Bush seeks rein on entitlements

WASHINGTON – Boasting that the economy is strong and growing, President Bush urged Congress on Saturday to save tax cuts from expiring and adopt the first spending restraints in nearly a decade on such benefit programs as Medicaid, Medicare and student loans.

In his weekly radio address, Bush said the federal budget faces the challenge of long-term deficits driven by mandatory spending on those entitlement programs.

“We do not need to cut entitlements, but we do need to slow their growth,” he said.

Before leaving for the holidays, the Republican-controlled Senate passed legislation to cut federal deficits by $39.7 billion. The measure passed by the narrowest of margins, 51-50, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the deciding vote.

The legislation, the product of a year’s labors by the White House and congressional Republicans, imposes the first restraints in nearly a decade in benefit programs.

“Congress needs to finish its work on this important bill,” Bush said. “By passing the first reduction in the growth of entitlement spending in nearly a decade, Congress will send a clear signal that the people’s representatives can be good stewards of the people’s money.”

The bill would take on, for the first time since 1997, the growth of federal benefit programs such as Medicaid, Medicare for the elderly and student loan subsidies.

It is part of a campaign by Republican leaders to burnish their party’s budget-cutting credentials as they try to reduce a deficit swelled by spending on the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina and an earlier round of tax cuts.

Opponents said the bill will hurt the middle class.

The GOP is advancing “an ideologically driven, extreme, radical budget,” Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said after the bill passed. “It caters to lobbyists and an elite group of ultraconservative ideologues here in Washington, all at the expense of middle-class Americans.”

In his broadcast, Bush also called on Congress to make permanent all the tax cuts passed at his urging earlier in his administration. Most are due to expire before or at the end of 2010.

With GOP leaders having had little success making the cuts permanent, the House and Senate are debating bills to extend some through the end of the decade.

Democrats particularly oppose extending the lower rates for capital gains and dividends.

“Some people in Washington said these tax cuts would hurt the economy,” Bush said. “The day the House voted for tax relief in May 2003, one Democratic leader declared it a ‘reckless and irresponsible tax plan that will undermine opportunity in our country.’

“Since those words were spoken, our economy has added more than 4.6 million new jobs for the American people,” Bush said.