How Many Ways Can You Spend $1 Trillion?

By Mitch Frank

To hear George W. Bush tell it, this budget stuff es muy facil: after paying off $2 trillion of debt, $417 billion in interest and $1.6 trillion in tax breaks, he will still have $1 trillion in reserve over the next decade. Democrats say Bush has made enough expensive promises to spend that trillion almost three times over.

BUSH SAYS

The President plans to devote his contingency fund to as yet unbudgeted policy goals. He estimates $156 billion will go to reform Medicare. And though he won't give numbers while Don Rumsfeld conducts his review of the Pentagon, a large chunk will surely pay for modernizing the military and developing a national missile defense. Bush says there will be plenty left to cover natural disasters like earthquakes and economic disasters like the budget gaps that will open up if the surplus falls short of projections.

DEMOCRATS SAY

$500 billion of Bush's $1 trillion comes from the Medicare trust fund and should be off limits. Extra tax-cut costs, like making the plan retroactive, could hike its price past $2 trillion. Bush is vague on the cost of his big-ticket priorities. He has allotted $600 billion for private Social Security investment accounts, but Dems say the price could reach higher. And Pentagon officials suggest that Bush's plans to upgrade and modernize the military could cost roughly $600 billion. Missile defense? Another $50 billion to-$100 billion more. Yikes! You do the math. Did Dubya?

--By Mitch Frank