Independent Analysis of the President’s Budget

This Web site provides an independent analysis of the budget from a variety of organizations that have expertise in specific areas. We will continue to update the site as new analysis is released. See below for a list of organizations.

The president’s 2005 budget confirms the worst fears – this administration simply cannot be trusted to manage the nation’s budget in a fiscally responsible way that works to the benefit of all Americans. When the Bush administration took office in 2001, it inherited $5.5 trillion in projected budget surpluses over the decade. Within three years, the surplus has become a record – one half trillion dollar budget deficit for 2005 alone, with accumulated deficits estimated to top $5 trillion over the next 10 years.

• The Bush tax cuts – not spending – are the primary culprits in our fiscal decline. (See chart)
• The budget forecast only extends out for 5 years, masking the true cost of making the tax cut permanent after 2010.
• The deficit does not include the estimated $50 billion cost for on-going operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Overall funding for discretionary programs increased from 6.8% of GDP in 2001, before September 11 reshaped our priorities, to 8.1% of GDP in 2004. This is almost entirely attributable to increases in our defense, international, and homeland security budgets, which rose from 3.4% of GDP in 2001 to 4.7% in 2004. Outside these areas, non-security domestic discretionary spending has been essentially flat, with funding barely increasing from 3.3% of GDP in 2001 to 3.4% in 2004.
• In fact, many programs like education, healthcare, veterans benefits, family oriented policing, and housing assistance for the poor are either being cut or underfunded for next year as well as the next five years.
• The budget shifts domestic program costs to state governments, through a combination of budgets cuts and revenue changes, adversely affecting states at a time when they are facing difficult fiscal constraints.
• The Administration’s new budget rules impose discipline on benefits for middle- and lower-income families but not on tax cuts, including tax breaks for corporations and the well-off.
• Despite an overall increase in international funding, the President’s budget still shortchanges critical programs to promote basic education, family planning, maternal and child health, and safeguarding the environment. In a post-911 world, the President’s budget focuses only on the immediate and most visible crises, while failing utterly to address future instability and insecurity.