WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Congressional Democrats responded harshly to U.S. President George W. Bush's proposed Fiscal Year 2006 budget, which the White House released Monday.
Sen. Carl Levin. D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized the spending document for its failure to deal honestly with the cost of current U.S. international commitments.
The Bush budget, Levin said, "hides the true size of the deficit because it does not include the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Saying the budget "reflects the wrong priorities for America," Levin said the proposed budget would, if enacted by the Republican congressional majority, "deepen the deficit ditch by making tax cuts, which go largely to the wealthiest Americans, permanent," and would make the fiscal morass even worse by adding personal retirement accounts to Social Security.
"At the same time," Levin argued, the budget plan "proposes cuts in many programs that affect America's families and communities, like education, environmental protection, funding for highways and sewers, small business loans, and programs important for manufacturing states like Michigan like the Advanced Technology Partnership Program and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program."
