Dems turn to Bush-style budget tricks

[rodeodance]

Source: AP



Dems turn to Bush-style budget tricks

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer 53 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Democrats are using the same tricks as
President Bush in their rival plan to balance the federal budget by 2012: ignoring long-term costs of the war in Iraq and the need to fix a tax law that threatens unsuspecting middle-class families.


Bush used phantom savings to claim he can balance the budget while extending his tax cuts into the future. Democrats would use that money to increase spending on education, health research and other domestic programs while claiming to be budget balancers.

"They say they balance, but they do it by leaving out things," Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (news, bio, voting record) said on PBS' "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" when Bush's budget came out Feb. 5. "They leave out fixing the alternative minimum tax. They leave out realistic war cost."

Bush's one-year stopgap fix to the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, "will be felt by people as a huge tax increase" later on, Conrad, D-N.D., said later.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070321/ap_on_go_co/democrats_budget_3;_ylt=Aj8bzwO3q7ZNpKbDkEVtn3aOe8UF

[Mojorabbit]

1. I am afraid of our national debt

I really am. I don't know how it will be fixed without a lot of pain.

[Javaman]

5. don't be afraid. Just read morons* retirement book...

"how I learned to love the debt or how I embraced the future poverty economy." It's all good, just take a happy pill and all will be good.

[w4rma]

2. The AMT should not be repealed. It should be raised, but not repealed. (nt)

[Miss Chybil]

3. No tricks, just reality!!!! Can't we have a little realism, please? nt

[Rose Siding]

4. Did they ever use the term "tricks" when reporting the bush budget?

-or is the perjorative language reserved for Democrats?