Cornyn Weighs in on Bush's Budget Proposal

Cornyn issued a statement regarding the release of Bush's fiscal year 2009 budget proposal that said.....very little. But read this statement.

“Now that the President has proposed his annual budget blueprint, the hard work begins in Congress to make sure we fund our priorities while holding the line on spending. The American people are increasingly tired of runaway government spending.

Tired? No argument there.

Now read this statement.

“Like every hard-working American family, the federal government has to live within a budget as well. As a member of the Budget Committee, I’ll do all I can to ensure Congress sets the necessary funding levels for critical areas such as national defense and border security. These are non-negotiable items that we cannot compromise on. “

Do you see the contradiction here? The only programs in the budget that aren't getting frozen (technically a cut, since there is no adjustment for inflation) or being reduced from last year are defense and homeland security. But Cornyn tells us that funding for those programs is non-negotiable.

President Bush unveiled a $3.1 trillion budget on Monday that supports sizable increases in military spending to fight the war on terrorism and protects his signature tax cuts.

The spending proposal, which shows the government spending $3 trillion in a 12-month period for the first time in history, squeezes most of government outside of national security, and also seeks $196 billion in savings over the next five years in the government's giant health care programs -- Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor.

Even with those savings, Bush projects that the deficits, which had been declining, will soar to near-record levels, hitting $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009. The all-time high deficit in dollar terms was $413 billion in 2004.

Yes, we are tired of runaway government spending. Tired of an endless war that drains our coffers and burdens future generations with unprecedented debt. Tired of worrying about a future without the social safety nets that we earned through a lifetime of hard work. And most of all, we're tired of politicians who think we can't see through the hypocrisy of their self-serving spin to know when we're being played.