Bush’s Budget and the Bottom Line

Re “Bush’s Deficit Plan Is All in the Math,” Feb. 7: This just goes to show that the president is simply a liar. He lied about Iraq and about his differing initiatives (No Child Left Behind, Clear Skies, etc.), and he is lying about Social Security and a plan to reduce the deficit.

Bernard Kane

Torrance

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Re “Bush to Propose Billions in Cuts,” Feb. 6: It’s interesting that Bush, who inherited a surplus upon entering office and turned it into a humongous deficit, now wants to straighten out the budget mess that he and Congress created. And as usual, when government does talk about cutting the deficit, it’s usually the people with lower income who take the brunt of the cuts. As your article says: “The lower-income Americans who benefit from food stamps and Medicaid do not typically provide the Republican Party with many votes or campaign contributions.”

When I hear citizens praising Bush after he turned our budget surplus into a massive deficit, it reminds me of Ronald Reagan and his immense popularity. Although Reagan turned this country from the world’s largest creditor nation to the world’s largest debtor nation, most people didn’t seem to care, as polls showed that his policies were supported. Sadly, after 20 years, things haven’t changed.

Thomas Cresswell

Lakewood

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The Feb. 3 story, “Domestic, Foreign Agenda Run Counter to Fiscal Goals,” stated that President Bush “portrayed himself as a champion of ‘spending discipline.’ ” I have seen many a whopper by the president, but this one has to be the biggest of the lot. He has turned Bill Clinton’s surplus into the biggest deficit in our history. He plans to make permanent the tax cuts to his rich friends, which have caused most of the deficit.

Another series of Bush whoppers has drawn us into the quagmire in Iraq, which is another major cause of the growing deficit. Now he wants to borrow trillions of dollars to hand over a large portion of our Social Security funds to his cronies on Wall Street. His credibility gap has grown to the width of the Grand Canyon. How can anyone trust a man with a record like this?

Robert W. Holden

San Diego