President offers $3.1 trillion budget

By Martin Crutsinger\nThe Associated Press\nWASHINGTON – President Bush sent the nation’s first-ever $3 trillion budget proposal to Congress on Monday, contending that the spending blueprint will fulfill his chief responsibility to keep America safe.\nThe $3.1 trillion proposed budget projects sizable increases in national security but forces the rest of government to pinch pennies. It seeks $196 billion in savings over five years in the government’s giant health care programs –Medicare and Medicaid.\nBut even with those restraints, the budget projects the deficits will soar to near-record levels of $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009, driven higher in part by efforts to revive the sagging economy with a $145 billion stimulus package.\nBush called the document, which protects his signature tax cuts, “a good, solid budget.” But Democrats, and even a top Republican, attacked the plan for using budgetary gimmicks to claim the budget can return to balance in 2012, three years after Bush leaves office.\n“They’ve obviously played an inordinate number of games to try to make it look better,” Sen. Judd Gregg, the top Republican on the Budget Committee, said in an interview with The Associated Press.\n“Let’s face it. This budget is done with the understanding that nobody’s going to be taking a long, hard look at it,” said Gregg, R-N.H.\nDemocrats called Bush’s final spending plan a continuation of this administration’s failed policies which wiped out a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion and replaced it with a record buildup in debt.\n“Today’s budget bears all the hallmarks of the Bush legacy – it leads to more deficits, more debt, more tax cuts, more cutbacks in critical services,” said House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C.\nFor his last budget, Bush, as a money-saving measure, stopped the practice of providing 3,000 paper copies of the budget to members of Congress and the media, instead posting the entire document online at www.budget.gov. Democrats joked that Bush cut back on the printed copies because he ran out of red ink.\n“This budget is fiscally irresponsible and highly deceptive, hiding the costs of the war in Iraq while increasing the skyrocketing debt,’ said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.\n“The president proposes more of the same failed policies he has embraced throughout his time in office – more deficit-financed war spending, more deficit-financed tax cuts tilted to benefit the wealthiest and more borrowing from foreign nations like China and Japan,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.\nBush defended his record, saying it supported a strong defense and, if his policies are followed, will produce a budget surplus of $48 billion in 2012.\n“Two key principles guided the development of my budget – keeping America safe and ensuring our continued prosperity,” Bush said in his budget message to Congress.\nReviewing the budget with his Cabinet, Bush said it would keep the economy growing and protect the U.S. militarily. He called it “innovative” because it was dispatched to Congress electronically.\nBush’s final full budget is for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1. It proposes spending $3.1 trillion, up 6 percent from projected spending of $2.9 trillion in the current budget year.