Why the big spending will have to stop after lavish inauguration party

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Foreign Editor's Briefing

December 16, 2004

Why the big spending will have to stop after lavish inauguration party
By Bronwen Maddox



THE White House may think that it is a good idea to “promote” its latest economic ideas in the two-day conference which ends today. Good luck.

It is more likely to advertise the deficiency of those ideas — and the many points on which they will provoke furious opposition.

President Bush picked an easy course for himself through the economic decisions of his first term. The tax cuts, the centrepiece, will have given away nearly $1.9 trillion (£978 billion) over ten years — $300 billion more in tax relief than the plan he first envisaged in 2001.

When in doubt, he gave yet more away, to farmers above all, in the flagrantly protectionist package of subsidies worth $190 billion over a decade. For all the rhetoric of small government, he cut almost nothing.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1404827,00.html