New CTJ Report: Bush's Proposal to Slash Human Services Reveals the True Cost of His Tax Cuts

February 8, 2008 3:23 PM |
President Bush’s proposed budget plan for fiscal years 2009 through 2013 envisions huge cuts in education, health, environmental and other programs. Most observers believe that such budget cuts are too draconian to ever be implemented. After all, Congress has rejected many of them before. However, as a new report from CTJ explains, they should be taken very seriously in one important sense: They are exactly the sort of public service reductions that would be necessary if the Bush tax cuts are extended.
 
The Bush administration concedes that the budget deficit will top $400 billion for fiscal year 2009, but claims the deficit will be reduced thereafter. The President continues to assert, as he did last year, that following his plans will lead to a balanced budget in fiscal year 2012. It is therefore informative to examine how public services would be different in 2012 if Congress followed his advice.

Under the Bush budget proposal, federal spending on veterans’ benefits would be 9 percent lower in 2012, as a percentage of the economy, than in 2008. Education and social services would be a fifth lower, natural resources and environmental programs over a fourth lower, transportation a third lower and community development over 62 percent lower. Medicare spending in 2012 would be 9 percent lower than in 2008, as a percentage of the cost of maintaining current services.

Meanwhile, the President proposes to make permanent his tax cuts, which expire at the end of 2010. In 2012, according to the administration’s own numbers, those tax cuts will cost $249 billion, which is just over the $229 billion he wants to cut from domestic programs in that year. So his promise to "balance" the budget in 2012 even while his tax cuts are extended clearly involves a trade of massive reductions in public services in return for tax cuts.

The reality is that the President's tax cuts are actually more expensive than this, and there are many more problems with his budget projections, as explained in the CTJ report.

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This page contains a single entry by published on February 8, 2008 3:23 PM.

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WSJ, Citing CTJ, Explains that Business Tax Breaks in Stimulus Bill Will Cost Over Three Times Official Estimate is the next entry in this blog.

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