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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Minnesota Reaction to Bush Budget

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Tuesday, February 6, 2007   

Minnesota non-profits are reacting to President Bush's proposed $3 trillion budget, which includes an increase in military spending. The proposal also contains a commitment to make the president's tax cuts permanent, while eliminating the federal deficit within five years.

Steve Francisco, with the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, says the plan will come with a heavy cost.

"The president's budget also proposes deep cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid programs that serve over 43 million Americans, many of them elderly and with disabilities."

In support of the additional $235 billion for military spending, the president says his highest priority is the security of the nation.

Francisco says another problem is a proposed $66 million cut in the "Food Stamp" program.

"About 260,000 Minnesotans, or five percent of the state's population, use food stamps each month to feed their families. We don't think the president should be cutting food stamps. We think he should be strengthening the federal commitment to abolishing hunger and malnutrition in Minnesota and across the country.

Francisco believes the priorities are wrong and the numbers don't add up.

"It's a fiscally irresponsible budget when you look at the president's proposal to make permanent his tax cuts. The Congressional Budget Office has said that if the tax cuts and other expiring tax provisions are all extended, the deficit would hit $146 billion in 2012, and the deficit would actually increase dramatically, as health care costs would go up and the baby boom generation retires."

President Bush says he expects government spending to increase five percent next year and that his plan will protect the homeland, fight terrorism, and help grow the economy.

More on the budget online at www.whitehouse.gov.


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