House Passes 2004 Budget With Record Deficits

["Gary Santos" <evs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Okay, if you fellows want to revive this group, here's an issue for
Austrians. Exchange rates need not be affected nor will domestic inflation.
It could be sustainable for a few years at least. Any opinions?

House Passes 2004 Budget With Record Deficits
The New York Times reports that "the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday
passed a $2.2 trillion federal budget projecting record deficits while
paving the way for up to $550 billion in new tax cuts sought by President
Bush.

"The House voted 216-211 to clear Congress' 2004 tax and spending blueprint.
The Senate was scheduled to follow suit on Friday despite lingering doubts
whether Republican moderates, who had sought smaller tax cuts, would back
the plan."

In "Bush Budget: Don't Break Open the Champagne", Veronique de Rugy, a
fiscal policy analyst at the Cato Institute, writes that although the
president has proposed some limited tax cuts, he has failed to tame a
Congress that is all too happy to pile on the pork for the 2004 budget.

"Government spending is President Bush's Achilles's Heel," says de Rugy. "In
his first two years in office he signed a bloated education bill and a
subsidy-laden farm bill. Also, numbers show that in its first three years
this administration will have increased government spending by 13.5 percent,
making this administration more profligate than the Clinton administration.

"At the end of the day, overspending matters because big government hurts
our economy's performance. Fiscal responsibility means more than just lower
taxes. It also means having the courage to say no to wasteful spending --
even if that means Ted Kennedy will get upset.

"President Bush's tax agenda is great news for the American people. His
stated commitment to Social Security reform would be good for workers and
retirees. But so far it is only talk and no action. To maximize the economic
benefits of these policies, the president needs to put big government on a
diet."