The National Priorities Project has prepared the following information about the new Bush Budget for Fiscal Year 2009—which will have the highest levels of military spending budget since World War II.
While ensuring tax cuts stay permanent and military spending grows by five percent, the President’s budget for Fiscal Year 2009 proposes deep cuts in an array of domestic programs that impact needy communities and low- and middle-income families. For NPP’s budget overview and state-level analysis, click here.
State-level breakdowns show the impact of the proposed cuts in the following programs: Child Care and Development Block Grants, Community Development Block Grants, Improving Teacher Quality State Grants, Low-Income Energy Assistance Program, Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers and the Social Services Block Grants.
Under the President’s budget, military spending would reach $541 billion in Fiscal Year 2009, including nuclear weapons. At the highest level since World War II, this amount of military spending does not include the proposed $70 billion for partial war funding next fiscal year. The President’s tax cuts would also be made permanent under the proposed budget with the wealthiest 20 percent receiving 74 percent of the benefit.
“This budget is painfully out of line with the public’s priorities,” said Greg Speeter, spokesperson for the National Priorities Project. “The President seems determined to turn all the good the government does on its head and leave generations of Americans behind in the process.”
To find out how your state will be impacted under the President’s proposed budget, click here.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Here is my response to the proposed 2009 Bush Budget which I placed in a letter sent today to the Sacramento Bee:
“Bush’s 2009 imperial war budget is obscene. It grows each year like an out of control metastatic cancer, gobling up more and more of the American social body. “Defense spending,” as it is improperly called, would reach 515.4 billion, a 7.5 % increase. Bush also has asked seperately for an additional 70 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Additionaly, Bush’s budget proposes more tax cuts for the rich, and less money for health care. Inhumane cuts in 151 government programs, many that effect the elderly and the poor.
The most revealing reductions are the proposed 200 billion cuts in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Revealing because it shows the vacuous lie behind the term “compassionate conservatism.” Take from the poor and give to the rich, isn’t that the Republican way?
Finally, as the Bee pointed out, Bush will leave the next President, hopefully a Democrat, with a deficit of over 400 billion dollars. We all need to press Congress to reject this reactionary budget and work for a more progressive tax base that benefits all Americans, not just the corporate fat cats. ”
Richard Nadeau, Sacramento