The following is a "fleshed-out" press release compiled from Reuters, AP, NYT, .gov websites, and my personal experience. It concerns Obama's proposed FY 2012 budget.
---------------------------
It puts a five-year spending freeze on non-security discretionary spending, which the White House says would save $400 billion over 10 years and "bring government spending to its lowest level since President Dwight Eisenhower was in power in the 1950s and early 1960s". [ed note: July 1, 1952 US population was 157,552,740; July 1, 2010 US population was 309,050,816; this means the US population is greater by a factor of 1.962 today than at the start of the Ike & Dick Show. The current rate of change of the US population is ca. +1%/yr]
The freeze would cover the agencies and programs for which Congress allocates specific budgets each year, including air traffic control, farm subsidies, education, nutrition and national parks. [ed note: and Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, a small, but high impact R&D program in which I was involved. The program funds research into terrifying, fatal, incurable, fairly common diseases]
It proposes spending $671 billion on the U.S. military next year, including $118 billion for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Total spending on national defense in the proposed budget would be $702 billion, a figure that includes spending on nuclear weapons and health care and retirement, down from $721.3 billion in fiscal 2010.
It cuts Community Development Block Grants by $300 million; $2.5 billion from a program, known as LIHEAP, that provides heating assistance to poor people; more than $1 billion in grants to large airports; $950 million for U.S. states' "revolving funds" for water treatment and other infrastructure.
The payoff in budget savings would be small relative to the deficit: The estimated $250 billion [ed note: from AP, $400 billion from Reuters, White House estimates 1.1 trillion] in savings over 10 years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits [ed note: from AP, White House estimates $7.2 trillion additional deficits] the government is expected to accumulate over that time [ed note: savings is 3-15.3% of additional accumulated deficit, depending upon the numerical data source].
The freeze would cover the agencies and programs for which Congress allocates specific budgets each year, including air traffic control, farm subsidies, education, nutrition and national parks. [ed note: and Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, a small, but high impact R&D program in which I was involved. The program funds research into terrifying, fatal, incurable, fairly common diseases]
It proposes spending $671 billion on the U.S. military next year, including $118 billion for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Total spending on national defense in the proposed budget would be $702 billion, a figure that includes spending on nuclear weapons and health care and retirement, down from $721.3 billion in fiscal 2010.
It cuts Community Development Block Grants by $300 million; $2.5 billion from a program, known as LIHEAP, that provides heating assistance to poor people; more than $1 billion in grants to large airports; $950 million for U.S. states' "revolving funds" for water treatment and other infrastructure.
The payoff in budget savings would be small relative to the deficit: The estimated $250 billion [ed note: from AP, $400 billion from Reuters, White House estimates 1.1 trillion] in savings over 10 years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits [ed note: from AP, White House estimates $7.2 trillion additional deficits] the government is expected to accumulate over that time [ed note: savings is 3-15.3% of additional accumulated deficit, depending upon the numerical data source].
------------------------
Get it?
Which side are you on...
-Florence Reese
-Florence Reese
No comments:
Post a Comment