Bush has decided to screw the family farm, and it will be so bad Willie Nelson and Farm Aid won't be able to bring them back, and that is only the beginning. What are your thoughts on the country that can't feed itself? 

The Bush administration is preparing a budget request that would freeze most spending on agriculture, veterans and science, slash or eliminate dozens of federal programs, and force more costs, from Medicaid to housing, onto state and local governments, according to congressional aides and lawmakers.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1953-2005Jan11.html

Bush has decided to screw the family farm, and it will be so bad Willie Nelson and Farm Aid won't be able to bring them back, and that is only the beginning. What are your thoughts on the country that can't feed itself? 

The Bush administration is preparing a budget request that would freeze most spending on agriculture, veterans and science, slash or eliminate dozens of federal programs, and force more costs, from Medicaid to housing, onto state and local governments, according to congressional aides and lawmakers.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1953-2005Jan11.html


but the best part is his plan to keep the tax cuts for the upper one percent of income generators.  They've really got it the worst of all.

Budget cuts

These budget cuts are a very good start (if congress will allow them to stay,) but they don't go anywhere near what they should be to continue to pay for nice things like the war on terror and tax cuts. 

Pulling out yesterday's USA Today newspaper, you can see just what our government and the national budget has come to.  On page 13A in the news section, they did a pie chart, here is what it says:

Spending trends

How the US government spends it's money:

1969

National defense: 43%
Benefits: 31%
Interest payments: 7%
All else: 19%

2009

Benefits: 57%
National defense: 16%
Interest payments: 10%
All else: 17%

Well...so much for the "bloated military budget."

Again it's nice to see a start on having a more fiscal conservative government, with more money in your pocket, and less money for the government to waste.

As Mr. Cain siad when he was running for the republican nomination for US Senate here in Georgia: "We need a 7% cut in all non-defense related spending."  Amen.

I love how now that Republicans are in charge of everything, the President can get away with submitting an incomplete budget.  Yup, that's the GOP, the party of fiscal accountability!

I love how now that Republicans are in charge of everything, the President can get away with submitting an incomplete budget.  Yup, that's the GOP, the party of fiscal accountability!


It's going to pain me to say this, but, the democrats are right.

Tax and spend, as horrible and nanny state-like as it is, is doable.  Borrow and spend cannot be done.  If Bush and the republican-controlled congress are not going to cut all non-defense related spending enough to make up for nice perks like tax cuts, then maybe they should raise taxes.

God, that sucked.

It's going to pain me to say this, but, the democrats are right.

Tax and spend, as horrible and nanny state-like as it is, is doable.  Borrow and spend cannot be done.  If Bush and the republican-controlled congress are not going to cut all non-defense related spending enough to make up for nice perks like tax cuts, then maybe they should raise taxes.

God, that sucked.


Can't believe I'm reading this!!!

But the fact is that by eliminating the tax cuts for the richest 5% we could return to surpluses, cut working and middle class taxes, and still fund medicaid, vets bennies, assistance to college students, and fuel assistance programs, all slashed in Lil' Georgie's proposal, which, I read, has even alarmed some Retar... woops, I mean Repubs (darn fingers  ;))

It's going to pain me to say this, but, the democrats are right.

Tax and spend, as horrible and nanny state-like as it is, is doable.  Borrow and spend cannot be done.  If Bush and the republican-controlled congress are not going to cut all non-defense related spending enough to make up for nice perks like tax cuts, then maybe they should raise taxes.

God, that sucked.


I am hyperventilating!  It's ok GW, on a few occasions I have agreed with you, now you can feel my pain.
It could be true that this whole thing is a sham.  There wasn't any mention of social security, or Iraq funding. I think that in a couple of weeks there will be a press release about an"increase for funding" of the programs that he says he is slashing.  It won't be an increase, it will be a restoration, on paper, of the funding that he says he is slashing, although not to the levels they are at currently.  People will swoon and think of him as such a compassionate guy, while he, Cheney, and Rove laugh their a@@es off for putting another one over.

It's going to pain me to say this, but, the democrats are right.

Tax and spend, as horrible and nanny state-like as it is, is doable.  Borrow and spend cannot be done.  If Bush and the republican-controlled congress are not going to cut all non-defense related spending enough to make up for nice perks like tax cuts, then maybe they should raise taxes.

God, that sucked.

