Bush slashes aid to poor to boost Iraq war chest

**Ava Estelle** · 02-06-2007, 03:56 AM

Ah, Republican policy at it's best, don't ask the rich to fund the war, just take it off the poor and the elderly, they don't vote Republican!

Bush slashes aid to poor to boost Iraq war chest

· Bill for Iraq conflict will soon overtake Vietnam
· $78bn squeeze on medical care for elderly and poor

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Tuesday February 6, 2007
The Guardian

President George Bush is proposing to slash medical care for the poor and elderly to meet the soaring cost of the Iraq war.

Mr Bush's $2.9 trillion (£1.5 trillion) budget, sent to Congress yesterday, includes $100bn extra for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for this year, on top of $70bn already allocated by Congress and $141.7bn next year. He is planning an 11.3% increase for the Pentagon. Spending on the Iraq war is destined to top the total cost of the 13-year war in Vietnam.

The huge rise in military spending is paid for by a squeeze on domestic programmes, including $66bn in cuts over five years to Medicare, the healthcare scheme for the elderly, and $12bn from the Medicaid healthcare scheme for the poor.

Source

**ahctlucabbuS** · 02-06-2007, 06:14 PM

Amazing.

**ilw** · 02-06-2007, 07:02 PM

The budget calls on Congress for supplementary funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the current fiscal year, bringing the 2006-07 out-turn to $165bn ... Then, for 2007-08 - the last full fiscal year of the Bush presidency - the war is projected to consume a further $145bn. The total falls sharply to $50bn in 2008-09 and finally disappears to nothing at all thereafter ... A big push now, sustained throughout next year, and then all scaled down to nothing in the year Mr Bush's successor moves into the White House. It is precisely the same optimistic "one last heave" scenario that Mr Bush offered Americans last month and which sceptical senators from both parties were preparing to reject last night.

Either Mr B is confident he can sort everything in 1.5 years or he's teflon shouldering the finance problems onto his successor.

**Virgoias** · 02-06-2007, 07:23 PM

Can i have some of this 2.9 trillion.. just a smidgen! hehe

**SHUVT** · 02-06-2007, 07:55 PM

hmmm

**GepperRankins** · 02-06-2007, 10:11 PM

Originally Posted by ilw

The budget calls on Congress for supplementary funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the current fiscal year, bringing the 2006-07 out-turn to $165bn ... Then, for 2007-08 - the last full fiscal year of the Bush presidency - the war is projected to consume a further $145bn. The total falls sharply to $50bn in 2008-09 and finally disappears to nothing at all thereafter ... A big push now, sustained throughout next year, and then all scaled down to nothing in the year Mr Bush's successor moves into the White House. It is precisely the same optimistic "one last heave" scenario that Mr Bush offered Americans last month and which sceptical senators from both parties were preparing to reject last night.

Either Mr B is confident he can sort everything in 1.5 years or he's teflon shouldering the finance problems onto his successor.

after the experience of clinton pushing the war on terror onto the bush administration, i doubt bush would try to shift the blame