Read Paul Krugman's op-ed in today's NY Times, titled "Bush's Class War Budget" for a good assessment of who the winners and losers are under Bush's current budget proposal. Krugman discusses the fact that until the budget was released earlier this week, this notion of fiscal restraint has been "an abstract concept." Yet now we see this restraint tied to specific actions, and those actions will be incredibly harmful both now and in years to come, if this budget is indeed adopted by Congress.

The FY 06 budget proposal submitted yesterday by the President includes severe cuts for all non-defense discretionary spending. Under the President's plan, discretionary spending in areas other than defense and homeland security would fall by nearly 1 percent. Click here to see a Washington Post breakdown of how the President's $2.57 trillion budget proposal affects each individual agency. Click here and here for information on how the President's budget proposal would directly affect the budgets of states. Click here, here, here, here, and here for good budget analyses by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. For a good synopsis on how this budget proposal is protecting the rich while leaving everyone else out, read this article by Robert Borosage. Also, be sure to check out the latest edition of the Watcher for articles from OMB Watch on the budget.

The President's Budget was released today, and is largely being touted as the toughest budget this administration has ever put together. The roughly $2.5 trillion budget is expected to either reduce or eliminate more than 150 federal programs. It also holds the growth of discretionary spending below levels of inflation. While Vice President Cheney has said the cuts in federal programs "are not something we've done with a meat ax, nor are we suddenly turning our backs on the most needy people in society," the reality is that the number of people living in poverty has increased since 2000, and this budget serves to further cut many programs in need of extra funding, not cuts. An editorial in today's Washington Post calls the budget a "measure of national character." In many ways this is true -- the budget reflects which priorities the administration feels need further attention, and which are unimportant enough to let fall by the wayside. In this budget, many vital social programs are left behind, although the President's budget outlines a 4.8 percent increase in defense spending. See this article for more details. This budget release comes at a time when the fiscal health of the nation is struggling. The President's budget, as Cheney says, reflects a "fair, reasonable, responsible, serious piece of effort" on their part to reduce the deficit. Last week the Congressional Budget Office released record-high deficit projections for FY2005, and the administration's "tough budget" is partly in response to this. While keeping this in mind though, it is important to remember that one of the main reason's for this deficit has been Bush's first term tax cuts, which have drained what would have otherwise been available national revenue. Tax cuts, in fact, have played a much larger role in fueling the deficit than discretionary spending has, according to this report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. So, while the President's tough budget can be viewed as a response to what is undoubtedly a dire fiscal situation, we must keep in mind that their actions are anything but reasonable and responsible; in fact their actions punish programs that serve low-income people disproportionately to the level at which these programs truly put a strain on our national budget. The fiscal situation we find ourselves in today is overwhelmingly due to the administration's tax policies of the past four years. Bush is now proposing cutting billions from programs relied upon by poor and middle class Americans, while he spent the past four years giving money back to people -- disproportionately wealthy people -- in the form of tax cuts. If Bush really wanted to be "tough" on the fiscal situation, he would roll back some of his costly tax cuts. For more information on today's release of the budget, see this article as well as this assessment from the Center for American Progress.

The Center for American Progress has launched a progressive priorities project aimed at providing a positive vision for progressive lawmakers that is supported by a series of innovative policy ideas. The Center is authoring approximately a dozen reports over roughly a two month period that include broad policy recommendations as well as specific steps lawmakers can take in order to achieve these policy goals. On Monday the Center released one paper in this series about tax reform, called "A Fair and Simple Tax System for our Future: A Progressive Approach." The paper outlines policy necessary to restore a fair, simple, and pro-opportunity tax system, and serves as a responsible and progressive alternative to the tax policies currently embraced by the Bush administration.