Left Flank

President Bush's budget is profligate in the most unrealistic way.

The president forecasts a $48 billion surplus by 2012, keeping a promise he made two years ago when strong revenue predictions made it look far easier. Now, he's relying on spending cuts — for everything from transportation to Medicare and Medicaid to nonprofit groups that help the poor — to do the job in order to keep his signature 2001 and 2003 tax cuts intact instead of expiring at the end of 2010.

"Our formula for achieving a balanced budget is simple: create the conditions for economic growth, keep taxes low and spend taxpayer dollars wisely or not at all," Bush said in his budget message.

Democrats said the forecast of a budget surplus in 2012 was based on flawed math that included only $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009 and no money after that. The budget plan also fails to include any provisions after this year for keeping the alternative minimum tax, originally aimed at the wealthy, from ensnaring millions of middle-class taxpayers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that fixing the AMT in 2012 would cost $118 billion, more than double the surplus Bush is projecting for that year.

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"There was an assumption that in the short term that the budget would start to correct and that we could balance in the short term," said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, top Republican on the Budget Committee. "But with the stimulus package and with the continuing war costs, that's not going to happen. In fact it's going to get very serious when you're hitting $400 billion deficits."

"We've been able to close the deficit gap with good economic growth, therefore good revenue growth. Those days are coming to an end, and we're going to have to do it the old fashioned way, through real spending discipline," said top House Budget Committee Republican Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Cato Institute also delivers another choice response quote about the "irresponsible federal budget":

President Bush pushed through a hugh expansion of unfunded commitments by way of Medicare Part D (prescription drug benefits for seniors), estimated to cost many trillions in today's dollars. Compared to those increases, the proposed entitlement savings are peanuts.

There's one year to go, but this is not the time just to let President Bush have his budget.