Bush Passing the Buck

Mandate Monitor
Vol. 2, Issue 1: March 8, 2005
Revised March 10, 20051
An Information Service of the NCSL Budgets and Revenue Committee

States overstate their Case that the President and Congress keep increasing unfunded liabilities for States, and that the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA) does not reflect their real Costs. This does not alter the fact that Bush's Tax Cuts coupled with Budget-cutting is both inane and Pie-in-the-Sky. It stands as inane because complete elimination of discretionary Spending would not balance the Budget, if Entitlements and Military/Security expenditures are left untouched under the current Bush Tax Code. It consists of Pie-in-the-Sky fantasy due to the fact Congress is elected on the promise of discretionary Spending for their districts, and doesn't hold a Prayer of even being marginally reduced.

Review of the Mandate Monitor establishes clearly Bush Budgets based upon his Tax Cuts rely on forcing States to raise their Tax rates to generate more Tax revenue. Bush gets the accolades for Tax Cuts, while the States receive the acrimony for increasing Taxes. This coincident with Bush Budgets actually always generating increasing Deficits, as he claims Congress will not pass his Initiatives to cut the Deficit.

The CBO states Iraq invasion and occupation has already cost $272 billion, when the Bush administration fired one of their own team for suggesting it might cost $100 billion; this at a time when responsible Economists and Military Affairs Specialists were predicting the Cost would be around $100 billion per Year of incursion.

Wild-eyed Visionaries at Defense have already spent something over $70 billion on the Future Combat Force Concept, and want to spend $1.4 trillion over the next Ten years. Almost all responsible Military Affairs analysts believe the Future Combat Force will never become reality within anything less than three times the Time frame, and with only a probable One-Third of the weaponry envisioned, for twice the Pricetag stated. The Bush refusal to discuss Military expenditures means the unwise Appropriations are destined to continue.

No one in the Administration talks about the vaunted Proscription Drug law now, as the time of implementation approaches. This lack comes from Projections that Costs entailed will grow more rapidly than Bush Deficits in real percentage terms. Bush and Congress plan to push another $70 billion of unfunded entitlements off on the States, after having already passed almost $30 billion off on the States. Bush wants Social Security Private Accounts, which will cost a bare bones minimum of $1 trillion by 2015--though good Economists have suggested the Cost might equal $7 trillion by 2020.

The Author will not call the President an Idiot and opprotunist demagogue, as that would be a criminal act under the Patriot Law; he will simply state that George W. Bush could not balance his own Checkbook, based upon the Accounting expertise exhibited in Budget proposals. lgl