Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he’s still wading through the thousands of details of the record three-point-one trillion dollar budget President Bush submitted to Congress on Monday. So far, Grassley says it appears the spending plan would cut or cut back dozens of wasteful programs to save billions of dollars.
Grassley says, "It shows that spending has gone up roughly 150-billion dollars a year in recent years but high levels of revenue growth have been able to sustain that and even bring the federal budget deficit down." Grassley, a Republican, says as the economy slows, so does the amount of revenue the government will take in — which is where the trouble begins. He acknowledges other Republicans are critical of Bush’s budget, as they say it will bring more deficits, more debt, more tax cuts and more cuts in vital services.
Grassley says Democrats will want to raise taxes to offset the losses due to the economic slowdown, but he says that’s not the way to go. "We don’t need tax increases. I’ve found in my years in Washington that you can’t raise taxes high enough to satisfy the appetite of Congress to spend money. Spending control is mandatory to reduce the deficit and long-term burdens on taxpayers," Grassley says.
Bush says the budget supports a big boost in military spending while saving taxpayers money, though a Republican on the Senate Budget Committee is quoted as saying the White House "played games" to make the budget look better.