Bush Budget, By the Numbers

Times the phrase “spending restraint” was repeated by Scott McClellan at yesterday’s briefing on the budget: 13

Percent of overall spending, including homeland security, national defense and entitlements, not covered by budget: 81

Number of domestic programs to be “eliminated or dramatically reduced” in Bush budget: 150

Percent of overall spending these cuts represent: less than 1

Projected 2005 deficit, minus war costs: $368 billion

Projected 2006 deficit, minus war costs: $390 billion

Surplus Bush inherited in 2001, when he took office: $236 billion

That surplus, projected over ten years: $5.6 trillion

Major costs left off the Bush budget: President’s proposal to change Social Security ($2 trillion), war costs for Iraq and Afghanistan (over $100 billion), changes to Alternative Minimum Tax.

What Bush said about his first budget, in 2001: “After paying the bills, my plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we’re going to run out of debt to retire. That would be a good worry to have.”

What he says about this one: “It’s a budget that is a lean budget. People on both sides of the aisle have called upon the administration to submit a budget that helps meet our obligations of — our goal of reducing the deficit in half over a five-year period, and this budget does just that.”