|
|
:: 12.05.2003 ::
Federal Spending at Record Levels in Pending Bill According to the Boston Globe, the $820 billion bill caps a season of spending on Capitol Hill, from the $87 billion in funding for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the $401 billion defense bill, to the landmark bill containing a Medicare prescription drug benefit — which will cost $400 billion over 10 years.
Watchdog groups on the left and right have concluded that spending is at a record level, the newspaper says. The conservative Heritage Foundation says federal outlays have reached $20,000 per household, adjusted for inflation, for the first time since WWII. "It's always easy to be generous with other people's money," said Brian M. Riedl, a Heritage Foundation economist.
The liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities found that spending has grown twice as fast under the Bush administration than under President Clinton, reports The Globe, at a rate of 8.7 percent annually.
Part of that spending is due to different goals and different circumstances, the president's defenders say, like Mr. Bush's costly No Child Left Behind education reform program and the war on terrorism. This from the party that rails against "tax-and-spend Democrats" - guess they don't mind the spending part all that much. And I'd like to take issue with the president's defenders - the No Child Left Behind Act is an unfunded mandate - which is why states have been complaining about it for the past two years.
Not only that, but the "First Tee" program, which as I noted on Tue Nov 25 was being allocated $1 million out of the spending bill, gets $3 million in this latest version! Disgusting.
You can read the full story on CBSNews. Link thanks to Fark.
:: Deb 12:41 PM :: permalink ::
[0] comments ::
::  
|
