Balkinization  

Tuesday, February 03, 2004

JB

Symbolic Savings, Gargantuan Giveaways

This Washington Post story on Bush's proposed budget confirms my suspicions about Bush's political strategy. To please his right wing he is proposing cuts in a whole host of social programs which will actually add up to a comparatively small amount (less than one percent of the predicted budget deficit of 521 billion dollars) while at the same time accelerating military spending (read here defense contracting) and lowering taxes yet again for the wealthy. It's pure symbolic politics that has nothing to do with fiscal discipline. By selectively picking out and gutting programs that his conservative base identifies with a liberal social agenda, President Bush he appears to stand for budgetary restraint and for making tough decisions about government expenditures when in reality he is running enormous deficits and lining the pockets of his wealthiest supporters.




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