Bush says open to across-the-board spending cuts

[sabra]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1252567

Bush says open to across-the-board spending cuts

Oct 26, 2005 — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Wednesday he was open to across-the-board spending cuts in the federal budget to help pay for hurricane assistance.

In a speech to the Economic Club of Washington, Bush also said he was working with congressional Republicans on a plan for pushing "significant reductions in mandatory and discretionary spending."

Some Republican conservatives have been outraged at the level of federal spending under the Bush administration and projections of up to $200 billion to help rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

[Oreo]

1. He'll start by cutting Fitzgerald's job

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. Great. Pour salt in a gaping wound. n/t

[leveymg]

3. Big savings on White House FTPs coming!

Can we spin off that entire cost center until 2008?

[rodeodance]

4. lots cut his fuel for air force one!

[fshrink]

5. Translate:

"There will not be any significant spending cuts". Just like with the old stalinist, you take the statement, inverse it and you get the message's substance. Easy to do. Never fails.

[gulfcoastliberal]

6. Open to anything except military spending cuts, that is.

As that fucktard Sen Stevens said, NO!

[Javaman]

12. or black ops or pork to his friends

[lakemonster11]

7. "Some Republican conservatives have been outraged

at the level of federal spending."

As if liberal Democrats aren't equally outraged by his waste. Only we're the ones who warned them about overextending ourselves by getting into an expensive elective war several years ago!

[Davis_X_Machina]

8. Not enough there there....

...we are running a deficit the size of the entire discretionary component of the budget.

If you remove:

• debt service -- can't default on the bonds
  
• military and civil pensions, etc -- contractural obligations
  
• Medicare and other entitlement programs -- must be undone legislatively, the budget as such can't reach them
  
• defense -- War on Terra! War on Terra!
  
• homeland security -- see above
  

what's left is about the same size as the deficits we run.

In other words, you could zero out everything but these five items -- no FAA; no NOAA; no loan guarantees for mortgages and tuition, no HHS, bird flu be damned; no Dept. of State, who needs embassies in an age of e-mail; no Park Service, no nothing -- and the budget would be balanced, barely.

Revenues will increase, or the US will default. One or the other.

[truthisfreedom]

9. you want to make a spending cut, georgie? stop spending the tax cut!

you are spending our national Treasury on a tax cut you never should have made. you're like the guy who puts the top down as a storm is brewing, then refuses to get off the freeway to put it back up and the baby drowns.

[MGKrebs]

10. He has finally given up.

Too weary or injured to fight the battles for what he really wants, he is essentially passing the buck to someone else to figure out what to do.

[shoelace414]

11. that's really making tough decisions.

everyone gets less!

[GoddessOfGuinness]

13. Shall we start with a Congressional paycut?

They don't seem to give a bloody damn when the average Joe has to take one. Surely they can't object to taking home a little less money.

[Davis_X_Machina]

14. No.

We've alreadt got self-financing campaigns, leading to a chamber of millionaires.

Volunteer reps serving unpaid would simply mean more millionaires paying themselves a salary while serving.

How does a Paul Hackett afford serving?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

17. They vote for a payraise every year

I'm not talking about not paying them, I'm saying they can afford to have their salaries lowered.

[chelsea0011]

15. Across the board? Does that include Iraq?

[drb]

16. Put the whole bush league on merit-based salaries.....

....that ought to save us a fuckin' bundle!

[lanlady]

18. way to lead, Georgie, way to lead

Really earning your keep there, aren't ya? :crazy:

[Robeson]

19. Does that include the military, George?

[Straight Shooter]

20. Eliminate tax cuts and impose punitive damages on Republicans.

Use a lottery system and assess a "punishment tax" on 90 percent of Republicans who got what they wanted with this drunken sailor style spendthrift in the White House. Let the IRS correlate voting registrations with tax returns and arbitrarily pick 90 percent of voting Repubs to assess punitive damages.

My mother always said, "You made your bed, you lie in it." She never said, "You made your bed, someone else can lie in it." Well, bush and his supporters have made their bed, let them lie in it. I'm sick of Dems cleaning up messes the Repubs make.

[ECH1969]

21. He won't do anything