Holy Shit: Bush Unveils $2.4 Trillion Budget!

[Wes]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Feb2.html

Here's my favorite part:

Bush would boost military spending by 7 percent in 2005, but that does not include the money needed to keep troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Officials said a supplemental request for these funds will be sent to Congress but not until after the November elections.

[Ash]

how many zeros is that?

*faints*

[Hey Bubu]

Originally posted by Ash
how many zeros is that?

*faints*

Way more than you and I will ever see on our Bank accounts.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Bush wanting to take funding away from local (US) incentive money to go to the war?

Money that was suppossed to go to Education and the arts....

[bfp]

Money that was suppossed to go to Education and the arts....

Um, no. Unfortunantly he has the arts covered as well. He just sent a ton of money to a national arts program a couple weeks ago. I do not recall which arts program it was though.

I do recall that the Bush Administration said last week it was only 3-4% and they will put a spending freeze at 1%.

People say that its the 'biggest deficit' in history. This is also an expanding economy. In percentage terms it really doesn't compare to past deficits.

[Hey Bubu]

Originally posted by bfp
Um, no. Unfortunantly he has the arts covered as well.

I'm confused about your reply. Do you mean, unfortunately that he is not taking money away from arts funding?

Or fortunately that he has covered arts funding?

Originally posted by TypeH
Way more than you and I will ever see on our Bank accounts.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Bush wanting to take funding away from local (US) incentive money to go to the war?

Money that was suppossed to go to Education and the arts....

Indeed - why should we spend money on our military when we can fund artists?


Also - there has been a direct and inverse relationship in the quality of educational results and increased spending at our schools. The money isn't the issue - not sure what is - but we've been throwing money hand over fist at most schools only to watch the results continue to plummet.


Also, the increase in military spending takes into account repairing the damage done to it during the Clinton adminstration


However - - The spending habits of our President cannot be taken too seriously - he spends too goddamn much of our money!

[Hey Bubu]

I wish I had exact figures, but teachers and other civil workers don't get paid shit and they do a hell of a job.

I'm not saying that no money should be sent to support our armed forces. Shit we have already committed to this "war" and we have lost plenty of our people out there. Last count was 522 dead. If more money means getting them back home quick, safe and sound then by all means pour in the money.

My argument was on a more idealistic level. Money spent on education and the arts would indefinitely create a much better environment for the younger kids of this country. However as we have seen before, this money is not spent wisely and the distribution of it is FUBARED.

Who was it that said that a sure fire way to see how far a civilazation has advance was to look at the quality of their crafts/arts?

[Adam D]

Originally posted by xiannaix
Also - there has been a direct and inverse relationship in the quality of educational results and increased spending at our schools. The money isn't the issue - not sure what is - but we've been throwing money hand over fist at most schools only to watch the results continue to plummet.

You have to look at the flow of money for an answer to that.

Most, if not all federal education money is sent as block grants, which means there's no promise of what part of that will be spent on education. There's always a need to look at studies to tell if they are simply refering to budgeted money or dollars actually spent on education.

As spending goes up for education, administrative costs go up. We're spending pointless amounts of money on administering education rather than actually educating. A lot of this is the fault of a century of educational policy centralization in the federal government. Education has been taken away from educators and placed in the hands of "experts".

Then look at the distribution of dollars spent in each school district. What you find is that education in higher income areas is very successful. They have more property tax so there's more school revenue. Poorer areas, especially poorer urban areas, have less access to the money, and that's where education is really failing. Standardized tests, if not grades, seem to indicate this with little question. Plano doesn't have an education problem, but south Dallas does.

Then when you get down to the schools, you look at the athletics budget in a lot of schools. They're a very significant part of the budget, especially in places like Texas where football stats determine the quality of your school. Very little of that money has any real educational value. That's a problem when you have schools that can't afford new textbooks but seems to afford new pads for the football team every year.

Then, aside from the money issue, there's the ever increasing stress on these standardized tests which takes time away from learning academic material to focus on test-taking skills. It's a complete waste of time.

Originally posted by TypeH
I wish I had exact figures, but teachers and other civil workers don't get paid shit and they do a hell of a job.

I'm not saying that no money should be sent to support our armed forces. Shit we have already committed to this "war" and we have lost plenty of our people out there. Last count was 522 dead. If more money means getting them back home quick, safe and sound then by all means pour in the money.

My argument was on a more idealistic level. Money spent on education and the arts would indefinitely create a much better environment for the younger kids of this country. However as we have seen before, this money is not spent wisely and the distribution of it is FUBARED.

Who was it that said that a sure fire way to see how far a civilazation has advance was to look at the quality of their crafts/arts?

I agree that teachers aren't paid well - that's just one of the problems.

The problem with money for the arts is the intrusion of subjective evaluation - one man's art is another jar of urine.

on your last comment - no idea - but a friend of mine said you could determine how committed to the arts a city was by how well its opera company was funded

[thefncrow]

The best part is, that deficit number of $364 billion dollars assumes an increase in tax reciepts of 13.2%. Should the increase be only 6%, then we're back at talking about a 500 billion dollar deficit BEFORE we toss Iraq and Afghanistan in. This deficit could be 600 billion dollars before this is all said and done.