Senate Panel Expected to OK 2008 Budget

I saw the spin in the Washington Post about this budget so I wanted to find a business source for you all...

From Forbes:

A Senate panel is poised to approve a budget blueprint awarding near-term spending boosts for Democratic favorites such as education and veterans programs, while putting off difficult decisions on taxes, Social Security and Medicare.

Debate Thursday in the Senate Budget Committee promised to end in party-line endorsement of a $2.9 trillion plan drafted by committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. Debate in the full Senate begins next week.

The budget plan is nonbinding but lays out Democratic preferences on tax and spending policies. Its most immediate impact would be to award increases to domestic programs while making it difficult for lawmakers to finance tax cuts or increased spending on federal benefit programs like Medicare with budget deficit dollars.

While claiming to produce a $132 billion surplus in five years, Conrad's budget actually would increase the deficit from $212 billion in the ongoing 2007 budget year to $249 billion in 2008.

What is amazing to me is this is from the AP, no conservative source.

Conrad's $2.9 trillion budget plan came under immediate attack from Republicans for assuming Bush's tax cuts expire in 2010 as under current law - unless lawmakers come up with more than $400 billion in additional revenues.

And it assumes lawmakers will pass big revenue increases to finance changes to the alternative minimum tax that promise to be almost equally as expensive.

The pending expiration of Bush's cuts to income tax rates, penalties on married couples, inheritances and investments is a product of an obscure Senate rule governing debate on Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

The tax cuts have caused all time record tax revenues coming into the tax coffers, lowered my taxes significantly and caused an incredibly strong economy with a record low unemployment rate. So of course, the Democrats want to let them go away.

The whole article needs reading so I suggest you shoot over there and read it in it's entirety.

I don't even want to hear anyone start talking about the tax cuts being for the rich. Unlike the Democrats these cuts raised the bottom end cut off for those who pay taxes who are "poor". It got rid of the tax penalty for being married in the tax tables and it raised the standard deduction for married couples to 16, 900.00 over it's span, including this year. It is currently 8450.00 for singles and I only file a short form. Yup, it is past time to get rid of those horrible, evil Republican tax cuts for the rich! Who knew I was so rich?