I had to go to the BBC website this morning to get some numbers on Bush’s proposed budget. There were no details (at least not on the first page, anyway) on CNN.com or Salon.com. What gives? I’ve spent the last hour trying to find a good breakdown of what’s being cut but haven’t come across anything. When I heard the story on NPR last night, I was shocked and disgusted. Maybe everyone is so outraged by changes to Social Security this just rolls off their backs?

The total budget is an impossible to get your brain around 2.57 trillion. Even I was a little shocked at the sheer boldness of raising military spending by 4.8% but decreasing funding for the Department of Agriculture, the EPA (that should make Bush’s supporters very happy indeed….I can just hear them licking their lips and shouting “More Mercury for everyone!”) and 150 domestic programs. This can’t be right…total military spending is 419.3 billion? No freaking way. Who benefits the most? Not you, my friend, but Boeing, GM and United Defense. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/newspid=10000006&sid=abkaBsGoLbKg&refer=home

Not included in this figure our two of the largest expenses for the US: the cost of overhauling social security and Iraq/Afganistan. One good thing: foreign aid will increase by 10% (Still that’s only 3 billion…of course, not if any of that involves providing women in other countries with the option of abortion…including those countries where women are raped as a tool of war).

Here are some estimates of the US budget deficit. Try not to weep.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4243807.stm#graph