The Threat To Our Liberty That Is Presented By An Unbalanced Budget

This commentary is based on an Wall Street Journal article with the tile “Bush Would Boost Defense, Security In Budget Plan” By Deborah Solomon and John D. McKinnon

WASHINGTON -- President Bush submitted a federal budget that proposes to boost spending on defense, homeland security and scientific research, includes no significant restraint on Social Security and contains only modest curbs on Medicare.

In exchange, Mr. Bush would bring the budget knife down on domestic programs other than homeland security, the same small slice of the federal budget that Congress pared this year. The cuts would help Mr. Bush show a shrinking deficit for fiscal 2007, which begins Oct. 1, even though spending would rise 2.3%, or $62 billion, from the current fiscal year. The budget, released yesterday, doesn't propose any new taxes.

The budget is an important issue and determines what the United States can afford to do in order to ensure the rights of its citizens. At this time we exceed the amount we can afford and put ourselves in hock to countries like China, Japan, and Mexico. I do not insist on any particular budget plan except for insisting that abortion and other self destructive behavior is not supported. I do support reducing the budget below the amount we spend as a balanced budges is the same as overspending. We can loan any extra money to other countries or to businesses that are good investments.

Spending on Social Security would climb 5.6% to $581 billion next year -- all of it needed to pay benefits already provided by current law. Spending on the Medicare and Medicaid health-insurance programs for the elderly, disabled and poor would climb 10.4% to $592 billion. Mr. Bush proposes changes to the two programs, but they would save only $3.2 billion next year, and $40.8 billion over five years -- about 1.2% of the programs' projected five-year spending.

Most of the increase in spending here is because of the decrease in the number of young adults due to those killed by legal abortion and those killed or stopped from being conceived because of birth control products.

Spending for homeland security combines the government's priorities of fighting terrorism with the new political realities of 2006. The budget requests big increases for border control, in response to the increasingly contentious debate within Mr. Bush's own party over immigration, and a boost in spending on disaster response, following the federal government's poor initial response to Hurricane Katrina.

I believe that the government insuring every home and business that is struck by disaster is insanity. This is especially true when insurance companies will not insure them. People that build their house on sand should not be surprised if the house sinks below the ground and the rest of us should not be held accountable for their foolishness. I also hope that the spending on terrorism and border control can become more realistic.

Mr. Bush also proposes to pump up the budget for the National Science Foundation, the federal agency that provides grants for basic research in colleges and universities. The budget for the foundation would increase 7.9% in fiscal 2007, the first step in a planned doubling of its investments in science and engineering in the next decade. The expansion is part of his "American Competitiveness Initiative," aimed at keeping the U.S. in the lead in technology even as global rivals emerge in Asia and elsewhere.

I doubt that throwing money at the problem of the people of the United States not being completive will resolve the issue since the whole ideal of socialism that we embrace is to reduce competitiveness. That ideal is that competitiveness is evil.

The evidence seems to indicate that selling a sound budget to the people may be impossible. Nerveless I believe that politicians should make an effort to do so. I do not expect them to as they seem to feel a need to bribe their constituents .