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.

In last night's State of the Union Address, President Bush made Social Security one of his key topics of discussion. In his speech, he mentioned many true statistics about social security. It is true that over the years the number of workers paying into the system compared with the number of retirees collecting benefits is declining. It is true that sometime around the year 2020, if th system is left alone, the Social Security trust fund will be paying out more than it takes in. It is true that some sort of reform will be necessary in order to ensure that the system is solvent in the future. However, Bush did use some potentially misleading rhetoric during his speech. When discussing the growing Social Security shortfall -- which will begin after the year 2020 -- he said "by the year 2042, the entire system [will] be exhausted and bankrupt." This statement is misleading on many levels. The words "exhausted and bankrupt" do not accurately describe the situation. The Social Security Trustees have predicted a 27 percent benefits cut by the year 2042 if no reforms to the program are passed. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted a 22 percent benefits cut by the year 2052 if no reforms are passed. A cut in benefits of approximately one-quarter is not the same as "exhausted and bankrupt." By that year, our surplus will be exhausted, but not the entire trust fund. Bush used these words in an attempt to make the situation appear more dire than it actually is; in order to garner more support for his plan to overhaul what is, in reality, a financially sound program. Another interesting comment regarding what would happen if no reforms were passed was when Bush mentioned, "In the year 2027, the government will somehow have to come up with an extra $200 billion to keep the system afloat." While $200 billion sounds like a lot of money, it is nowhere near the shortfall created by Bush's tax cuts -- all of which have been financed by the deficit as opposed to spending cuts. $200 billion is also roughly the amount that our defense operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost. If the government is really interested in preserving Social Security - our most successful social insurance and poverty prevention program - there is no doubt they could find other ways to come up with $200 billion, without engaging in a costly overhaul that will also necessitate benefits cuts. For more on Bush's discussion of Social Security in his State of the Union address, see this article and this article. For a great report on how Bush's plan will phase out Social Security and result in benefits cuts, read this report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.