The House and Senate are all puffed up with their final budget and its $42 billion in cuts. But that still leaves a $272 billion deficit. Is their red pen is out of ink? Mine isn't.
After months wrangling with the budget in committees and in back rooms and on the floor of the House and Senate, your representatives in Washington gloriously managed to cut all the fat they felt they could for a grand total of about $42 billion as a special Christmas present last week, presented in the form of the Budget Reconciliation Act, which will theoretically put the Fiscal Year 2006 Budget in its final form to be voted on in January.…
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26 - Dave Nalle
Once we're out of Iraq you can't imagine what I'd like to see done to the military budget. We need to shut down all of our overseas bases, send the majority of all branches of the military home and cut the permanent force to an administrative/planning/maintenance level. IMO we could get the DoD budget under $150 billion and provide all the services we really need. The rest of the responsibilities ought to be in the hands of the state national guards.
Dave
27 - Dave Nalle
Which data can't you find, Bliff? If you're talking about the 'off budget' spending, that's the $93 billion special appropriation which is included in the details for the 2005 budget, and which is no longer 'off budget' since it's been added in for purposes of calculating the 2006 budget where there are no 'off budget' appropriations.
Dave