Yeah, well, life's a b*tch, ain't it?
Like DC said, all those windfall tax cuts for the upper decile, and especially the uppermost percentile, are the real budget busters.  The Bushies know all these domestic spending cuts won't "halve the deficit."  The Right is doing what it will always do when it can:  con the working class into voting Republican, turn around and stab them in the back, cut taxes for their rich friends, and hike up the defense budget for the sake of pork barrel defense contracting while leaving the troops high and dry and cutting vet benefits.

It's not because your conservative beliefs are eroding that you object to the Bushies' borrow-and-spend idiocy, it's because it doesn't make sense.  It's illogical, it won't work.
It is all part of the "supply side economics" fantasy.  It didn't work under Reagan and Bush 41 (sorry, but that was borrow-and-spend, too, and it put the entire country in hock), and there's no way in the name of Sam Hill it's going to work now.

Dubya already made his opinion about the future known, he doesn't care about it because we'll all be dead!
::)

Dubya already made his opinion about the future known, he doesn't care about it because we'll all be dead!
::)


John Maybnard Kaynes said much the same thing when asked if his deficit spending program could be sustained.  By the way, Kaynes's program called for spending on social services, like schools and hospitals, and it was in a time of general depression.  What Lil'Geotgie is doing is to dismantal the mechanisms that ended the deression, thereby inviting another.  Maybe we all should invest in gold.

John Maybnard Kaynes said much the same thing when asked if his deficit spending program could be sustained.  By the way, Kaynes's program called for spending on social services, like schools and hospitals, and it was in a time of general depression.  What Lil'Geotgie is doing is to dismantal the mechanisms that ended the deression, thereby inviting another.  Maybe we all should invest in gold.

You got that right!

Now we have word that the drug benefit is going to cost much more than anticipated  ???.  The drug
companies will receive more profits than the more naive were led to believe.  The dems say they
will go back to try to bring the practice of price negotiation back to the table.  Well, we can hope, but
it does take more than a minute to grow a spine. 

I put a lot o blame on Bush and Co., but I put just as much on the losers who voted for him without making an attempt to realise what they were warned about time and again during the election. Everyone knew that Bush's budget, no matter what it would be, didn't have a leg to stand on. We were all given the heads up, but the proletarians (and I hate to use the word) ignored it in favour of fanciful notions of being in God's country. The majority of America invited this upon itself, the rest of us just have to suffer anyways.

I put a lot o blame on Bush and Co., but I put just as much on the losers who voted for him without making an attempt to realise what they were warned about time and again during the election. Everyone knew that Bush's budget, no matter what it would be, didn't have a leg to stand on. We were all given the heads up, but the proletarians (and I hate to use the word) ignored it in favour of fanciful notions of being in God's country. The majority of America invited this upon itself, the rest of us just have to suffer anyways.

Yes, but between Karl Rove and the Heritage Foundation there will always be infinite excuses for conservatives and endless blame for Democrats.  Most of what the public swallows as news is little more than corporate PR.

so we're going to have to start importing food. 

Start importing food?  I just read in the paper this morning that we import more food than we export as it is.  I guess we should all stop eating Chilean grapes and Mexican produce, start our own root cellars, and go back to canning "victory garden" produce for the winter.

Seriously, ag policy is a mess.  Most recipiants of government largesse are not family farmers raising food crops, but "gentleman farmers" and agro-business firms.  Programs like the Northeast Dairy Compact, which actually helped family dairyt farmers, was allowed to lapse while Monsanto and other agrobusiness firms continue to reap huge subsidies.  But my guess is that once again, the small guy will get the shaft and the big players will get the benefit.

Actually, there was recently an article in my local paper regarding the cuts in ag.  In my area, there are a lot of family farms that are being forced to sell to developers because they are no longer receiving the gov't subsidies and cannot compete pricewise with the larger corporations.  There was one farm that had been in a family for 200+ years that has been operating almost in the negative for the past few years.  A local TV station interviewed the remaining family members who were crying when they were telling how they had gone on as long as they could, but with the government stepping back when it came to local vs. imported produce pricing, they were (in a way) being forced to give in to the developers and were selling the farm.  It's sad :(

The Defense Dept. will waste enough money this week to save 100 family farms...maybe more!

We must not forget the 8 billion in "unaccounted for" funds that Halliburton was able to abscond with.
Where is the outrage? >:(