Bush Budget Tops $3 Trillion

President George W. Bush submitted a new budget Monday that contains more than $3 trillion in government spending over 12 months, is the largest in the history of the United States. The proposed budget, which covers fiscal year 2009, contains two controversial measures, substantial war funding and the continuation of the tax cuts implemented in 2001 and 2003.

The proposed budget has predictably come under intense fire from congressional Democrats complaining that Bush's fiscal policies eliminated the budget surplus that he inherited from President Clinton. Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, called the president's budget irresponsible and noted that President Bush was also in office when the federal budget broke the $2 trillion mark in 2002. Edwards criticized Bush's failure to include all the costs associated with the war in Iraq and for accounting methods that failed to take into account probable relief from the alternative minimum tax.

According to the White House, the president's plan balances the budget in 2012, if Bush's policies stay in effect with the next president. The White House's overview of the budget's provisions says that the president's plan for fiscal year 2009 focuses on national security and the promotion of economic growth while cutting unnecessary government spending.

An ongoing criticism of Bush's proposed annual budgets concerns accounting for the war in Iraq. Much of the funding for the Iraq war has come in the form of supplemental legislation, meaning that the true costs of the war are not reflected in the president's annual budget. Critics of the war often cite its costs to the national economy and accuse the Bush administration of mortgaging the country's future to pay for the ongoing conflict. In a new backgrounder released today for the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent Washington think tank, assistant editor Lee Hudson Teslik writes that collateral economic consequences resulting from Iraq war spending include increasing foreign debt, an unstable global oil market, and uncertainty in the realm of international relations.

One thing is certain: Bush's proposed fiscal year 2009 budget will provide plenty of ammunition for members of congress facing reelection this year, not to mention the host of candidates still in the hunt for the White House. Record federal spending that favors the defense sector at the expense of congressional pet projects and wasteful government programs will likely stoke conflict in an election that could see the Democratic party retain control of both houses of congress and win the presidency.

Sources: CATO, Budget Overview, CFR