The President has announced a budget that cuts deep and performs some elaborate sidesteps, and it has politicians from both parties fuming.
Bush says he’s going to cut the deficit in half by 2009 — and to do that he is planning to chop everything from farm subsidies and family literacy programs to healthcare for the poor. Critics say that the worst thing about the budget is not what’s in it, but what’s not. You won’t find any mention of the costs of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, no price tag for the President’s plan to overhaul Social Security, and no accounting for the fiscal toll the President’s tax cuts will take if he succeeds in making them permanent.
Deficit hawks on the Hill say he’s not going far enough — everyone else says he cut past the bone. Following the money, a conversation about pork and priorities.
Guests:
Scott Himelstein, Chairman and CEO of the National Even Start Association
Isabel Sawhill, Vice President and Director of Economic Studies at The Brookings Institution
David Bauman, Staff correspondent for the National Journal
Patrick Finnerty, Director of the Department of Medical Assistance Services in Virginia.