Bush, Presidential Candidates Fail To Address Budgetary Concerns, Opinion Piece States

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 14 Feb 2008 - 11:00 PDT

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The $3.1 trillion fiscal year 2009 budget that President Bush released last week continues the "reigning philosophy" among politicians -- "evade choices" on spending for health care and other programs, a practice used by both political parties and "largely approved by the public," Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson writes. According to Samuelson, Bush "says his policies would produce a balanced budget by 2012, but his underlying assumptions" -- such as the expectation of "big savings in Medicare by freezing reimbursements" to physicians and hospitals, a "policy Congress won't adopt" -- are "laughably artificial."

In addition, based on "campaign policies, none of the major presidential candidates would do much better," with Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) "alike in not addressing the central budget issue: baby boomers' retirement costs," Samuelson writes. Obama and Clinton each have "a long list of new spending increases and tax cuts," and both have announced "health insurance proposals intended to cover the 47 million uninsured," according to Samuelson.

Most U.S. residents "don't seem bothered" by budgetary concerns, Samuelson writes, adding, "That's why both parties devote so little effort to addressing government spending or the deficits." He concludes, "That we are not debating the possible consequences is a cop-out -- but it is a cop-out in which the public is conspicuously complicit" (Samuelson, Washington Post, 2/13).

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