pleased the bill sticks to his overall budget caps. But he said the Democratic-led Congress did so by shifting "funding needed for our armed forces to unrequested domestic programs."

"The Congress should work to address these priorities without adding to the deficit," he said.


Unrequested domestic programs?? I have called this man clueless, but this statement takes that to a whole new level. Unrequested. He really does think that all the Americans want and need is his little losing wars of aggression, doesn't he? And to what point and purpose?
He's concerned that congress will "add to the deficit"? What? Is he and his war-mongering, war-profiting pirates the only ones allowed to spend our hard earned tax dollars?

The mammoth bill pulls together nine unfinished spending bills funding foreign aid and every domestic agency budget except the Homeland Security Department. This budget work should have been completed months ago but was delayed because of election-year pressures.

It freezes most accounts at 2006 levels while awarding exceptions for other programs favored by Democrats and many Republicans -- paid for primarily by putting off the cost of implementing a 2005 round of military base closings.

Among the beneficiaries is the National Institutes of Health, the FBI, and an increase in the maximum Pell Grant for lower-income college students. The rapidly growing veterans health care budget got a 13 percent boost. U.S. contributions to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis overseas would rise 40 percent.

The bill provides increases for underperforming schools and community health centers, and grants to state and local law enforcement agencies. Amtrak's budget would be frozen at $1.3 billion instead of absorbing a $400 million cut proposed by Bush.

Despite the shrubs stamping and childlike tantrums, this congress flipped him off and put, for the first time in six freaking years, the American people first. Let us all hope that this will be the first of many kicks the decider receives.

The True Anti-American

Stram, on another thread, made mention of the shrubs slashing veterans benefits. I thought this needed discussion.
From the throne in the whitehouse, he barks "traitor" and "anti-American" to every non-war supporter. He and the rest of his enterage belive that we who do not support the war, support the terrorists and hate the troops. Yet, in my humble oppinion, actions speak louder than words. And this just screams!

Veterans face consecutive budget cuts

The Bush administration plans to cut funding for veterans' health care two years from now — even as badly wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system.
The proposed cuts are unrealistic in light of recent VA budget trends — its medical care budget has risen every year for two decades and 83 percent in the six years since Bush took office — sowing suspicion that the White House is simply making them up to make its long-term deficit figures look better.

"Either the administration is willingly proposing massive cuts in VA health care," said Rep. Chet Edwards (news, bio, voting record) of Texas, chairman of the panel overseeing the VA's budget. "Or its promise of a balanced budget by 2012 is based on completely unrealistic assumptions."

Edwards said that a more realistic estimate of veterans costs is $16 billion higher than the Bush estimate for 2012.

"It's implausible," Sen. Patty Murray (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash., said of the budget projections.

The White House made virtually identical assumptions last year — a big increase in the first year of the budget and cuts for every year thereafter to veterans medical care. Now, the White House estimate for 2008 is more than $4 billion higher than Bush figured last year.


All this said, what is the budget for domestic spying?
The House passed a $463.5 billion spending bill that covers about one-sixth of the federal budget.

What about education?
Equally misguided is the administration's call for $100 million less in spending on Head Start. Giving at-risk children increased, not diminished, access to early education should go hand in hand with the administration goals of improving overall learning.

I could go on, but this is getting rather depressing.

Now, tell me, which side should be pointing fingers and calling names and demanding the other bend to their will?

Explain This!

Let me see if I have this right. We, the American people, are to give up civil liberties, allow torture, be in debt for the next million years or so, have our e-mail read, phone conversations listened to, pay a fee to stand in long lines at the airport, endure FBI watch lists and listen as we are told to fear terrorists. We waged a war on "terror" against an undeserving nation. We lost our good standing in the world. All for why? Fear.

If we are afraid of a terrorist attack, affraid of the evil-doers and that axis of evil, then please explain this:

Anti-terror funding slashed in NYC, D.C.

U.S. sent giant pallets of cash into Iraq

The Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis, lawmakers said Tuesday.

The money, which had been held by the United States, came from Iraqi oil exports, surplus dollars from the U.N.-run oil-for-food program and frozen assets belonging to the ousted Saddam Hussein regime.

Bills weighing a total of 363 tons were loaded onto military aircraft in the largest cash shipments ever made by the Federal Reserve, said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Outraged yet?

"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did," the California Democrat said during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in Iraq.

On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq, initially "the largest pay out of U.S. currency in Fed history," according to an e-mail cited by committee members.

It was followed by more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6 billion three days later. The CPA turned over sovereignty on June 30.

According to bushco's own detainee bill:
Bush & Co. has portrayed the bill as a tough way to deal with aliens to protect us against terrorism. Frightened they might lose their majority in Congress in the November elections, the Republicans rammed the bill through Congress with little substantive debate.

Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush's list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens

So, in other words, the world is right, we are the terrorists. We are the country that cares more for war and stripping it's liberties than it's people.
Over 3 million American children went to bed last night without enough to eat. What the hell happened to our caring nature? What happened to our priorities? When did we become so scared, we just stopped feeling for our own people?

2.9 Trillion??

It's official. The man has completely lost it. He's never had an ounce of common sence, but this is insane!

Bush's $2.9 trillion request is 'sticker shock'

"It just gives you sticker shock. Every time you turn around it's another $100 billion," Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota, said of Bush's war spending.

The federal deficit hit an all-time high under Bush of $413 billion in 2004. It has been declining since that time and the 2008 budget projects it will continue to decline and show a surplus in 2012, three years after Bush leaves office.

To accomplish those reductions, Bush would allow only modest growth in the government programs outside of defense and homeland security. He is proposing eliminations or sharp reductions in 141 government programs, for a savings over five years of $12 billion, although Congress has rejected many of the same proposals over the past two years.

Bush also will seek to trim spending on farm subsidies by $18 billion over five years, mainly by reducing payments to wealthier farmers, an effort certain to spark resistance among farm state lawmakers.

A Matter of Priorities

It seems as if the decider has decided to give the pentagon and his "war-mongering" friends the lions share of his new budget plan. As expected, he screwed the American people and cut medicaid and medicare. The Pentagon, must be because of the great job they are doing in Iraq, got an 11% increase.

The Pentagon is the big winner in President Bush's proposed budget for next year, while domestic items such as aid to schools and grants to local governments will get slight increases.

Medicare and Medicaid, the health program for the poor and disabled, would shoulder modest but politically difficult cost curbs in the budget the White House is submitting to Congress on Monday.

Some $18 billion in budget savings would come from farm programs over five years.

Bush's spending plan totals almost $3 trillion for the budget year starting October 1. It would produce a surplus in five years, helped by steady revenue growth and a squeeze on the one-sixth of the budget that covers domestic agencies such as the departments of Education, Energy and Health and Human Services.


How long are we going to let this go on? How long can our children and grandchildren wait for us to stand up?

Wasted

Bill Gates pays no taxes. The super wealthy have the luxury of tax shelters and deductions and contributions where in they pay nothing, or almost nothing in Federal tax.
We, the basic, hard working Americans, pay our fair share and then some.
I, for one, would pay my share with a smile, if it were used for the good of Americans. Medicare for the elderly, food for the poor, work programs for the displaced unemployed, these are some things I believe in paying for and believe we need and owe our people.

This is not:

The quarterly audit by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, is the latest to paint a grim picture of waste, fraud and frustration in an Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has cost taxpayers more than $300 billion and left the region near civil war.

The audit comes as President Bush is pressing Congress to approve $1.2 billion in new reconstruction aid as part of his broader plan to stabilize Iraq by sending 21,500 more U.S. troops to Baghdad and Anbar province.

According to the report:

Major U.S. contractors in Iraq, including Bechtel National and Kellogg, Brown and Root Services Inc., said they devoted an average 12.5 percent of their total expenses for security.
Bowen’s office opened 27 new criminal probes in the last quarter, bringing the total number of active cases to 78.
Twenty-three are awaiting prosecutorial action by the Justice Department, most of them centering on charges of bribery and kickbacks.

Tell me, is this a waste of your hard earned dollars?

Bush wants $100 billion more for wars

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Bush will soon seek about $100 billion in additional emergency funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a House report Wednesday.
Filed by Democratic staffers for two key panels in the House, the report's revelations mark a rapid escalation in the cost of the Iraq war at a time when public support is plummeting.
In a broad report criticizing Republicans' fiscal decisions, Democratic staffers on the House Appropriations Committee and House Budget Committee also noted that Congress has already appropriated about $379 billion for the war in Iraq.
"The administration is expected to submit an additional request early next year that will total roughly $100 billion. At least three-quarters of this request will support operations in Iraq," according to the report.

To get the real gist of this, let us recap:


• NEW: Report says Pres. Bush wants $100 billion more for Iraq, Afghanistan
• Congress already had appropriated about $379 billion for the war in Iraq
• Congress approved $70 billion for wars in the current fiscal year

My question is, how much have we spent on the American people? How much money have we spent on body armor for the troops?

This wars over-spending is driving our great grandchildren into a massive debt. Which in itself, is bad enough, but when so little is actually used for our troops and so little for the health, welfare and well being of our own people, it seems to put these figures into perspective. Halliburton and Exxon/Mobile aren't making enough in profits.

Are we really ready to let this administration spend us into bankruptcy without ever giving back to it's peoples? Take a good look at the poor, elderly and tell them it is. Take a good look at the homeless, look at the poor children going without lunches in school, look at the middle class sliding into poverty due to the spiking gas prices, the elderly that go without health care and pricey medications. Look the Katrina victims that still have no home or hope and tell them bushco's little war is more important.