MSNBC: "Bush unveils election-year spending plan"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

"Bush unveils election-year spending plan
War on terrorism, domestic security, tax cuts are paramount"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4098618/

"For the current budget year, Bush projects the deficit will reach $521 billion, a record in dollar terms. It is a figure he proposes to cut to $237 billion in 2009."

and

"He’s promising a trillion-dollar tax cut and a trip to Mars. And he has a half-trillion-dollar deficit. Where do these Washington people think this money comes from?" former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said Sunday on NBC’s "Meet the Press."

and

"An election-year budget doesn't’t have to be enacted. It just has to be proposed so the president can talk about it all year long," said Stanley Collender, managing director for Fleishman-Hillard’s "Federal Budget Report."

[Qanisqineq]

1. Explain something for me...

IF * got re-elected, wouldn't he be out of office in January of 2009? :shrug:

[RC]

2. Me thinks that bu$h&co has a reality disconnect.

How can anyone allow the neo-cons to get away with proposing this?

[NWHarkness]

3. Yes, but...

The budget for 2009 would be written in 2008.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

4. It's those "permanent tax cuts"...

They will be the gift that keeps on giving, and the solution to everything.

If Bush, God forbid, got re-elected, he would have to be found guilty of an impeachable offense or something similar...otherwise it's four more years of kickbacks and naps on the Crawford couch. So he just has to bluff his way to November, but with increasing numbers of his so-called "base" dropping daily, it's going to have to be a mighty big "Wag The Dog" bluff.

Please note the "found guilty" above. I realize that many feel there are enough offenses on the table right now to put him in chains for life. The only thing that matters is the conviction, not the public outcry. We have no way of knowing what the future will bring, but as of February 1st 2004, Bush is still "The Teflon Don."

He's making a lot of promises that he knows he can't deliver (or guarantee) because, by their very nature, they are impossible to measure in the short term. And there really is only ONE issue in this year's election: "Do you trust this man?"

Like the blanket amnesty program that really isn't a blanket amnesty program designed to lock in the Hispanic vote. It doesn't have to be a working, "successful" program by November...the carrot just has to be dangled at the right angle.

:toast:

[SadEagle]

5. The budget for 2009 is passed in 2008, no?

I could be wrong, but it seems to me it's usually done in the fall or so.