You read right. Bush wants to cut programs which help Americans ("entitlements" - as in Americans are indeed entitled to these benefits, rather than the sneering use of the word by GOPers), and spend more on tax cuts and spying on Americans.

We're guessing even Bush didn't hear his own state of the union address where he talked a great game about deficit reduction. Sounds like another statement made that night that we shouldn't take literally.

At least street crackheads just steal radar detectors out of cars - not $2,770,000,000,000 out of the next three generations' pockets. Insane.

Bush's $2.77 Trillion Budget Plan Calls for Medicare Cuts

President Bush submitted a $2.77 trillion budget plan to Congress today that calls for cutting Medicare and putting tight limits on most spending not related to national security.

Mr. Bush also repeated his call for Congress to make tax cuts passed in 2001 permanent. They are scheduled to expire in 2010.

The plan calls for eliminating or making deep cuts in 141 programs for a savings of almost $15 billion, but would provide more money for defense, homeland security, preparations for a possible outbreak of bird flu and promotion of the physical sciences.

The plan calls for $65 billion in reductions in projected entitlement spending over the next five years. In what may become the most contentious proposal, the growth of Medicare spending would be cut by $36 billion over the next five years.

The proposal covers the 2007 fiscal year, which will begin on Oct. 1. The total of $2.77 trillion in spending called for would be up by 2.3 percent from projected spending of $2.71 trillion this year.

The plan did not cover the cost of military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan or the cost of emergency aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The Bush administration said last week that it would submit requests for supplemental spending for $120 billion for the two wars and $18 billion more for the hurricane's aftermath.

In part because of those costs, the budget office said that the deficit for the current fiscal year would be $423 billion, a record high, up from its midyear estimate of $341 billion. The new budget projects the deficit to fall to $354 billion in the 2007 fiscal year, and to $183 billion in 2010.